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Facebook may have to pay over $9 billion in tax dues if the IRS wins the case (Image source: Facebook)

Facebook is getting sued by the IRS for not paying $9 billion in taxes

The IRS is suing social media giant Facebook for allegedly undervaluing its 2010 IPO, thereby avoiding over $9 billion in tax payments.

Arjun Krishna Lal, 19 Feb 2020 19:04

While xHelper can be removed by antivirus software, it will soon reinstall itself. (Image via Malwarebytes forum user Amelia)

Android trojan xHelper can reinstall itself after removal and factory reset

An Android trojan by the name of xHelper has been found to reinstall itself after removal. Worse still, the malware reinstalls itself even after a factory reset. Malwarebytes has devised a fairly complex manner of removing the mal...

Sam Medley, 15 Feb 2020 17:21

Secretly owned by CIA, Swiss tech company Crypto sold encryption products to 120 countries and...

Liquidated in 2018, Swiss firm Crypto AG seems to have been involved in helping the US and German governments spy on no less than 120 countries for decades. The story has just surfaced thanks to an investigation carried out by The...

Codrut Nistor, 12 Feb 2020 16:20

Huawei caught red-handed: The company has backdoor access to mobile networks worldwide

The latest Huawei-related security issue is huge and it's enough to describe it in a few words for everyone to figure out: for over a decade, the Chinese behemoth has been using backdoors intended for law enforcement to access mob...

Codrut Nistor, 12 Feb 2020 09:16

Wacom hardware seems to do more than advertised

Another one caught red-handed: Wacom has been tracking your activity as well

Although Wacom hardware should have no reason for sending out the history of application use of its owners, it looks like this has been happening for a while and there's no official explanation for that yet. Nevertheless, this sto...

Codrut Nistor, 06 Feb 2020 11:57

The iPhone X can be cracked by Cellebrite's tool. (Source: Business Insider)

Cybersecurity experts: Android phones may now be more secure than iPhones

iPhones are way more secure than Androids, right? Apparently not. A new report with information from forensic experts heavily points towards the reverse being the case. Androids may now be more secure than iPhones, with a Huawei f...

Ricci Rox, 31 Jan 2020 06:52

Avast-related search suggestions in Bing search (Source: Own)

The price of free software: Avast has been selling the browser history of its users

Although there are still freeware products that are completely free, others come with hidden traps that the user only gets to find out about via scandals. The free Avast antivirus is such a product — it turns out that the Czech fi...

Codrut Nistor, 28 Jan 2020 17:42

Smartphones in Russia will soon have to be more Russian... whatever that may mean. (Image via Charles DeLuvio on Unsplash, with edits)

Electronics sold in Russia must soon have software that supports "Russian spiritual and moral values"

A new draft of a government resolution in Russia mandates that all electronics sold in the country carry pre-installed software from Russian companies that espouses the "formation of the priority of traditional Russian spiritual a...

Sam Medley, 27 Jan 2020 05:20

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" is killing off a long-standing pre-installed app. (Image via Canonical)

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS to drop pre-installed Amazon Web App

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" will finally kill the pre-installed Amazon Web App. The move comes in the wake of Canonical's eliminations of the Ubuntu web launcher dependency. Many users hated the Amazon Web App, which was introd...

Sam Medley, 22 Jan 2020 05:12

The vulnerability could impact every Windows system released in the past 20 years (Image source: Microsoft)

The NSA reports "extraordinarily serious" Windows flaw to Microsoft: The US military's already received an update

Sources told Krebs on Security that Microsoft is working to patch an "extraordinarily serious" vulnerability, potentially affecting every Windows system released in the last 20 years.

Arjun Krishna Lal, 14 Jan 2020 18:47

The FBI was unable to crack a mass shooter's iPhones

FBI asks Apple to help unlock two iPhones that belonged to a mass shooter

The FBI has asked Apple for help unlocking a pair of iPhones that belong to a mass shooter. Even though the agency has both devices in its possession, it is unable to get past the lock screen. Apple says that it will help the FBI ...

Anil Satyanarayana, 08 Jan 2020 03:56

With Trump's signature, TRACED is now US law (Image source: Wikipedia)

TRACED Robocall legislation signed by Trump

Donald Trump recently signed off on the TRACED Act. The Act, which received bipartisan support in the US Congress, imposes stiffer penalties on robocallers. It also seeks to tackle the issue of caller ID spoofing.

