Alexander J. Martin reports that there’s a response to a report of vulnerabilities previously noted on this site. The Global Alliance for Genomics & Health has downplayed vulnerabilities found in its genome-sharing network by two Stanford researchers. Carlos Bustamante and Suyash Shringarpure, postdoctoral scholars in genetics at Stanford, had raised concerns about The Beacon Project’s…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
KeePass looter: Password plunderer rinses pwned sysadmins
Darren Pauli reports: Kiwi hacker Denis Andzakovic has developed an application that steals password vaults from the popular local storage vault KeePass. The jeu de mots KeyFarce works when a user has logged into their vault, and will dump the contents to a file that attackers can steal. It is no death knell for KeePass or other…
CEA Releases Guidelines on Privacy and Security of Personal Wellness Data
Meena Harris writes: Last week, the Consumer Electronics Association (“CEA”) announced its Guiding Principles on the Privacy and Security of Personal Wellness Data, a set of baseline, voluntary guidelines for private-sector organizations that handle the type of data often produced by wearable technologies. Read about the guidelines on Covington & Burling InsidePrivacy.
The Hacking Team Defectors
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bichhierai has a good piece about members of the Hacking Team who left, and what happened afterwards. Here’s a teaser from it: His name is Alberto Pelliccione. Until last year, he was the man responsible for developing Hacking Team’s Android spyware, and one of the employees who had worked on the company’s marquee product,…
Bank of England and US authorities to simulate cyber-attack
Nothing could possibly go wrong, right? Tim Wallace reports: The biggest banks in the UK and US will face a simulated major cyber-attack from the Bank of England and its US counterparts this month, as officials probe the industry’s ability to withstand assaults from hackers looking to steal data or cripple the financial sector. The…
Ghosts in the machine: the real hackers hiding behind the cliches of TalkTalk and Mr Robot
Simon Parkin writes: The portrait of the hacker as an antisocial, lonesome deviant is pervasive and seemingly indelible. This week, for example, the British tabloids rounded on a child who has been arrested in connection with the hacking of telecommunications provider TalkTalk’s porous servers in order to access customers’ personal data. The Daily Mail’s front page referred…