China's new cybersecurity law will enable its government to discover potential security vulnerabilities of any company doing business in the country, threat intelligence firm Recorded Future warns.
The law grants the China Information Technology Evaluation Center, an office in the Ministry of State Security, the power to request source code and other intellectual property of tech suppliers operating in the country. Information gleaned might easily be exploited by CNITSEC in furtherance of its intelligence operations. Director of strategic threat development at the firm reckons the measures place companies between a rock and a hard place.
Read moreMore bad news for folks in China. Chinese internet users will no longer be able to post comments online anonymously as of Oct. 1. The new ruling is the latest in the government's move to tighten control over internet usage in the country.
Sites like social networks and discussion forums will have to verify the real identities of registered users before they can be allowed to post anything on their platforms. Comments on news stories will also have to be reviewed by the website before they can appear online. For example, Zhihu, a Quora-like discussion site, has already started asking users to verify their identities.
Read moreAs soon as the target switches the phone on, it’s already too late. Digital spies have pinpointed the phone’s location and, without hacking the device itself, are tracking it from tens of thousands of miles away. This is not a capability limited to superpowers—private firms now provide global phone tracking and interception.
But whereas this used to be a fairly niche product, now a myriad of companies based all over the world offer this service to law enforcement and intelligence agencies, perhaps including those who may wish to spy on the U.S., according to a review of surveillance company websites and brochures.
Read moreChina has demonstrated a world first by sending data over long distances using satellites which is potentially unhackable, laying the basis for next generation encryption based on so-called "quantum cryptography."
Last August, China launched a quantum satellite into space, a move which was called a "notable advance" by the Pentagon. Using this satellite, Chinese researchers at the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale project, were able to transmit secret messages from space to Earth at a further distance than ever before. The technology is called quantum key distribution. Typical encryption relies on traditional mathematics.
Read moreChinese-made drones that may have been used by U.S. service members in Syria are now banned by the U.S. Army, according to a report.
"Cease all use, uninstall all DJI applications, remove all batteries/storage media from devices, and secure equipment for follow on direction," reads the memo from Lt. Gen. Joseph H. Anderson, the Army's deputy chief of staff for plans and operations. The memo was obtained by the publication Defense One, which said it was also confirmed by two Army officials. According to the publication, the Army document cites "increased awareness of cyber vulnerabilities associated with DJI products."
Read moreA bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Tuesday plans to introduce legislation seeking to address vulnerabilities in computing devices embedded in everyday objects - known in the tech industry as the "internet of things" - which experts have long warned poses a threat to global cyber security.
The new bill would require vendors that provide internet-connected equipment to the U.S. government to ensure their products are patchable and conform to industry security standards. It would also prohibit vendors from supplying devices that have unchangeable passwords or possess known security vulnerabilities.
Read moreImagine logging into your checking account and seeing that you now also have a second account, stocked with an equal amount of a newly created currency. It could happen this morning to many people who hold the cryptocurrency bitcoin.
Not long after 8 am EDT, a new currency called Bitcoin Cash is due to appear, split from bitcoin in a technical maneuver called a “hard fork.” It’s the project of a group that says bitcoin’s keepers are limiting its reach by resisting change. The creation of Bitcoin Cash is the most striking result yet of a 2-year-old feud over bitcoin’s future. Bitcoin is collectively valued at $47 billion but remains a niche product.
Read moreIt's going to be much harder to view the full web in Russia before the year is out. President Putin has signed a law that, as of November 1st, bans technology which lets you access banned websites, including virtual private networks and proxies. Internet providers will have to block websites hosting these tools.
The measure is ostensibly meant to curb extremist content, but that's just pretext -- this is really about preventing Russians from seeing content that might be critical of Putin, not to mention communicating in secret. Accordingly, the President has signed another law requiring that chat apps identify users through their phone numbers after January 1st, 2018.
Read moreYour Roomba may be vacuuming up more than you think. High-end models of Roomba, iRobot’s robotic vacuum, collect data as they clean, identifying the locations of your walls and furniture.
This helps them avoid crashing into your couch, but it also creates a map of your home that iRobot is considering selling to Amazon, Apple or Google. Colin Angle, chief executive of iRobot, told that a deal could come in the next two years, though iRobot said in a statement on Tuesday: “We have not formed any plans to sell data.” In the hands of a company like Amazon, Apple or Google, that data could fuel new “smart” home products.
Read moreScientists at MIT are using Wi-Fi and AI to determine your emotional state. They’ve created an algorithm that can detect and measure individual heartbeats by bouncing RF signals off of people.
An RF emitter coupled with the algorithm works in the same way as an electrocardiogram, without requiring any leads be attached to a person. This is accomplished using the same technology that we currently have in our home routers. The remarkable part is the machine-learning that goes into what the scientists are calling EQ Radio. The information the AI receives has to be processed differently than a standard EKG.
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