If you've been playing a lot of Among Us on public servers over the last few weeks, then you have likely encountered a cheater somewhere along the way. Among Us currently has no anti-cheat system in place, leaving server owners to kick or ban ill-doers at their own discretion. Fortunately, …
Read More »Call of Duty Warzone players want crossplay to be disabled due to PC cheaters
We are still in the early days of crossplay between PC and console platforms in Call of Duty and while there wasn't as much of a cheating problem when the game was full price, the free-to-play Warzone mode has changed that. While 70,000 cheaters were banned worldwide just last week, …
Read More »Bethesda responds to Fallout 76 hacking concerns on PC
Troubling news emerged for PC players of Fallout 76 earlier this week, after a modder detailed various ways in which the game can be broken and manipulated by other players. Bethesda has since responded, stating that many claims are “either inaccurate or based on incorrect assumptions,” but has set out to …
Read More »Switch Custom firmware bricks consoles trying to pirate premium features
Team Xecuter is rather infamous in console hacking circles. Whilst many people feel it should be an open-source and profit-free endeavour, Team Xecuter have always tried to make money with their exploits. Their Nintendo Switch offering is no different costing $25 and containing “brick code” that will brick consoles when …
Read More »Everquest and H1Z1 dev, John Smedley joins new Amazon Game Studios
John Smedley, an industry veteran with experience working on Everquest, Planetside and H1Z1, has now moved to Amazon's Game Studios. There he will be helming the San Diego studio with a new project that is said to leverage the power of the cloud and Twitch to bring players together in …
Read More »Government committee criticises watchdogs over UK data breaches
The British government and its watchdogs are doing a poor job of protecting citizens and companies from online attacks, according to the public accounts committee. It also criticised a confusing system for reporting breaches, which painted an inconsistent picture of the current state of Britain's digital security. Despite cyber attacks …
Read More »Symantec: Millennials most likely to be victims of hacking
Considering the Millennial generation grew up with a greater access to technology than any that came before it, you would think that its members would be some of the most security conscious. It turns out that that couldn't be further from the truth, with a new report from anti-viral firm …
Read More »No sex please we’re hackers: Ubisoft to patch out WD2 genitals
While there is plenty of deliberate nudity to be found in Ubisoft's recent watch Dogs 2 release, it turns out fully rendered, realistic female genitals wasn't necessarily part of it. To address the problem of a player being banned because they shared an image of them on Sony's Live from …
Read More »UK government to invest £2 billion in digital defences
The UK government has announced plans to invest £1.9 billion over the next five years in improving the defences of the country's digital infrastructure. It's hoped that with better education, more investment in newer systems and a more proactive approach to defence, the UK can prevent a greater number of …
Read More »Guccifer hacker sentenced to 4+ years in jail
The Romanian hacker known as Guccifer, has been sentenced to a total of 52 months in jail by a U.S. court, after extradition to the country earlier this year. He plead guilty to several charges relating to hacking various high-profile members of the U.S. political system and has now been …
Read More »200 million Yahoo customer details up for sale on dark web
In a move that can't please Yahoo or its potential new owners at Verizon, around 200 million of the web giant's customer details are said to be available for sale on the dark web. Yahoo has said since that it is aware of the claim and is working to confirm …
Read More »Vietnamese bank the latest to be hit by SWIFT exploit
Following on from the Bangladeshi hack last month that looked to spirit away almost a billion dollars worth of funds, Vietnam's Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank has been hit in the same way. Using an exploit in the SWIFT bank messaging system, hackers attempted to steal a further $1.13 million. …
Read More »The FBI may soon be able to hack any device in any jurisdiction
In the wake of the FBI not being able to force Apple to weaken the security of an iPhone related to a criminal case, the Supreme Court in the U.S. has ruled that judges can give the federal agency the power to access any computer they want, regardless of jurisdiction. Pro-privacy …
Read More »Apple thinks someone is modifying its servers during transit
In the latest instance of Apple looking to distance itself from government interference, it has announced that it is now designing its own servers in-house, because it's concerned that someone is modifying its servers after they've been shipped from the manufacturer. In some cases, it believes hardware was added to …
Read More »Google and WhatsApp stand by Apple’s FBI hack resistance
Google and WhatsApp have crossed party lines and stood by Apple and CEO Tim Cook's resistance to the FBI's demand for the tech firm to weaken its own security in order to make it easier for the law enforcement agency to hack a smartphone. Although that phone belonged to the …
