A Senate Bill Would Radically Improve Voting Machine Security

This year’s Intelligence Authorization Act would mandate penetration testing for federally certified voting machines and allow independent researchers to work on exposing vulnerabilities...

The Senate Bill That Has Big Tech Scared

The proposal would stop the biggest platforms from giving themselves an advantage over the little guys. Who's afraid of a little competition?...

Mandatory IoT Security in the Offing with U.K. Proposal

The U.K. government has unveiled a proposed law aimed at securing internet of things IoT devices, which have historically been riddled with basic security issues. The drafted law, announced on Monday, comprises three main mandates for IoT manufacturers. First, all consumer IoT device passwords mu...

A week in security (September 23 – 29)

Last week on Labs, we highlighted an Emotet campaign using Snowden’s new book as a lure, discussed how 15,000 webcams are vulnerable to attack, how insurance data security laws skirt political turmoil, and how the new iOS exploit checkm8 allows permanent compromise of iPhones. Other cybersecurity...

California Passes Bill to Ban Police Use of Facial Recognition

The California Senate has passed a bill in a 22-15 vote that would ban the use by law enforcement of body cams that use facial recognition. The move will send AB 1215, already passed by the California Assembly back in May on a 45-17 vote, to the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom to be signed into law. Th...

California, U.S. Government Battle Over Net Neutrality State Law

The U.S. government and the state of California are butting heads over a newly-passed state law that enforces net neutrality regulations on internet service providers ISPs. And experts say that the outcome of the feud between federal and state law has long-standing implications for the future of...

A week in security (May 14 – May 20)

Last week, we looked at the deluge of incoming policies caused by GDPR, tackled Adobe Reader zero days, and ran through some iPhone security tips. We also caught some helpline scammers in the act, explored advergaming, got our Senate Bill game face on, and deep dived into Drupal vulnerabilities...

Legislation Proposed to Secure Connected IoT Devices

A Senate bill introduced today would prioritize security in connected devices, requiring providers who sell to the U.S. government to implement measures that would have been an impediment to the IoT botnet-fueled attacks against DNS provider Dyn and webhost OVH. The Internet of Things Cybersecuri...

Hack Department of Homeland Security Act Would Bring Bug Bounty Program to DHS

Hackers will soon be able to poke holes in networks and systems belonging to the Department of Homeland Security if four senators get their way and a bill is passed that would institute a DHS bug bounty similar to programs recently implemented for the Army, Air Force and Pentagon. The bill, known...

DHS Raises Privacy Concerns With Senate Cyber Threat Sharing Bill

A major information-sharing bill that’s in the Senate right now would allow private organizations to share threat data with any government agency, something that the Department of Homeland Security says could have severe privacy implications and cause confusion and inefficiencies inside the feder...

US House Votes to End NSA Phone Records Collection

The U.S. House of Representatives’ resounding vote on Wednesday to end the National Security Agency’s collection of phone metadata and business records shifts the Senate focus squarely onto the shoulders of Kentucky Republican Senator, Mitch McConnell. McConnell is a staunch defender of the...