From GPS system to satellite radio to wireless locks, today vehicles are more connected to networks than ever, and so they are more hackable than ever. It is not new for security researchers to hack connected cars.

Latest in the series of hackable connected cars is the Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. An expert has discovered vulnerabilities in the Mitsubishi Outlander's Wi-Fi console that could allow hackers to access the vehicle remotely and turn off car alarms before potentially stealing it. The company has embedded the Wi-Fi module inside the car so that its users can connect with their Mitsubishi mobile app to this Wi-Fi and send commands to the car.

MIT has invented a new system that makes it possible to locate all the people who are trying to use your Wi-Fi, so that people who try to piggyback on a paid public Wi-Fi service without being a customer can be detected.

The Chronos system enables a single Wi-Fi access point to locate and pinpoint users who walk into the vicinity– to within tens of centimetres. So rather than your smartphone searching for available Wi-Fi networks, instead the Wi-Fi router of the airport, mall or coffee shop you visit will find you instead, meaning you could one day be connected to password-less Wi-Fi because the shop or café you're in knows that you're definitely a customer.

During a two-month hackathon, security researchers from Bitdefender found vulnerabilities in four new IoT devices, of which only one has been partially fixed after the developer was notified.

Researchers found the first issue in the WeMo Switch, an Internet-accessible switch that lets users turn electronic devices in their home on and off. This device was using an insecure communications channel between the switch and the smartphone app that features no authentication. Everything is transmitted in cleartext, except for the device's password, which is encrypted with an easily breakable algorithm, using an encryption key derived from the device's ID and its MAC address.

Britain's Information Commissioner’s Office is sounding the alarm on some of the most recent but privacy-intrusive techniques used by retailers to track their customers.

After participating in a meeting of the International Working Group on Data Protection and Telecommunications, ICO's staff decided it was time to inform users of modern-day tracking habits and also urge retailers to take the proper measures needed to safeguard user privacy. For quite some time now, it has been known that Wi-Fi signals from modern smart devices allow a third-party to track the gadgets' movements. Tracking shoppers via their smartphones is not a theory anymore.

Security researchers have discovered a glaring security hole that exposes the home network password of users of a Wi-Fi-enabled video doorbell. The issue underlines how default configurations of IoT components can introduce easy to exploit security holes.

The Ring allows punters to answer people knocking on your door from your mobile phone, even when you’re not at home. The kit acts as a CCTV camera, automatically activating if people approach your door, letting homeowners talk to visitors, delivery couriers and so on. There’s an optional feature that allows the kit to hook up to some smart door locks, so users can let guests into their home even when they aren’t in.

Nowadays, free public Wi-Fi is available almost everywhere in our cities. We can access the Web from the streets to the subway and buses, not to mention venues ranging from hotels to Starbucks.

Quite frequently, you don’t even need a password — connect and use, that’s it. Very cool and handy in practice, but unfortunately it also plays into the hands of cybercriminals. With the prevalence of these free networks, criminals set up fake free Wi-Fi networks – the price you pay is that they steal your login credentials. While this is our best advice, it is not practical in every circumstance or situation. So let’s think of how you can protect yourself from threats.

According to leaked documents France's Ministry of Interior is considering two new proposals: a ban on free and shared Wi-Fi connections during a state of emergency, and measures to block Tor being used inside France.

New bills could be presented to parliament as soon as January 2016. These proposals are presumably in response to the attacks in Paris last month. The new measure is justified by way of a police opinion, saying that it's tough to track people who use public hotspots. The second proposal is a little more gnarly: the Ministry of Interior is looking at blocking and/or forbidding the use of Tor completely.

The conference “Actual issues of implementing the SORM on telecommunication networks of Russia” (SORM-2015) was held on November 24, 2015 in Moscow, Russia. At this conference the issues of interaction between telecommunications companies, telecommunications operators and special services were discussed.

The reason – the launch of new technologies VoLTE and VoWiFi to make VoIP communications in 4G and Wi-Fi networks. The problem is that now the intelligence agencies have specific requirements for the system of interaction of operators with special services. But these requirements are technically obsolete, and prevent introduction of new technologies.

Mattel’s latest Wi-Fi enabled Barbie doll can easily be hacked to turn it into a surveillance device for spying on children and listening into conversations without the owner’s knowledge.

The Hello Barbie doll is billed as the world’s first “interactive doll” capable of listening to a child and responding via voice, in a similar way to Apple’s Siri, Google’s Now and Microsoft’s Cortana. It connects to the internet via Wi-Fi and has a microphone to record children and send that information off to third-parties for processing before responding with natural language responses. When connected to Wi-Fi the doll was vulnerable to hacking.

The same team of security researchers who discovered that the Wi-Fi iKettle from Smarter blurted out wireless network credentials have found cause for concern over a Wi-Fi Coffee Machine, and iKettle 2.0, from the same manufacturer.

Pen Test Partners mapped and hacked insecure connected iKettles across London, proving they can leak Wi-Fi passwords, as previously reported. Things have improved with the Wi-Fi Coffee Machine from Smarter (which is passionate about "tea, coffee and technology", according to its website) but not to the extent that it’s completely secure, according to preliminary findings from Pen Test Partners' research.