Read More »GCHQ shot down encryption standard because it was too good
Amid all the arguments about encryption ongoing in the press and government right now, it's easy to forget that it's something that GCHQ and other intelligence agencies have been railing against for some time. I turns out that in 2010, it helped to reject a smartphone encryption standard that would …
Read More »Daesh has its own encrypted chat app
In an effort to help obscure its communications from the many worldwide intelligence agencies trying to hunt them down, members of terrorist group Daesh now have their own encrypted chat application. This follows members of the organisations being kicked off of the likes of WhatsApp, Telegram and other platforms. Governments …
Read More »Ukraine power outages confirmed as result of hacking
The recent power outages in Ukraine which saw upwards of 80,000 people left without electricity, are now said to have been caused by hackers. The BlackEnergy malware is thought to have been used in the attack, with a coordinated effort made to shut down the power, hinder its repair and …
Read More »Microsoft to warn users if government might be hacking them
If Microsoft thinks that intelligence agencies or governments from around the world are attempting to gain access to one of their user's email accounts, it has promised to issue a warning to that person to let them know it's happening. This move follows similar announcements by other major tech firms like …
Read More »U.S. state official admits hacking and online stalking women
A former member of the United States' State Department working at the embassy in London, has pleaded guilty to attempting to extort hundreds of women to send him sexually explicit images. He used data and pictures he copied from various email and social networking accounts, after phishing login details from …
Read More »Government cyber-crime agency paints all teens as hackers
With the way the media loves to pump fear into everyday citizens, it's no wonder that guidelines for ‘how to spot your teen doing X' are a common bit of advice dished out by various organisations. The latest advice guide from the National Crime Agency (NCA) however, has such loose …
Read More »U.S. and China to run hacking ‘tabletop exercises’ to aid defence
Although the United States and China have been covertly trying to hack each other's digital systems for a long time at this point, it looks like the two cyber-super-powers are now going to be working together; a little. Following weeks of joint meetings, the countries are going to conduct what …
Read More »Ex-Defence Secretary: Trident replacement vulnerable to hackers
As the debate rages on whether the UK should spend upwards of £31 billion on a replacement for its current fleet of Trident-equipped nuclear submarines, ex-Defence Secretary Desmond Browne, has warned that any future solution would be vulnerable to attack by hackers, if certain “weak spots,” were not protected. It …
Read More »Paris attacks prompt intelligence criticism of Snowden, encryption
It was bound to happen sooner or later. Whenever a tragedy on the scale of the Paris attacks last week occurs, the finger pointing and blame placing usually follows along shortly after. In the wake of the tragedy investigating authorities have found evidence that the attackers used encrypted messaging channels …
Read More »Security firm claims China still hacking U.S. after Obama deal
Although the visit was a little tense at times, President Obama's meeting with the Chinese president Xi Jingping in September did achieve one thing: an agreement that neither the United States or China would use their digital assets to hack one another to steal corporate secrets and prop up domestic …
Read More ȣ20 million a year ransomware group disrupted by Cisco
Researchers in Cisco Systems Talos security unit who were researching the Angler exploit kit, have taken steps to disrupt the activities of a hacking group that it believes was generating as much as $20 million a year by installing ransomware on people's systems before demanding payment. Now though, Cisco has …
Read More »U.S. considering sanctioning Russia and China over hacking
The United States is said to be considering applying sanctions to both Russia and Chinese individuals and companies for conducting aggressive hacking attempts against U.S. targets, according to several unnamed U.S. officials. While no decision has been made one way or another just yet, they claim that the Obama administration …
Read More »U.S. secretary of state believes China, Russia read his emails
It turns out that we aren't the only ones assuming that every government out there is looking at our private communications; even high-ranking United States politicians don't feel safe from hackers and foreign actors. In a TV interview, current U.S. secretary of state and one-time presidential candidate, John Kerry, admitted …
Read More »NSA and GCHQ reverse engineering anti-virus software
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 …
Read More »White House Personnel Management hack exposes sordid secrets
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 …
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