The FBI has reportedly raided the home of an "extremely principled and brave" whistleblower working for a contracting firm of the USA, thought to have been inspired by security contractor Edward Snowden to continue his work. 

The existence of a "second Snowden" was first suspected by authorities when information about the US government's master terrorist screening database surfaced online in August, months after Snowden had already fled the country. The government's frantic search for the new leaker intensified this month after scenes from Poitras' documentary on Snowden, Citizenfour, showed Greenwald appearing to confirm the existence of new whistleblower.

A new strain of Android ransomware is threatening the mobile industry, the new variant spreads itself via SMSs and holds the victim’s device phone hostage until a ransom is paid.

Implementing a classic extortion scheme locks the victim’s device display and then requests money from victims. The malware displays fake notifications from law enforcement agencies that accuse victims of viewing and storing child pornography. The security firm has already observed thousands of messages from hundreds of infected phones, mainly located in the USA. The attack scenario is very interesting, to spread itself, it first sends an SMS message to all contacts in the mobile’s address book with a text.

One of the most popular application’s promise of anonymity while sharing secrets via its app rings less true today than it did last week about the app’s questionable tracking and use of user data. Among the revelations the messenger tracks the location of users who have opted out of geolocation services and has shared user data with the FBI.

 A number of unsavory things about how the company collects, tracks and shares user was datadiscovered. One of the most popular apps has created an in-house mapping tool that enables its employees to filter and search GPS data to location posters. The technology, for example, enables the company to monitor all the geolocated messages sent from the Pentagon.

To infiltrate foreign networks and gain access to sensitive systems, the NSA has been using the tactics of “physical subversion” – deploying undercover agents in Chinese, German, South Korean and possibly even American companies.

Past reports on the National Security Agency have typically depicted a government organ that hacks other systems or works with private corporations to bypass their own encryption protections, but the latest report based on files leaked by Edward Snowden suggests the agency could be embedding operatives into foreign, as well as domestic, “commercial entities.”

Twitter just sued the federal government over restrictions the government places on how much the company can disclose about surveillance requests it receives. For months, Twitter has tried to negotiate with the government to expand the kind of information that it and other companies are allowed to disclose. But it failed.

Twitter asserts in its suit that preventing the company from telling users how often the government submits national security requests for user data is a violation of the First Amendment. The move goes a step beyond a challenge filed by Google and other companies last year that also sought permission on First Amendment grounds to disclose how often it receives national security requests for data.

The creation of Next Generation Identification system took a lot of years and money, but now it can change the old automated fingerprint identification, which was used by FBI. At the beginning the identification system was designed as multifactorial, because the data will be collected from different biometric indicators, and its functionality will be extended in future. 

The NGI system will have more data, than any systems have had before. In addition to fingerprints, tattoos and scars photos, images of the iris, the identification system will contain the pictures of people, namely the person identification as a form of available information source on biometric identification. 

Not so long ago these news were marked by an internet-wide newsbreak: anonymous hackers somehow obtained explicit photos of various Hollywood celebrities, including many A-listers, like Jennifer Lawrence, and publicized this material on the Internet.

Such leaks are not new, however, this one was on a massive scale. From the very beginning there was an assumption that perhaps some photos were stolen directly from celebrities’ accounts in the Apple’s iCloud. Is this possible? If so, what can be done to avoid the theft? At this time, there is no hard evidence in this case. Apple and the FBI are currently investigating and we look forward to reading the results.

Apple says that the mass theft of nude celebrity photos that were released over the weekend did not occur because of a breach in any Apple systems, including iCloud.

Apple says, however, that certain celebrities were the subject of targeted hacking attempts that focused on compromising their usernames, passwords, and security questions. Though Apple's statement doesn't make it entirely clear, it sounds as though iCloud may still have been involved in the thefts in some capacity: that is, Apple's customers may have had their iCloud usernames and passwords stolen, giving another party access to their account.

FBI can legally hack into suspects' computers for criminal evidence according to changes in the law on criminal liability in the United States.

The USA Justice Department (DOJ) is seeking a transition in the criminal rules that would make the authorities to have more leeway to secretly hack into the suspected criminals’ computer during criminal investigations at any times. According to the proposed change in the rules would make FBI to easily obtain warrants to secretly access suspects’ computers for the evidence when the physical location of the computer is not known to them. 

Researchers have uncovered Android-based malware that disables infected handsets until end users pay a hefty cash payment to settle trumped-up criminal charges involving the viewing of illegal pornography.

To stoke maximum fear, Android-Trojan.Koler.A uses geolocation functions to tailor the warnings to whatever country a victim happens to reside in. The screenshot to the right invoking the FBI, for instance, is the notice that's displayed on infected phones connecting from a US-based IP address. People in Romania and other countries will see slightly different warnings. The malware prevents users from accessing the home screen of their phones, making it impossible to use most other apps installed on the phone.