Arjun Krishna Lal, 02 Jan 2020 20:00

Mr. Smashy's hacking module (Image source: @THESMASHY)

Pi Zero-based WiFi hacking module created

A security developer on Twitter recently released a tutorial on how to create a WiFi hacking gadget using a Raspberry Pi Zero W. The module runs Raspbian Buster, under the hacker-friendly re4son kernel.

Arjun Krishna Lal, 30 Dec 2019 17:10

Ookla's Speedtest VPN is the latest free virtual private network. (Image via Ookla)

Ookla launches Speedtest VPN, a free virtual private network

Ookla, the organization behind speedtest.net, has launched a free VPN. Speedtest VPN is a free virtual private network service, currently only for users of the Speedtest Android and iOS apps. The VPN is currently in beta and caps ...

Sam Medley, 27 Dec 2019 04:25

ToTok is no longer available on the Play Store (Image source: Gulfnews)

ToTok, alleged UAE government spyware posing as a chat app, pulled from Play Store

Following a damning New York Times report, popular chat app ToTok was pulled from the Google Play Store. The report indicated that the app was UAE government spyware masquerading as a chat app to monitor the personal information o...

Arjun Krishna Lal, 26 Dec 2019 20:51

The revamped bounty is open to all, with bigger rewards (Image source: Panda Security)

Apple Security Bounty revamped: now invitation-free, with bigger rewards

Apple recently revamped its Apple Security Bounty program. The new Bounty program is open to all researchers and substantially ups the reward ceiling. Is this enough to help Apple find critical iOS and macOS vulnerabilities in tim...

Arjun Krishna Lal, 21 Dec 2019 20:40

Facebook continues to struggle with security vulnerabilities (Image source: Microsoft)

Data breach at Facebook left nearly 270 million usernames, phone records visible

Facebook’s security troubles continue. In a recent security incident, the personal information of nearly 270 million people was leaked to a public server. This comes in the context of ongoing security and privacy concerns pertaini...

Arjun Krishna Lal, 21 Dec 2019 09:30

The illegal streaming websites iStreamItAll and Jetflicks have been shut down by the FBI and DoJ. (Image: iStreamItAll splash page)

FBI shuts down 2 illegal streaming sites, one of which is bigger than Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu combined

Two computer programmers were arrested by the FBI this month on charges of procuring and distributing pirated content. The two programmers ran subscription-based websites that illegally streamed copyrighted content without the kno...

Sam Medley, 16 Dec 2019 15:05

Several Ring home cameras breached, recycled passwords likely to blame

Multiple families have reported their Ring cameras have been accessed by unknown third parties. The bad actors were able to access the video feeds and speakers of the cameras to frighten members of the affected households, includi...

Sam Medley, 16 Dec 2019 05:35

Google has imaged the places where 98% of earth's population lives. (Image via Google Earth)

Google has imaged 98% of the inhabited Earth

Google announced on Friday that it has imaged over 10 million miles of roads and paths in Street View. Additionally, Google Earth has now imaged over 36 million square miles of the earth's surface, which covers 98% of the inhabite...

Sam Medley, 16 Dec 2019 01:22

The Communication Limits feature in iOS 13.3 can easily be bypassed. (Image via Apple)

New bug in iOS 13.3 allows kids to circumvent Communication Limits parental controls

A bug in iOS 13.3 allows users to easily circumvent the Communication Limits feature. While Communication Limits is supposed to block users (specifically children) from communicating with or adding unknown or unapproved numbers, s...

Sam Medley, 14 Dec 2019 20:30

One of the founders of Nuvia Inc. is the target of a lawsuit filed by Apple. (Image via Nuvia)

Apple files suit against one of the founders of chip design startup Nuvia

Apple is suing Gerard Williams III, one of the founders of Nuvia, for breaching an intellectual property contract and soliciting Apple employees to leave Apple and work at Nuvia. Williams denies that he actively recruited Apple em...

Sam Medley, 10 Dec 2019 17:36

Fortnite may come to the Play Store, but only if Epic gets special treatment. (Image via Epic)

Epic seeks special treatment from Google on Play Store revenue, Google says no

Epic, the developer of the smash hit arena shooter Fortnite, has reignited an argument with Google over the revenue share practices of the Play Store. Epic is reportedly hoping to bring Fortnite to the Play Store but has requested...

Sam Medley, 10 Dec 2019 16:30

Lenovo busted for secretly paying cybersecurity "influencers" to promote ThinkShield

TechCrunch Security Editor Zack Whittaker blew the whistle on Lenovo on his Twitter account recently over Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo's alleged attempts to pay Information Security "influencers" to say good things about ThinkSh...

