Taiwan NSB Alerts Public on Data Risks from Douyin, Weibo, and RedNote Over China Ties

Taiwan's National Security Bureau NSB has warned that China-developed applications like RedNote aka Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Douyin, WeChat, and Baidu Cloud pose security risks due to excessive data collection and data transfer to China. The alert comes following an inspection of these apps carried ou...

Banning Surveillance-Based Advertising

The Norwegian Consumer Council just published a fantastic new report: "Time to Ban Surveillance-Based Advertising." From the Introduction: The challenges caused and entrenched by surveillance-based advertising include, but are not limited to: privacy and data protection infringements opaque...

Nextdoor neighborhood app sends letters on its users’ behalf

Dutch police departments and consumer organizations issued warnings about the use of the Nextdoor neighborhood app because people received letters yes, as in snail-mail pretending to come from someone in their neighborhood, which the alleged senders did not send or deliver. So, everyone figured...

22 Apple Distributors Arrested for Selling Customers’ Data in $7.4 Million

--- Image Source: South China Morning Post Chinese authorities have announced the arrest of around 22 distributors working as Apple distributors as part of a $7 million operation, who stole customers’ personal information from an internal Apple database and illegally sold it to Chinese black mark...

2016 Computer Security Predictions

Well, if you thought you had it rough in 2014 because of big, bad Poodles and an irritating case of Heartbleed, things only got worse this year. Rather than intrusions permeating our IT systems and stealing our data, attacks got a bit more personal in 2015. Not only were privacy and civil liberti...

Israeli Singer Jailed for Hacking Madonna Emails

An Israeli Singer and former contestant on a reality talent show has been jailed for hacking Madonna's online accounts and stealing songs from her unreleased music tracks. Adi Lederman, 39, who participated in Israel's version of American Idol called A Star Is Born, is set to spend his 14 months ...

Suit Filed Against NSA, Obama Over Surveillance Program

A group of people, including a former federal prosecutor and the parents of a Navy SEAL sniper killed in action, have filed a class-action law suit against the National Security Agency, Verizon and President Obama over the NSA’s collection of cell phone data. The suit says the order that enabled...

Security Experts, Internet Engineers Urge Lawmakers to Drop CISPA

A long list of security, networking and computer science experts have signed a letter sent to lawmakers on Monday, asking them to drop support for CISPA and other proposed cybersecurity bills because they consider the measures overly broad and say they would infringe on users’ privacy and civil...