SAN DIEGO, Calif. When former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden met with Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone to discuss a movie on his life, he never thought he would be making his own film debut. Stone had initially interviewed Snowden to inc... More »
SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON Some of the web’s biggest destinations for watching videos have quietly started using automation to remove extremist content from their sites, according to two people familiar with the process. The move is a major step forward for inte... More »
WASHINGTON Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said on Monday that if elected, she would pressure U.S. technology companies to help intelligence agencies disrupt violent plots after a gunman inspired by radical Islamist groups killed 49... More »
BEIJING The United States is pleased to see progress has been made with China on information sharing about cyber threats, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday during the latest round of cyber security talks between the two countries. Cyber security has long ... More »
DHAKA/NEW YORK Hours before the Federal Reserve Bank of New York approved four fraudulent requests to send $81 million from a Bangladesh Bank account to cyber thieves, the Fed branch blocked those same requests because they lacked information required to trans... More »
A Washington state man was sentenced on Friday to eight years in prison for his role in helping the management of the successor website to Silk Road, an online black market where illegal drugs and other goods were sold. Brian Farrell, who prosecutors say was a... More »
WASHINGTON A U.S. congressional committee has launched an investigation into the Federal Reserve’s cyber security practices after a Reuters report revealed more than 50 cyber breaches at the U.S. central bank between 2011 and 2015. The House Committee on Scien... More »
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission have asked mobile phone carriers and manufacturers to explain how they release security updates amid mounting concerns over security vulnerabilities, the U.S. agencies said on Monday... More »
SWIFT on Monday rejected allegations by officials in Bangladesh that technicians with the global messaging system made the nation’s central bank more vulnerable to hacking before an $81 million cyber heist in February. The comments were in response to a Reuter... More »
DHAKA/BOSTON Bangladesh’s central bank became more vulnerable to hackers when technicians from SWIFT, the global financial network, connected a new bank transaction system to SWIFT messaging three months before a $81 million cyber heist, Bangladeshi police and... More »
The attackers who stole $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank probably hacked into software from the SWIFT financial platform that is at the heart of the global financial system, said security researchers at British defense contractor BAE Systems. SWIFT... More »
The lackluster market debut of SecureWorks Corp, the cyber unit of Dell Inc, failed to rally the battered technology U.S. IPO market on Friday, a reminder that Wall Street does not welcome cash-burning companies without profits. “I don’t think it encourages an... More »
DHAKA Bangladesh’s central bank was vulnerable to hackers because it did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches to network computers connected to the SWIFT global payment network, an investigator into one of the world’s biggest cyber heists sai... More »
The U.S. Justice Department on Friday said it would keep fighting to force Apple Inc to open an iPhone in a New York drug case, continuing its controversial effort to require Apple and other tech companies to help law enforcement authorities circumvent encrypt... More »
WASHINGTON Security researchers and civil liberties advocates on Friday condemned draft legislation leaked from the U.S. Senate that would let judges order technology companies to assist law enforcement agencies in breaking into encrypted data. The long-awaite... More »
SAN FRANCISCO The FBI’s method for breaking into a locked iPhone 5c is unlikely to stay secret for long, according to senior Apple Inc engineers and outside experts. Once it is exposed, Apple should be able to plug the encryption hole, comforting iPhone users ... More »
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has assured law enforcement across the United States that it will help unlock mobile devices such as iPhones involved in investigations when it is allowed by law and policy. The FBI said in a letter to local authorities that... More »
WASHINGTON Digital privacy advocates and users of Reddit expressed their alarm on Friday over a change in the forum’s transparency report that suggested it may have been asked to give customer data to FBI investigators under a secretive government authority. T... More »
U.S. hospitals should brace for a surge in “ransomware” attacks by cyber criminals who infect and shut down computer networks, then demand payment in return for unlocking them, a non-profit healthcare group warned on Friday. The Health Information Trust Allian... More »
