Google Adds New Anti-Phishing Feature to G Suite
Google is rolling out a new security feature for enterprises customers of its G Suite hosted apps that allows administrators to choose exactly which apps have access to user data. The feature is designed as a barrier against phishing attacks, many of which try to fool or confuse users into giving attackers access to sensitive […]
Free Wildcard Certificates Coming From Let’s Encrypt
Let’s Encrypt, the certificate authority that provides free digital certificates for site owners, plans to expand its service soon by offering wildcard certificates, as well, beginning in January. The move is designed to enable site owners to secure their main domain, along with as many subdomains as they own, with just one certificate. Normal certificates are tied to […]
New Attack Recovers Satellite Phone Crypto Key in Fraction of a Second
A team of researchers from China has developed a new attack on one of the ciphers used to secure the communications of satellite phones that enables them to recover a 64-bit key in a fraction of a second under some circumstances. The work focuses on the GMR-2 cipher used in Inmarsat satellite phones and the attack […]
EU Parliament Seeks Ban on Crypto Backdoors
The European Parliament is considering a draft proposal that would effectively prohibit the introduction of backdoors in encryption systems and other kinds of interference with confidential information. The proposal, introduced before the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, comes at a time when legislators in a number of countries are discussing the […]
FBI Seeks $21M to Counter Encryption
The FBI is asking for more than $20 million in the 2018 fiscal year budget to counter what the bureau sees as the threat of encryption, both in devices and in real-time communications tools such as text or voice apps. The request is part of the Department of Justice’s proposed budget for the next fiscal […]
Google Steps Up Security on G Suite and Cloud Platform
Google has rolled out several new security features for its G Suite and Google Cloud Platform, including a DLP system that finds and redacts sensitive data, and a service that allows organizations to manage the lifecycle of encryption keys. Users of Google’s hosted apps are reliant on the company for the security and privacy controls, […]
Cryptographers Question the Promise of AI, Machine Learning in Security
SAN FRANCISCO–Artificial intelligence and machine learning are the two dominant buzzphrases at the RSA Conference this year, but some of the founding fathers of the security community are questioning how much use those technologies will be for security. “I’m actually skeptical that there will be much impact on security from AI,” Ron Rivest, a professor […]
How WhatsApp Rolled Out Encryption While Still Killing Spam
OAKLAND–WhatsApp has enjoyed tremendous growth in the last couple of years, a trend that accelerated even further when the company announced it was implementing end-to-end encryption on its messaging service. But that rollout also raised a serious issue for the company: how to identify spammers without access to the contents of users’ messages. Like most messaging services, […]
2016: Maybe Everything Wasn’t Completely Terrible
Let’s face it: 2016 has been pretty rough year. Things didn’t go all that well for humans in the last 12 months, and computers didn’t make out much better. Lots of things broke, and it seemed like whatever didn’t break was compromised, stolen, or lost. But not everything was terrible. There were some encouraging developments […]