Douglas Black, 21 Nov 2019 18:07

Huawei may get slight reprieve in US markets with extension of trade waiver

Despite the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, Huawei received a small reprieve in the way of a general license allowing U.S. firms to transact with the Chinese telecom giant. That license is set to expire on Monday, bu...

Sam Medley, 17 Nov 2019 01:01

Brave Browser finally exits beta; version 1.0 now available

Brave, a Chromium-based browser designed around user privacy and anonymity, has finally released version 1.0 after four years in development. The browser has a unique method for upending the traditional ad-revenue basis of website...

Sam Medley, 14 Nov 2019 21:19

YouTube changes Terms of Service to emphasize it can delete channels that are not "commercially viable"

YouTube will update its terms of service to more clearly point out that the website can shut down channels that are deemed unprofitable. While this has sparked passionate debate among users and content creators, the law concerning...

Sam Medley, 11 Nov 2019 19:00

The daily average use of DuckDuckGo since 2010 has grown exponentially. Image via DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine, hits 50 million daily searches

DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused Google alternative, hit 50 million unique searches on November 4. This is a huge milestone that marks the continued growth for the private search engine. DuckDuckGo does not track user browsing hist...

Sam Medley, 06 Nov 2019 17:49

The Pixel 4's Soli Radar chip can be activated with root access. (Source: iFixit)

The Pixel 4's Soli Radar can be enabled in any region thanks to a hidden debug feature

The Google Pixel 4's Soli Radar feature is authorized for use in only certain geographies as it uses the 60 GHz frequency band. Those wanting to use the Motion Sense features can now do so irrespective of the region by taking adva...

Vaidyanathan Subramaniam, 05 Nov 2019 07:43

The investigation was spearheaded by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. (Source: FlipBoard)

Chinese app TikTok under investigation by US government panel over censorship and security concerns

Popular video app TikTok was purchased by Chinese company ByteDance Technology Co. in 2017 and has since accumulated over 500 million active users. However, ByteDance has recently been placed under investigation by the Committee o...

Douglas Black, 05 Nov 2019 06:50

If any of these app icons are on your iPhone or iPad, uninstall them immediately. (Image via Wandera)

Trojan malware found in 17 apps on Apple App Store

Wandera, a security research firm, has found malware in 17 apps on the Apple App Store. The apps use a clicker trojan module to generate fraudulent web traffic in the background, likely to pump up ad revenue for specific websites....

Sam Medley, 25 Oct 2019 20:24

An infected directory showing files with a ".lilocked" extension. Image via FOSSBytes

Lilu/Lilocked ransomware has now infected thousands of Linux servers

Lilu (also known as Lilocked) is a relatively new ransomware that is specifically targeting Linux servers. The ransomware has been infecting systems since mid-July and has so far attacked at least 6700 systems. Lilu targets specif...

Sam Medley, 08 Sep 2019 22:02

Apple accidentally rolls back security patch in iOS 12.4 update, making jailbreaking possible

An oversight by Apple caused an old security bug to be reintroduced with iOS 12.4. While the bug had been patched in iOS 12.3, the exploit is present in the latest operating system from Apple and can be used for jailbreaking on co...

Sam Medley, 20 Aug 2019 22:46

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 phones. (Source: Yahoo)

Hits and Misses: An in-depth comparison of all the Galaxy Note 10 rumors and their accuracies

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 phones were released almost two weeks ago but before then, they were preceded by an incessant in-flow of leaks and rumors. Here. we review those leaks to see which ones turned out to be true or, well, ut...

Ricci Rox, 18 Aug 2019 16:02

Facebook paid human contractors to listen to and transcribe audio from users

According to employees familiar with the practice, Facebook has been hiring outside contractors to listen to and transcribe user audio. While Facebook claims the transcriptions were done to improve the voice-to-text transcription ...

Sam Medley, 14 Aug 2019 23:30

Security researchers load ransomware onto DSLR over WiFi and encrypt photos in WannaCry-styled attack

A new report by security experts at Check Point Research demonstrates a glaring vulnerability in modern DSLR cameras: Photo Transfer Protocol. Worse yet, the researchers were able to exploit vulnerabilities in PTP/IP, which transf...

Sam Medley, 12 Aug 2019 23:23

Apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp may need redesigns thanks to iOS 13's background access restrictions

iOS 13 will bring a few new features to iPhones upon its release later this year, several of which are focused on protecting user privacy. One such update will block background processes from collecting user data, something that s...

Sam Medley, 07 Aug 2019 05:02

Microsoft security researchers discover new cyber attack through Internet of Things connected devices

A new publication by Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center points out an increasingly popular avenue used for cyber attacks: the Internet of Things (IoT). The publication states that researchers discovered a new attack that explo...