Almost a week after being shut down for spewing racist and sexist comments on Twitter, Microsoft Corp’s artificial intelligence ‘chatbot’ called Tay briefly rejoined Twitter on Wednesday only to launch a spam attack on its followers. The incident marks another... More »
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday the attack in Brussels that killed more than 30 people is the “latest brutal reminder” that more must be done to defeat Islamic State militants, including by European Union member countries... More »
WASHINGTON The Obama administration is expected to blame Iranian hackers as soon as Thursday for a coordinated campaign of cyber attacks in 2012 and 2013 on several U.S. banks and a New York dam, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters. The Justice ... More »
LONDON Britain’s Supreme Court has rejected an attempt by Trinity Mirror to reduce the amount of compensation it must pay eight people who had their phones hacked by staff working for the newspaper group. Trinity, which publishes the Daily Mirror tabloid, had ... More »
SEOUL North Korea on Sunday denied that it conducted cyber attacks against officials from rival South Korea, calling the South’s accusation that it did so a “fabrication”. South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers on Friday that North Korea had recently stepped ... More »
Home Depot Inc (HD.N) agreed to pay at least $19.5 million to compensate U.S. consumers harmed by a 2014 data breach affecting more than 50 million cardholders. The home improvement retailer will set up a $13 million fund to reimburse shoppers for out-of-pocke... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Officials at the University of California Berkeley said on Friday that they were alerting 80,000 people, including current and former students, faculty and vendors of a cyber attack on a system that stores social security and bank account numbers... More »
SAN FRANCISCO/BOSTON The U.S. cyber security industry, once one of the hottest targets for venture capitalists, is now grappling with a funding slump that has forced some startups to sell themselves or cut spending. Amid widespread concerns about cyber attacks... More »
WASHINGTON Russian authorities in November raided offices associated with a Moscow film distribution and production company as part of a crackdown on one of the world’s most notorious financial hacking operations, according to three sources with knowledge of t... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. and UK spy agencies and police may soon be allowed to directly ask media companies in each others’ countries for email and online chat data for people being investigated, under a tentative bilateral deal, officials said on Friday. As government... More »
TEL AVIV Building on its expertise in technology, Israel is emerging as a leader in the race to keep cars secure and prevent the nightmare scenario of a hacker commandeering your vehicle. Most cars today are equipped with some level of connectivity and self-dr... More »
Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical entrepreneur facing U.S. charges of securities fraud, has said he had been the target of legal authorities for his much-criticized drug-price hikes and his over-the-top public persona, the Wall Street Journal reported. Shkrel... More »
Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical executive facing U.S. charges of securities fraud, lost control of his Twitter account to hackers on Sunday, hours after he took to Twitter to plead his innocence, his spokesman said. “It was hacked,” Craig Stevens, a spokesm... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders regained access to crucial voter files on Friday after taking the Democratic National Committee to court and accusing party leaders of trying to undermine his White House bid and help rival Hilla... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. intelligence agencies can now reach almost all domestic phone records, far more than they collected under a now-scrapped program by the National Security Agency, according to Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. That estimate of the amou... More »
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK President Barack Obama on Sunday called on Silicon Valley to help address the threat of militant groups using social media and electronic communications to plan and promote violence, setting up renewed debate over personal privacy online. “... More »
WASHINGTON The White House is urging Silicon Valley to help address the threat posed by militant groups by restricting the use of social media for planning and promoting violence, a senior administration official said on Sunday. Last week’s mass shooting in Ca... More »
BOSTON/SINGAPORE Parents who gave their child a Kidizoom smartwatch or a VTech InnoTab tablet may have exposed them to identity theft after Hong Kong-based VTech said hackers stole the personal information of more than 6 million children. The breach underscore... More »
