Author Archives: Shannon Vavra

Signal vows to fight blockage in Iran amid newfound popularity

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The Iranian government appears to have blocked Signal usage in recent days amid a newfound surge in popularity. Signal users in Iran began reporting issues connecting to the end-to-end encrypted chat application on Monday, according to Al Jazeera. The Open Observatory of Network Interference noted the apparent Signal blockage the same day. Some of the trouble began as early as Jan. 14 when Iran’s filtering committee labeled encrypted chat applications as “criminal content” and ordered them removed from local application stores. The government effort to restrict access to Signal’s encrypted messaging application comes in the wake of WhatsApp’s decision to announce an update to its privacy policy for business customers that would share their data with Facebook, WhatsApp’s parent company. The move was reportedly off-putting to so many users in Iran it appears to have pushed them to Signal, prompting the newfound attention from the Iranian government. Signal indicated on […]

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DIA uses purchased phone location data without warrants

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The Defense Intelligence Agency has been using smartphone location data purchased from commercially available databases, according to an intelligence memo obtained by CyberScoop. The DIA, which primarily provides intelligence to support U.S. military operations, has been gathering the location data on both Americans and non-U.S. citizens dating back two-and-a-half years, according to the memo, which was drafted by the DIA for the offices of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., states. The DIA has sought to access Americans’ data and their past movements a total of five times in that time period, according to the memo. The memo did not state the number of times non-citizens’ data was queried. While the agency did not describe what the searches encompassed, the memo makes clear that the agency is obtaining sensitive location data without a warrant. The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement previously suggested in a legal memo that government officials […]

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Rep. Maloney seeks FBI probe of Parler’s role in Capitol attack

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The House Oversight and Reform Committee on Thursday asked the FBI to investigate Parler’s role in the storming of the Capitol earlier this month, and its possible ties to Russia. The committee chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, also requested that FBI Director Christopher Wray order an investigation into the social media application’s financing, according to the letter she sent to the bureau. Parler has come under scrutiny in recent weeks after rioters used the app to plan and coordinate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol Building. Apple and Google have removed Parler from their app marketplaces, while Amazon has ejected the site from its web hosting service over violent content. Maloney now contends the federal government should embark on its own probe. The FBI should “conduct a robust examination of the role that the social media site Parler played in the assault, including as a potential facilitator of planning […]

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Rob Joyce named new NSA cybersecurity director

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Rob Joyce, the National Security Agency’s special U.S. liaison officer at the U.S. Embassy in London, will replace Anne Neuberger as director in the agency’s Cybersecurity Directorate, the NSA announced Friday. The Biden transition team announced Wednesday that Neuberger will soon be joining the Biden administration as deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology on the National Security Council (NSC). It was not immediately clear who would take on Joyce’s role as the NSA’s senior cryptologic representative in the U.K. Joyce has a long track record of working in cybersecurity leadership roles in the U.S. government. He previously served as senior advisor for cybersecurity strategy to the NSA director, and before that served as special assistant to the president and cybersecurity coordinator on the NSC at the White House. At the NSC Joyce was responsible for national and international cybersecurity strategy and policy for the government. His expertise in cyber-operations […]

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Signal is having ‘technical difficulties’ amid new popularity

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2021 has so far been a chaotic year, and now Signal is bearing the brunt of it. Signal users around the world began reporting issues sending messages in the mobile application Friday morning. Some users, including the author of this article, found messages took much longer to send than normal, or received a notice that the service was “unavailable” when trying to send messages. Some users told CyberScoop they were having issues as early as Thursday. Signal acknowledged in a statement the application is having “technical difficulties”, but did not offer an explanation. “We are working hard to restore service as quickly as possible,” Signal said in a tweet. Signal did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the technical difficulties and their origin. The issues emerged days after Signal reported a sudden uptick in new users following the storming of the Capitol earlier this month. Signal was downloaded […]

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Ring adds encryption tool as other security questions surface

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Ring will begin protecting the data that travels through its cameras with end-to-end encryption. The Amazon-owned home security firm announced its intentions to roll out end-to-end encryption, which will protect videos from being seen by unwanted third parties while streaming to customers’ devices, in September. The company said Wednesday it would begin a “technical preview” for the new data protection feature, which encrypts streams from the camera to the device where a footage is streamed. Ring markets its devices as a way to boost neighborhoods’ and customers’ safety, but researchers have routinely accused the company of degrading customers’ security and privacy for years. Meanwhile, TechCrunch on Thursday reported that the company’s companion application, Neighbors, has been exposing some users’ location and home addresses. The application, intended to allow users to anonymously share information with neighbors about crimes or violence captured on their Ring cameras, was collecting location information about posters […]

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Biden team taps NSA Cybersecurity Director Anne Neuberger for NSC

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Anne Neuberger, the National Security Agency’s cybersecurity director, will be joining the Biden administration as deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, the Biden transition team announced Wednesday. Neuberger has been serving in her role as the director of the year-old Cybersecurity Directorate at the Pentagon’s foreign signals intelligence agency for just over a year, but she has a track record of leadership at the NSA. She has previously served as the lead on the NSA’s task force to counter Russian threats to U.S. elections, previously known as the “Russia Small Group,” as well as its chief risk officer. She has also overseen cyber-operations at the NSA during her time serving as assistant deputy director of the Operations Directorate. Neuberger’s selection could be a signal the Biden administration intends to prioritize cybersecurity issues at the NSC. The Biden transition team has already announced a whole slew of other […]

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Deepfake laws emerge as harassment, security threats come into focus

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A new flurry of state and federal legislation that aims to better understand the creation of doctored video and audio files — and help victims respond — couldn’t have come soon enough, analysts say.  The manipulated content, better known as deepfakes, has been used to falsely portray House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as ill or inebriated in a video that went viral in 2019. Other examples include a faked video of former president Obama, and an artificial intelligence service that has been enabling users to transform photos of women into nude pictures, enabling abuse, blackmail and other kinds of harassment.  Potential malicious uses of deepfakes include fraud, inciting acts of violence or sowing political unrest. Last week, several Trump supporters proposed on Parler that Trump’s concession speech may have been a manipulated video. The chatter is only more evidence that the existence of deepfakes, and the lack of truly effective screening […]

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NYSE to remove 3 Chinese telecoms from market

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The New York Stock Exchange said Wednesday it will delist several Chinese telecommunications firms that allegedly worked with the Chinese military, the reversal of a previous decision. The stock exchange had first said last week it would remove China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile in order to comply with a Trump administration executive order. The order, issued in November, aimed to block Chinese companies from using U.S. capital to help advance Chinese military and intelligence goals. The effect is to bar the companies from trading on the exchange. The NYSE initially tried to backpedal on Monday after “further consultation with relevant regulatory authorities.” The exchange at the time said it would not delist the firms, causing widespread confusion. The decision on Wednesday to delist the firms, after all, came after the Treasury Department‘s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued guidance Tuesday that would block people in the U.S. from conducting […]

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