Sam Medley, 06 Aug 2019 22:01

Qualcomm faces antitrust charges from the ECC once again. (Source: Forbes)

ECC goes for Qualcomm's neck once again, slaps a €242 million fine for trying to eliminate 3G baseband chipset competitors

The European Competition Commission has fined Qualcomm €242 million after it found evidence that the largest US smartphone chip maker has indulged in practices that prevented companies such as Icera from effectively competing in m...

Vaidyanathan Subramaniam, 19 Jul 2019 07:55

DuckDuckGo adds new features to its mapping system, courtesy of Apple Maps

DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine, has added a few new features to its mapping service. These include improved local searches, support for a Dark Mode, and more. The features were added through Apple's MapKit JS framew...

Sam Medley, 18 Jul 2019 16:46

Researchers at Symantec discover media file vulnerability in WhatsApp and Telegram

WhatsApp and Telegram are popular secure messaging apps that feature end-to-end encryption to keep messages safe. Even still, the apps have a glaring backdoor that could allow attackers to alter media files sent through the apps. ...

Sam Medley, 17 Jul 2019 22:23

Mark Zuckerberg's 2018 Congressional testimony

Facebook might get FTC's largest fine ever: US$5 billion

As impressive as it may be, the US$5 billion fine that Facebook could be subjected to — after the review of this settlement by the Department of Justice — only accounts for 9 percent of the revenue obtained by the company in 2018....

Codrut Nistor, 15 Jul 2019 11:11

Does Google Home eavesdrop? A Belgian news report suggests that it does. (Source: Pocket-lint)

Google Assistant-enabled devices allegedly found to listen in on users

The Belgian news outlet VRT NWS claims to have gained access to audio recordings made as a result of Google Assistant 'listening' to user speech or activity. The recordings were leaked to VRT by a Google subcontractor. This appare...

Deirdre O Donnell, 13 Jul 2019 17:38

Kali Linux now available for Raspberry Pi 4

Kali Linux is now compatible with the Raspberry Pi 4. Currently, the distro is only available as a 32-bit OS, but Offensive Security is planning on releasing a 64-bit version soon. In the meantime, security aficionados who have a ...

Sam Medley, 10 Jul 2019 23:39

Over 50% of survey-takers believe that overly influential tech groups need breaking up. (Source: Insurance Asia News)

New study suggests most Americans now believe their government should do more to regulate big tech

An industrial consultant firm, Grail Insights, has released the results of a survey-based study on public attitudes towards 'big tech' companies, their effects on consumer privacy and the role national authorities should adopt in ...

Deirdre O Donnell, 09 Jul 2019 18:33

South Korean phone makers targeted by Japanese trade restrictions

Trade Wars: The saga continues with Japan vs. South Korea

The trade restrictions that Japan has just announced will make it harder for companies such as Samsung and LG to buy various materials used in both chips and smartphones. The list of these materials includes resist, hydrogen fluor...

Codrut Nistor, 01 Jul 2019 08:01

At least 25 global telecommunications companies were compromised in a seven-year attack utilizing Chinese-affiliated threat actor APT10. (Source: ModernDiplomacy)

Chinese-affiliated hackers compromised 25 global telecommunications companies for over 7 years

A leading cyber-security firm has uncovered a brazen Chinese-affiliated 7-year-long attack against telecommunications companies across the globe, compromising Call Detail Records (CDRs) and allowing collection of call meta-data fo...

Douglas Black, 25 Jun 2019 18:18

Hackers attacked NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab via a Raspberry Pi, stole 500 MB of mission data

According to a U.S. Office of Inspector General report published Tuesday, a cyberattack on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in April 2018 was due to a severe lack of security oversight. The attack was made possible via an unauthor...

Sam Medley, 23 Jun 2019 00:34

Microsoft 365 for Campaigns is a new suite for political campaign security. (Source: Microsoft)

New Microsoft 365 suite offers enterprise-level security for political campaigns

Microsoft 365 for Campaigns is a new service intended to safeguard election campaigns from bad actors of various kinds. It is part of the Redmond company's Defending Democracy Program, and offers enterprise-level security to those...

Deirdre O Donnell, 20 Jun 2019 20:55

Orange and ZTE demo various 5G applications in Spain

Although ZTE is also affected by various bans similar to those imposed by the US on Huawei, this Chinese brand seems to be doing all right in Spain. Yesterday, Orange and its Chinese partner have shown various 5G applications at t...

Codrut Nistor, 20 Jun 2019 10:48