HONG KONG The theft of toy maker VTech Holdings Ltd’s database highlights a growing problem with basic cyber security measures at small, non-financial companies that handle electronic customer data, industry watchers said on Monday. The hacked data at VTech in... More »
HONG KONG/SINGAPORE Almost a year after students ended pro-democracy street protests in Hong Kong, they face an online battle against what Western security experts say are China-sponsored hackers using techniques rarely seen elsewhere. Hackers have expanded th... More »
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO When U.S. prosecutors this week charged two Israelis and an American fugitive with raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in one of the largest and most complex cases of cyber fraud ever exposed, they also provided an unusual look int... More »
LONDON British police have made a third arrest in connection with a cyber attack this month on telecoms company TalkTalk (TALK.L) in which the company said bank details of more than 20,000 customers were hacked. A 20-year-old man from Staffordshire, central En... More »
LONDON Vodafone UK (VOD.L) said on Saturday hackers had accessed the accounts of 1,827 of its customers this week, the second cyber attack on a British telecoms company this month. The attackers had potentially gained access to the victims’ bank sort codes and... More »
BOSTON Some big U.S. retailers are stepping up efforts to use personal identification numbers, or PINs, with new credit cards embedded with computer chips in a bid to prevent counterfeit card fraud. But they are being resisted by the banking industry, which se... More »
LONDON British broadband provider TalkTalk said on Sunday it had hired defense company BAE Systems to investigate a cyber attack that may have led to the theft of personal data from its more than 4 million customers. TalkTalk said on Friday it had received a r... More »
LONDON British broadband provider TalkTalk said on Saturday it did not believe the authors of a cyber attack against it this week would be able to steal money from its customers. The firm said on Friday it had received a ransom demand from an unidentified part... More »
LONDON British business leaders on Saturday urged police to make cyber crime an urgent priority following an attack on broadband provider TalkTalk, saying firms face continual security breaches. TalkTalk said the private data of its more than 4 million custome... More »
Hackers associated with the Chinese government have tried to penetrate at least seven U.S. companies in the three weeks since Washington and Beijing agreed not to spy on each other for commercial reasons, according to a prominent U.S. security firm. CrowdStrik... More »
Russian hackers had infiltrated Dow Jones & Co to steal information to trade on before it was made public, and the breach was “far more serious than a lower-grade intrusion” disclosed by the company, Bloomberg reported, citing sources. The Federal Bureau of In... More »
BOSTON A rash of hacking attacks on U.S. companies over the past two years has prompted insurers to massively increase cyber premiums for some companies, leaving firms that are perceived to be a high risk scrambling for cover. On top of rate hikes, insurers ar... More »
President Barack Obama’s administration has backed away from seeking legislation that would give U.S. law enforcement agencies access to individuals’ encrypted messages, the White House said on Saturday. “We are actively engaged with private companies to ensur... More »
SYDNEY Australian businesses are turning their backs on bitcoin, as signs grow that the cryptocurrency’s mainstream appeal is fading. Concerns about bitcoin’s potential crime links mean many businesses have stopped accepting it, a trend accelerated by Australi... More »
Experian Plc (EXPN.L), the world’s biggest consumer credit monitoring firm, on Thursday disclosed a massive data breach that exposed sensitive personal data of some 15 million people who applied for service with T-Mobile US Inc (TMUS.N). Connecticut’s attorney... More »
BOSTON Apple Inc APPL.O said on Sunday it is cleaning up its iOS App Store to remove malicious iPhone and iPad programs identified in the first large-scale attack on the popular mobile software outlet. The company disclosed the effort after several cyber secur... More »
BOSTON Apple Inc APPL.O said on Sunday it is cleaning up its iOS App Store to remove malicious iPhone and iPad programs identified in the first large-scale attack on the popular mobile software outlet. The company disclosed the effort after several cyber secur... More »
WASHINGTON Senior U.S. and Chinese officials concluded four days of meetings on Saturday on cyber security and other issues, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington later this month, the White House said. Cyber security has been a divisive ... More »
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s (FCAU.N) U.S. arm said on Friday it would recall 7,810 sport utility vehicles in the United States to update software for radios to prevent hacking. The announcement by FCA US LLC, formerly Chrysler Group LLC, comes more than a m... More »
