Security & Privacy

The iPhone 5S won't hit the streets until tomorrow, but there's already more than $16,000 in cash offered to the first person to hack its Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

IsTouchIDhackedyet.com is the brainchild of Nick DePetrillo, an independent security researcher whose last major public research was 2010's Carmen San Diego Project.

Soon after DePetrillo promoted the Touch ID site on Twitter, he was joined by Robert David Graham, a security researcher at Errata Security who created one of the first personal firewalls, and most recently the sidejacking technique for "eavesdropping" on browser cookies. … Read more

Celebrities can be really dangerous, and not just because they slap zebra print and rhinestones on any product they can get ahold of.

They also lure unsuspecting Internet users to sites that have tested positive for threats that can harm a computer or mobile device. But which athletes, musicians, comedians, and Hollywood stars are most likely to lure innocent Internetizens into the less-than-glamorous online underbelly of spyware, adware, spam, and viruses? Security software company McAfee recently released its 2013 Most Dangerous Cyber Celebrity list, which highlights the most common celeb search terms that expose Web users to no-good. … Read more

Has Apple managed the fine line between security and convenience? Some security experts aren't so sure.

John Caspar, Hamburg commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, told German news magazine Der Spiegel that the use of biometric technology for the sake of consumer convenience could become a hackers' treasure trove, granting them access to permanent data that cannot be deleted or changed.

Biometric technology is used to verify a person's identity based on their physical or behavioral characteristics through digital means. Identifying features such as a fingerprint, retina scan, and facial features are key markers and are … Read more

The subject of cell phone security haunts every major mobile player, but none so defiantly throws down the gauntlet to data thieves like the smartphone startup QSAlpha and its Quasar IV "cipherphone."

A self-funded project launched Tuesday through Kickstarter-like Web site Indiegogo, the Quasar IV runs on a security backbone of hardware encryption that promises to only share data -- e-mail, phone calls, and texts -- with others who have a "trusted" identity using the same Quasar IV smartphone.

While the cybersecurity specs command the show (and more on that later), the strangely named Quasar IV … Read more

"Follow the Money" is not just a catchphrase but an actual branch within the National Security Agency that spies on payments processed by Visa and others, according to Der Spiegel.

Citing documents from 2010 leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the German news magazine reported Monday that the "Follow the Money" division funnels the data it gathers into its own financial database. In 2011, that database held 180 million records, with 84 percent of them credit card transactions.

In response to a request for comment, an NSA spokesperson sent the following statement to CNET:

Wickr isn't the only encrypted text messaging app around, but it does provide a hard-to-replicate level of protection for your texts. Previously for iOS only, it launched Monday in beta on Android.

The app's argument is simple: its San Francisco-based makers claim that Wickr, now cross-platform between Android and iOS, provides the most secure text messaging apparatus currently available. It uses AES-256, RSA-4096, ECDH-521, Transport Layer Security, and SHA-256 to encode data while it's being stored on a server and while being transferred between devices.

Nico Sell, a Wickr co-founder, doesn't hesitate to talk about her … Read more

At least one big-name data broker thinks I'm an Asian who owns a cat and a boat and loves to travel. Sounds like someone who leads a much more interesting life than I do.

That's the profile Acxiom revealed when I plugged my name, address, and other information into the data broker's free AboutTheData.com service. The beta of the service was released last week.

Mine is one of hundreds of millions of profiles Acxiom sells to advertisers and other public and private organizations, which explains all those yachting ads I'm being served up. For the … Read more

Kim Dotcom has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against a New Zealand spy agency.

Court documents discovered this week by Wired have revealed Dotcom's suit against the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) for the surveillance it conducted against him last year and a subsequent police raid that targeted his home.

In early 2012, policed raided Dotcom's New Zealand $30 million mansion and confiscated some of his possessions, including a Mercedes Benz and a pink Cadillac. But a New Zealand court later ruled that the warrants issued to carry out the search were invalid and that any possessions not considered … Read more

After pleading guilty to computer fraud for hacking into several police Web sites, John Anthony Borell III was sentenced to three years in federal prison on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

Borell, 22, is from Ohio but was accused of breaching the Web sites of police agencies in Utah, New York, and California, and a municipal Web site in Missouri, in early 2012. According to court documents, the intrusions caused thousands of dollars in damage and forced the Utah police site to be down for nearly three months.

Apparently, after the attack, Borell made several comments on Twitter and … Read more