Apple has filed a legal appeal against a UK government order requiring the company to create a “back door” to its encrypted cloud storage systems, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) confirmed on Monday (via Reuters). The high-profile challenge follows reports earlier this year that the UK used its Investigatory Powers Act to demand secret access […]
Read MoreMembers of key congressional oversight committees have called on the United States’ new top intelligence director to pressure the United Kingdom to withdraw its controversial demand for Apple to create a backdoor into encrypted user data stored in iCloud, according to The Washington Post. Last week The Post revealed that a secret UK order, issued […]
Read MorePavel Durov, the 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire founder and CEO of Telegram, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris late Saturday evening. The arrest occurred shortly after Durov arrived on a private jet from Azerbaijan and is said to be part of a joint investigation by several agencies investigating alleged failures in content moderation on […]
Read MoreAn unpatchable vulnerability has been discovered in Apple’s M-series chips that allows attackers to extract secret encryption keys from Macs under certain conditions, according to a newly published academic research paper. Named “GoFetch,” the type of cyber attack described involves Data Memory-Dependent Prefetchers (DMPs), which try to predict what data the computer will need next […]
Read MoreSwiss-based privacy startup Proton today announced the availability of its end-to-end encrypted desktop mail app for macOS and Windows, with a Linux version in beta. According to the company, the Proton Mail desktop app has been optimized to integrate with Macs, which means it can sync themes with the desktop’s light or dark mode, display […]
Read MoreAs part of its compliance with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) legislation, WhatsApp is putting the final touches to introducing platform interoperability with other encrypted messaging apps. In September, EU lawmakers designated WhatsApp parent company Meta as one of six so-called “gatekeepers,” along with Google, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, and Microsoft, giving them six months […]
Read MoreApple today shared a study conducted by MIT professor Dr. Stuart Madnick that found 2.6 billion personal records were compromised by data breaches in the past two years. The study was commissioned by Apple, but the cover page says that the “conclusions and opinions expressed are exclusively those of the author.” Apple provided an overview […]
Read MoreMeta announced a slew of new features coming to Facebook Messenger and in case you are not seeing the changes yet, it’s probably a staged rollout, so wait for a couple of days. Perhaps the most notable change is the end-to-end encryption by default. From now on, all your private messages are encrypted and only […]
Read MoreMeta is rolling out end-to-end encryption for personal messages and calls on Messenger and Facebook, finally delivering on a pledge it committed to some time ago. Messenger encryption originally arrived in 2016 in the form of “secret conversations,” and plans to extend the platform’s cryptographic features have been floated ever since. According to Loredana Crisan, […]
Read MoreSwiss-based privacy startup Proton today announced the availability of its end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service for Mac users with the launch of its macOS app. Proton Drive lets users sync files between Mac and the cloud, access files offline, and free up space on local drives. Unlike iCloud, all data (including metadata) is end-to-end encrypted […]
Read MoreEncrypted messaging app Signal has announced it is testing public account usernames so that users don’t have to share their phone number to connect through the service. Currently, signing up to Signal requires that you share your phone number with other users when connecting with them. While the new method still requires an account to […]
Read MoreThe UK government has denied that it has dropped a controversial plan to scan encrypted messaging services for harmful content as part of its Online Safety Bill, which is due to become law later this year. A provision in the bill allows regulator Ofcom to order messaging services to use “accredited technology” to look for […]
Read MoreApple on Thursday provided its fullest explanation yet for last year abandoning its controversial plan to detect known Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) stored in iCloud Photos. Apple’s statement, shared with Wired and reproduced below, came in response to child safety group Heat Initiative’s demand that the company “detect, report, and remove” CSAM from iCloud […]
Read MoreWhatsApp, Signal, and other messaging services have penned an open letter to the British government appealing for it to urgently rethink the Online Safety Bill (OSB), a piece of legislation that would allow regulators to ask the platforms to monitor users in order to identify child abuse images. Under the bill, the government could force […]
Read MoreWhatsApp would exit the U.K. market rather than be in thrall to the government’s proposed Online Safety Bill if it undermined the app’s end-to-end encryption, the platform’s chief has said (via BBC News). End-to-end encryption ensures that only the user and the person they are communicating with can read or listen to what is sent, […]
Read MoreWhatsApp (or rather parent company Meta) is on the offensive – a few months ago Mark Zuckerberg claimed that “WhatsApp is far more secure than iMessage”, now another messaging app, Telegram, has been called out by Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp at Meta. Cathcart quoted an article by Wired and his own criticism of […]
Read MoreAnker got itself in a big debacle over its Eufy security cameras which were caught uploading footage from users’ cameras to the cloud without their consent as uncovered by information security consultant Paul Moore back in November. The bigger problem was that the uploaded user content from Eufy cameras was accessible via media players such […]
Read MoreBack in November, Anker’s Eufy brand made headlines after security consultant Paul Moore discovered that Eufy security cameras were sending data to the cloud, even when cloud storage upload settings were disabled. Further, Eufy camera streams were allegedly able to be watched live through an app like VLC, which presented a glaring security issue. That […]
Read MoreApple today announced that Advanced Data Protection is expanding beyond the United States. Starting with iOS 16.3, the security feature will be available globally, giving users to option to enable end-to-end encryption for many additional iCloud data categories, including Photos, Notes, Voice Memos, Messages backups, device backups, and more. iOS 16.3 is currently in beta […]
Read MoreOn Windows 10, BitLocker is a security feature that allows you to encrypt the entire system drive (and external storage) to protect your documents, pictures, music, videos, and other files from unauthorized access if your device gets stolen or lost. Although BitLocker Drive Encryption is a useful feature (especially for mobile devices, such as laptops […]
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