Collaborate Disseminate
The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) is stepping up its fight against Stalkerware. It’s asking for help from AV vendors, phone platform makers, and law enforcement. It’s time to put an end to it.
The post Stalkerware? Spouseware? Creepware? Just Ca… Continue reading Stalkerware? Spouseware? Creepware? Just Call It Horrific
The willingness of authoritarian governments to leverage native tech companies to achieve their national goals has forced U.S. officials to adapt in how they view risk from those companies, according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official. “Our focus is not on the country of origin, or the company, but it’s about what is the rule of law under which that product is potentially subject to,” Chris Krebs, head of DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said Thursday at the Cybersecurity Leadership Forum presented by Forcepoint and produced by CyberScoop and FedScoop. The problem lies with foreign tech companies that are subject to government demands without the visibility or appeal process that exists in the United States, he said. “It’s the rise of authoritarian states and how they’re operationalizing their tech sectors,” Krebs said, summing up how U.S. officials view products made by Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and Russian […]
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A surge in commercial spyware is one of the more pernicious cybersecurity threats affecting technology users worldwide. Once installed on a phone, this kind of malicious software can access a victim’s text messages, geolocation, and social media information, along with other data. So-called stalkerware is cheap and readily available online. It allows, for example, jilted lovers to snoop on former partners, and has been linked with domestic abuse. To put a dent in this scourge, cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab has added a feature to its Android antivirus app that alerts users if their data is being tracked by known spyware. The warning flags a file on the user’s phone and offers to delete or “quarantine” it. And there are a lot of invasive apps to flag: Kaspersky Lab said its products detected stalkerware programs on more than 58,000 different mobile devices in 2018, including 26,619 “unique samples” of programs. “We believe users have a right to know if […]
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Continue reading Kaspersky Lab looks to combat ‘stalkerware’ with new Android feature
Antivirus company Kaspersky Lab announced that its Android security product will now mark all stalkerware apps as malware, prompting users to delete them. Continue reading Kaspersky Lab Will Now Alert Users to ‘Stalkerware’ Used In Domestic Abuse
The legal battle between Russian antivirus maker Kaspersky Lab and the U.S. government has quieted, but the court of public opinion is still open for arguments. Countering U.S. officials and critics who say otherwise, Kaspersky Lab on Tuesday released an analysis arguing that, under Russian law, the company would not be subject to certain demands from authorities for data. The analysis, done by Swedish law professor Kaj Hober, contends that Kaspersky Lab does not meet the Russian legal definition of an organization that disseminates information on the internet. Under Russian law, such organizations are required to grant authorities’ requests for metadata. Hober also contended that because Kaspersky Lab does not make software for the purpose of “receiving, transmitting, delivering or processing electronic messages” between internet users, the company would not be obligated to build technical features into products at the requests of Russian authorities. Kaspersky Lab had asked Hober to […]
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As Game of Thrones’ eighth season gets ready to kick off, a new report says the popular TV show accounted for 17 percent of all infected pirated content in the last year. Continue reading ThreatList: Game of Thrones, a Top Malware Conduit for Cybercriminals
This week, CYBER speaks to Kim Zetter about her blockbuster scoop on a daring, sophisticated supply chain attack against computer giant ASUS. Continue reading Why The ASUS Supply Chain Hack Is a Big Deal
Malicious cyber activities on Industrial Control System (ICS) computers are considered an extremely dangerous threat as they could potentially cause material losses and production downtime in the operation of industrial facilities. Attack workflow In 2… Continue reading Main threat source to industrial computers? Mass-distributed malware
ASUS has finally confirmed that its servers were compromised and that its ASUS Live Update tool has been tampered with, as revealed on Monday. “ASUS has also implemented a fix in the latest version (ver. 3.6.8) of the Live Update software, introd… Continue reading ASUS confirms server compromise, releases fixed Live Update tool
Taiwanese hardware manufacturer ASUS on Tuesday announced a software update in response to a nation-state-linked hack and downplayed the scale of the compromise of its supply chain. “Only a very small number of [a] specific user group were found to have been targeted by this attack and as such it is extremely unlikely that your device has been targeted,” ASUS said in a press release. The statement contrasted with the findings of Kaspersky Lab researchers, who described the breach as perhaps “one of the biggest supply-chain incidents ever.” The attackers compromised an ASUS server to send malicious updates that affected about 1 million computer users between June and November 2018, according to the researchers, though only 600 appeared to be targeted for attack. ASUS accounted for 6 percent of global PC shipments in the third quarter of 2018, according to Gartner. The company also makes mobile phones, smart home devices, and other […]
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Continue reading ASUS issues patch, downplays scope of APT hack of its supply chain