Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Cryptographic keys generated with older software now owned by technology company Rambus are weak enough to be broken instantly using commodity hardware, a researcher reported on Monday. This revelation is part of an investigation that also uncovered a handful of weak keys in the wild. The software comes from a basic […]
Enlarge Google’s MVNO cell phone service, Google Fi, is getting a surprise new feature: encrypted phone calls . Encrypted voice chats via messaging apps have been available for a while, but this is the first time we’ve seen a company hijack the regular phone system for end-to-end encrypted calls. Open the cell phone app, dial […]
Enlarge / The seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seen at the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, D.C. (credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg) For three weeks during the REvil ransomeware attack this summer, the FBI secretly withheld the key that would have decrypted data and computers on up to 1,500 networks, including those […]
Enlarge / An anti-government graffiti that reads in Farsi “Death to the dictator” is sprayed at a wall north of Tehran on September 30, 2009. (credit: Getty Images) Amid ever-increasing government Internet control, surveillance, and censorship in Iran, a new Android app aims to give Iranians a way to speak freely. Nahoft, which means “hidden” […]
Enlarge / The security of Facebook’s popular messaging app leaves several rather important devils in its details. (credit: WhatsApp) Yesterday, independent newsroom ProPublica published a detailed piece examining the popular WhatsApp messaging platform’s privacy claims. The service famously offers “end-to-end encryption,” which most users interpret as meaning that Facebook, WhatsApp’s owner since 2014, can neither read […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Privacy-tools-seller Windscribe said it failed to encrypt company VPN servers that were recently confiscated by authorities in Ukraine, a lapse that made it possible for the authorities to impersonate Windscribe servers and capture and decrypt traffic passing through them. The Ontario, Canada-based company said earlier this month that two servers hosted […]
Enlarge / On-disk encryption is a complex topic, but this article should give you a solid handle on OpenZFS’ implementation. (credit: Paul Downey / Flickr) One of the many features OpenZFS brings to the table is ZFS native encryption. First introduced in OpenZFS 0.8, native encryption allows a system administrator to transparently encrypt data at-rest […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) OpenSSL, the most widely software library for implementing website and email encryption, has patched a high-severity vulnerability that makes it easy for hackers to completely shut down huge numbers of servers. OpenSSL provides time-tested cryptographic functions that implement the Transport Layer Security protocol, the predecessor to Secure Sockets Layer that encrypts […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Tevarak Phanduang | EyeEm) A US grand jury has indicted the CEO of a Canadian company that sells encrypted phones, alleging that he and an associate violated racketeering and drug laws. On Friday, the federal grand jury “returned an indictment against the Chief Executive Officer and an associate of the Canada-based […]
Enlarge / Uberwachung, Symbolbild, Datensicherheit, Datenhoheit (credit: Westend61 | Getty Images) Lawmakers and law enforcement agencies around the world, including in the United States, have increasingly called for backdoors in the encryption schemes that protect your data, arguing that national security is at stake. But new research indicates governments already have methods and tools that, […]