Supreme Court to decide whether geofence warrants are constitutional

Google has weighed in on a court case that will decide the future of a powerful but contentious tool for law enforcement. The company submitted an opinion to the US Supreme Court arguing that geofence warrants are unconstitutional. A geofence warrant is a form of "reverse warrant" that turns a...

The Constitutionality of Geofence Warrants

The US Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of geofence warrants. The case centers on the trial of Okello Chatrie, a Virginia man who pleaded guilty to a 2019 robbery outside of Richmond and was sentenced to almost 12 years in prison for stealing $195,000 at gunpoint. Police probing...

“The worst thing” for online rights: An age-restricted grey web (Lock and Code S06E16)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … The internet is cracking apart. It’s exactly what some politicians want. In June, a Texas law that requires age verification on certain websites withstood a legal challenge brought all the way to the US Supreme Court. It could be a blueprint for how the...

US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court held that age verification for explicit sites is constitutional. In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan warned it burdens adults and ignores First Amendment precedent...

TikTok Goes Dark in the U.S. as Federal Ban Takes Effect January 19, 2025

Popular video-sharing social network TikTok has officially gone dark in the United States, as a federal ban on the app comes into effect on January 19, 2025. "We regret that a U.S. law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable," the...

How the US TikTok Ban Would Actually Work

The fate of TikTok now rests in the hands of the US Supreme Court. If a law banning the social video app this month is upheld, it won’t disappear from your phone—but it will get messy fast...

The US Supreme Court Kneecapped US Cyber Strategy

After the Supreme Court limited the power of federal agencies to craft regulations, it’s likely up to Congress to keep US cybersecurity policy intact...

Could the Brazilian Supreme Court finally hold people accountable for sharing disinformation?

If youre a regular reader of this newsletter, you already know about how strongly I feel about the dangers of spreading fake news, disinformation and misinformation. And honestly, if youre reading this newsletter, I probably shouldnt have to tell you about that either. But one of the things that...

Google failing to scrub abortion access in location history, study claims

Nearly 16 months after Google announced a policy change to remove location data that could reveal users’ physical trips to abortion clinics and other potentially sensitive medical centers, a nonprofit has alleged in a new report that the company is failing to do just that. The findings, which wer...

supremecourt.mn Cross Site Scripting vulnerability OBB-3705557

Following the coordinated and responsible vulnerability disclosure guidelines of the ISO 29147 standard, Open Bug Bounty has: a. verified the vulnerability and confirmed its existence; b. notified the website operator about its existence. Technical details of the vulnerability are currently hidde...

US Supreme Court Hands Cyberstalkers a First Amendment Victory

Plus: Hackers knock out Russian military satellite communications, a spyware maker gets breached, and the SEC targets a victim company's CISO...

A week in security (February 13 - 19)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: What is AI good at and what the heck is it, actually, with Josh Saxe: Lock and Code S04E04 Malwarebytes recognized as endpoint security leader by G2 CISA issues alert with South Korean government about DPRK's ransomware antics Jailbreaking ChatGPT and other large...

Two Supreme Court cases could change the Internet as we know it

The Supreme Court is about to reconsider Section 230, a law thats been the foundation of the way we have used the Internet for decades. The court will be handling a few cases that at first glance are about online platforms' liability for hosting accounts from foreign terrorists. But at a deeper...

What happened in privacy in 2022

Annual reviews of any years developments in privacy rarely lend themselves to pithy wrap-ups, but 2022 was different, providing the clearest example yet for so many people--American women in particular--that their privacy was not theirs to determine, and that the often-repeated refrain that priva...

WhatsApp lawsuit against NSO Group greenlit by Supreme Court

On Monday, the US Supreme Court denied the NSO Group's petition for a writ of certiorari, a request to the high court to review its case, signaling that Meta's WhatsApp can go ahead with its case against the Israeli-based company behind the Pegasus spyware. The court didn't explain why it refused...

Software provider denied insurance payout after ransomware attack

The Supreme Court of Ohio issued a ruling days before the New Year that a software and service provider shouldn't be covered by insurance against a ransomware attack as it didn't cause direct or physical harm to tangible components of software, as it doesnt have any. "When insurance policy covers...

My Body, My Data Act would lock down reproductive and sexual health data

A new bill entered into both the House of Representatives and the Senate proposes the strongest Federal data privacy protections yet for an increasingly scrutinized form of data in the United States—reproductive and sexual health data. The “My Body, My Data Act of 2022” was announced in early Jun...

What Counts as “Good Faith Security Research?”

The U.S. Department of Justice DOJ recently revised its policy on charging violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act CFAA, a 1986 law that remains the primary statute by which federal prosecutors pursue cybercrime cases. The new guidelines state that prosecutors should avoid charging securit...

Google Urged to Stop Tracking Location Data Ahead of Roe Reversal

Lawmakers argue Android phone data could be “weaponized against women” if the US Supreme Court officially overturns abortion protections...

The Justice Department Will No Longer Charge Security Researchers with Criminal Hacking

Following a recent Supreme Court ruling, the Justice Department will no longer prosecute "good faith" security researchers with cybercrimes: The policy for the first time directs that good-faith security research should not be charged. Good faith security research means accessing a computer solel...