NEW YORK A Latvian man pleaded guilty on Friday to engaging in a scheme to transmit a computer virus that infected more than a million computers worldwide and caused tens of millions of dollars in losses. Deniss Calovskis, 30, pleaded guilty in federal court i... More »
Mozilla, creator of the Firefox web browser, said hackers had stolen security-sensitive information from Bugzilla, its bug tracker, and used it to “attack” Firefox users. The account that the hackers broke into was shut down shortly after the company discovere... More »
WASHINGTON The White House is considering applying sanctions against companies and individuals in China it believes have benefited from Chinese hacking of U.S. trade secrets, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. The newspaper, citing several unidentified Ob... More »
TORONTO The owner of adultery website Ashley Madison had already been struggling to sell itself or raise funds for at least three years before the publication of details about its members, according to internal documents and emails also released by hackers as ... More »
SAN FRANCISCO In 2009, Eugene Kaspersky, co-founder of one of the world’s top security companies, told some of his lieutenants that they should attack rival antivirus software maker AVG Technologies N.V. (AVG.N) by “rubbing them out in the outhouse,” one of se... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] has hired two top vehicle security researchers, the company said on Friday, high-profile additions that come as the ride-hailing service ramps up its work on technology for self-driving cars. Charlie Miller, who ha... More »
LONDON/BOSTON Investors are being poorly served by a haphazard approach from fund managers to the growing threat of cyber crime damaging the companies in which they invest, with a lack of clarity from the businesses themselves compounding the problem. Banks ha... More »
Infidelity website Ashley Madison and its parent company have been sued in federal court in California by a man who claims that the companies failed to adequately protect clients’ personal and financial information from theft, saying he suffered emotional dist... More »
SAN FRANCISCO The security researcher who hacked into a moving Jeep earlier this year has resigned as an engineer at Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) after three years on the job, a person familiar with the matter said. Charlie Miller, a former National Security Agency ha... More »
TORONTO At least two people may have committed suicide following the hacking of the Ashley Madison cheating website, Toronto police said on Monday, warning of a ripple effect that includes scams and extortion of clients desperate to stop the exposure of their ... More »
NEW YORK A group of mainly U.S.-based stock traders and computer hackers in Ukraine made as much as $100 million in illegal profits over five years by conspiring to use information stolen from thousands of corporate press statements before their public release... More »
NEW YORK A group of mainly U.S.-based stock traders and computer hackers in Ukraine made as much as $100 million in illegal profits over five years by conspiring to use information stolen from thousands of corporate press statements before their public release... More »
LAS VEGAS A team of security researchers has demonstrated the ability to hijack standard equipment inside computers, printers and millions of other devices in order to send information out of an office through sound waves. The attack program takes control of t... More »
WASHINGTON The cybersecurity issues that led Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV to recall 1.4 million vehicles this month could pose a problem for cars and trucks from other automakers, the top U.S. auto safety regulator said on Friday. Mark Rosekind, who heads the ... More »
TORONTO Cheating spouses website AshleyMadison.com, facing hackers’ threats to leak clients’ nude photos and sexual fantasies, said it is heartened by some initial public response that sees the site as a victim. The website’s Canadian parent, Avid Life Media, ... More »
WASHINGTON The federal government could find more cyber intrusions as it takes a close look at its sprawling and sometimes creaky systems in the wake of massive hacks, the nation’s chief information officer told Reuters. “I think it’s a realistic chance, and I... More »
WASHINGTON The chief of the U.S. federal hiring office resigned on Friday after massive computer hacks at the agency that put the personal data of more than 22 million Americans at risk, including people seeking sensitive security clearances. The White House s... More »
NEW YORK Which would you prefer: Naked pictures of yourself circulating on the Internet or a breach of your financial data? According to a new survey from Mastercard, 62 percent of Millennials would rather have their nude photos leaked online than have their f... More »
WASHINGTON The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said on Monday it would temporarily suspend a program it uses to complete background investigations, following a data breach that compromised the personal information of millions of Americans. The progra... More »
