Security

Valve had a bit of a panic moment last week as users discovered an exploit that allowed Steam accounts to be accessed using a username. For some reason, something over on Valve's end made it so that users could avoid the authentication process when changing an account password. Users could go …

As much as contactless payments with a debit or credit card represent a much easier way to go about paying for things you want, since you don't even need to remember your pin code, they represent a massive security problem according to Which?. Due to the low cost of card …

Like with every aspect of our modern lives, securing your home is becoming as connected as the rest of it. There are apps and companion hardware available, which is exactly what we are looking at today. It is known as the Piper nv iControl Network, which incorporates everything from a …

One of the more controversial aspects of the Ashley Madison ‘dating' website, was that it actually charged users to delete their accounts, a practice that many felt was exploitative. So did the hackers, Impact Team, who claimed responsibility for the site's recent hack and database thievery. With a threat hanging …

Microsoft might have been trimming the fact over the past year, with thousands of employees losing their long standing positions with the company, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have the money to invest. While preparation for the launch of Windows 10 continues apace, Microsoft is said to be looking …

Dating sites often contain a lot more personal data on its users than your average website, so it's important they keep that information secret. That goes doubly so for sites like Ashley Madison, which purport to help their members cheat on their spouses. Unfortunately for that particular networking tool however, hackers …

It seems that Epic Games is the latest company to have its servers compromised. It seems that a hacker managed to get access to the Epic games forum servers and accessed username, email address, password and date of birth information that users registered with. Not every forum was affected, the …

Flash was once a mainstay of the online world, providing us with everything from animations, to games, to vibrating pop-up banners, but no more. With the advent of smartphones that dropped support for the oft-insecure platform, it's fallen by the wayside. It continues to be used in some corners of …

Earlier this week, Daybreak Studios CEO, John Smedley, went on a bit of a Twitter rant directed at a cyber criminal responsible for calling in a bomb threat on one of his flights last year alongside a series of other personal attacks. While on Twitter, Smedley made a few legal …

When the White House's Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was cracked wide open by some unknown actors earlier this year, it was thought that as many as 4.2 million people had had their records copied away. That included their medical histories, employment details and potentially confessions made to help them …

Another day, another leading public figure who's calling for the breaking of encryption so that it can effectively track terrorist organisations. This time it's the head of the FBI, James Comey, who said that his policing agency needed a “backdoor” to encryption standards so that the FBI could track the …

Daybreak CEO John Smedley is the man who's flight was downed last  year when hackers called in a bomb threat and leaked his personal information. So you can understand that now one of those responsible from Lizard Squad have been convicted, he's rather pleased. What he isn't happy about though is that …

A new draft law being considered by Chinese parliament could increase the censorship of its internet even more, making information harder for average citizens – without the knowledge of proxies – to access. It's raising concerns among international businesses operating in the region too, as they would need to comply …

When we first learned about the NSA's XKEYSCORE software back in the 2013 Edward Snowden revelations, it was clear that it was (and is) a pretty versatile piece of software, able to parse huge swatches of recorded information in order to store the most juicy bits of data on every …

Plex, the service that allows users to stream videos stored on their local hard drives to other devices was hacked earlier this week. At the time, Plex said that it only believed its forums were affected and that user payment information should be safe. While this remains true, things are …

Last week, Samsung ran in to quite the PR nightmare when it was discovered that the company's own SW Update tool contained a little program titled ‘Disable_WindowsUpdate.exe', which did exactly what the name suggests. Samsung laptop owners weren't happy and neither was Microsoft. Microsoft was swift to point out that …

It looks like Valve is changing its policy on item recovery for trade scam victims. Ever since trading was implemented on Steam, phishing and scams have become a bit of a problem but up until now if you let Valve know, they would reverse the transaction, keeping your potentially valuable …

Using a bounty system to hunt out bugs has proven to be an effective system to get your community involved in the QA process of software making. The same goes for games as much as anything else, which is why the developers of ARK: Survival Evolved have now begun offering …

In the aftermath of revelations that the USA spent half a decade spying on France's presidents and members of its cabinet, discovering phone call meta data and occasionally content, many French politicians have made public statements condemning the actions. Although many suspect little will happen behind the scenes due to the …

Apparently not content with snooping on the smartphone of the German chancellor Angela Merkel, the NSA also spent over half a decade spying on the last three French presidents, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande between 2006 and 2012, according to some newly leaked Wikileaks documents. Titled, “Espionnage Élysée”, they show …

In the name of thwarting terrorism, British and US intelligence agencies have taken part in many questionable practices over the past few years. Often those actions are considered legally dubious by various international authorities, but that hasn't stopped them pushing full speed ahead. In a new round of document reveals …

Smart home devices have been making their way to the market for some time now but there is always room for improvement. This week, Paris-based tech company, Netatmo, is launching a new smart home security camera that can recognize faces- Watch Dogs style. This is the first home security camera …

It turns out that Samsung's pre-installed version of SwiftKey for the Galaxy S6 has a security flaw, which is putting user data at risk of being snatched up. According to a US security firm, the issue also affects Samsung's last two flagship smartphones as well, meaning Galaxy S5 and Galaxy …

Bounties have proved an affective way of tackling security issues with software in the past, since it incentivises the kind of people who hunt out such things to report them, rather than using it to disrupt service or exploit people. Google has clearly been paying attention to that, as it's …

LastPass, a password management service designed to keep your many different passwords secure in one place, has been hacked, so the company is now advising users to go ahead and change all of their passwords. The hack apparently took place some time last week, though it wasn't revealed to users …

Earlier this month, we learned that hackers – possibly from China – had infiltrated the White House Office of Personnel Management and had copied documents on millions of government employees. While there were concerns that financial and employment data, possibly even security clearance information had been compromised, it's also shed …

Members of the British intelligence community, including MI6, GCHQ and the Royal Navy took aim at Edward Snowden last week, calling him a traitor and suggesting that by revealing secretive CIA documents, he put the lives of British and American spies at risk. It was even claimed that due to …

In the aftermath of the Edward Snowden revelations, the US tech industry took a big hit in consumer confidence, as it came to light that many of the biggest companies had been feeding the NSA and GCHQ customer data. While arguably not their fault as they were legally required to …

One of the fallacies often pushed forward by marketers and policy makers, is that consumers don't mind data being gathered on them; whether that information is the meta data for their phone calls – “if you don't have anything to hide” – or personal data used for advertising purposes. However …

Even though much of the world still seems rather complacent about the Edward Snowden revelations, there's no denying that the two years since then have seen a surge of interest in encryption and other message obfuscating technologies. Proponents of governments spying on their own citizens, don't like that at all, …