Apple Discloses Law Enforcement Requests For Cloud Data
A posting from CRN in there Security section:
Law enforcement has made as many as 5,000 requests for data about Apple (NSDQ:AAPL) customers since Dec. 1, according to a disclosure Apple issued Monday.
“We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order,” Apple said in a statement in response to questions from news organizations about its cooperation with the government’s Prism program.
Apple received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data from Dec. 1, 2012, to May 31, 2013, Apple said. The requests impacted as many as 10,000 devices or Apple accounts.
To read more click here:
US law enforcers want to see a kill switch on our mobile phones
A posting from Naked Security on mobile phones:
US law enforcers are demanding a kill switch on our smartphones that would theoretically brick them after they’re stolen.
New York’s top prosecutor, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, together with San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, put out a statement on Thursday about the launch of an initiative devoted to drying up the secondary market on which stolen devices are sold.
The initiative, dubbed Secure Our Smartphones (SOS), is a coalition of law enforcers from across the country: state attorneys general, district attorneys, major city police chiefs, state and city comptrollers, as well as public safety activists and consumer advocates.
The announcement came on the same day that Gascón and Schneiderman co-hosted a “Smartphone Summit” with representatives from smartphone makers Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft.
Schneiderman said in the statement that about 113 smartphones are stolen or lost every minute in the US, with many of the thefts turning violent.
Here’s how the SOS coalition describes this “epidemic”:
To Read more click here:
Medical Devices Subject To Cyberattack, FDA Warns
A posting from Dark Reading in there Vulnerability and Threat Section:
The Food and Drug Administration last week warned that patient health could be threatened by the introduction of malware into medical equipment or unauthorized access to configuration settings in medical devices and hospital networks.
In an alert posted last week, the FDA noted that many medical devices contain configurable embedded computer systems that can be vulnerable to cybersecurity breaches.
In addition, as medical devices are increasingly interconnected via the Internet, hospital networks, other medical devices, and smartphones, there is an increased risk of cybersecurity breaches, the FDA said.
The FDA said it has become aware of cybersecurity vulnerabilities and incidents that could directly impact medical devices or hospital network operations, including:
• Network-connected/configured medical devices infected or disabled by malware;
• The presence of malware on hospital computers, smartphones, and tablets targeting mobile devices using wireless technology to access patient data, monitoring systems, and implanted patient devices;
To read more click here:
Thumb Drive Security: Snowden 1, NSA 0
A posting from Information Week in there Security Storage section:
NSA investigators now “know how many documents he downloaded and what server he took them from,” a government official — speaking on condition of anonymity — told the paper.
In general, the use of removable USB storage devices is prohibited inside the agency. “Of course, there are always exceptions” to that rule, said the official. “There are people who need to use a thumb drive and they have special permission. But when you use one, people always look at you funny.”
One job role that would require using removable storage, however, would be that of IT or systems administrator, which was Snowden’s job at the NSA, although he was a contractor employed by Booz Allen Hamilton.
To read more click here:
Blackberry releases first security fixes for new Z10 smartphone
A posting from Naked Security onBlackberry releases first security fixes for new Z10 smartphone:
Blackberry released two security bulletins yesterday, fixing flaws in its software for the Blackberry Playbook and Blackberry Z10 smartphone.
BSRT-2013-005 affects both the Z10 and the Playbook and fixes vulnerabilities in the bundled Adobe Flash Player.
This raises an important question in my mind, though. Why on earth has Blackberry launched a new mobile operating system with Flash support, knowing full well the number of vulnerabilities and in the wild attacks against it?
Apple was first to shun Flash while some Android handset makers bragged about Flash support. For about a month. Then Adobe pulled the plug on its own Android package.
This seemed to have resolved the issue and HTML5 was the winner for mobile interactive content. “Winner by default,” or so I thought.
Now you might think it is a “nice to have” so long as Blackberry keeps it up-to-date and makes it easy to apply to your device.Adobe released Flash fixes yesterday too, right?
To read more click here:
US charges eight for cybercrime targeting banks, government
An interesting articles from NBC NEWs in there Technology section: Federal prosecutors in New Jersey on Wednesday unveiled criminal charges against eight people accused of trying to steal at least $15 million from U.S. customers in an international cybercrime scheme targeting accounts at 15 financial institutions and government agencies.
U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said the conspiring hackers gained unauthorized access to computer networks, diverted customer funds to bank accounts and pre-paid debit cards and used “cashers” to make ATM withdrawals and fraudulent purchases in Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and elsewhere.
Among the entities targeted were Automatic Data Processing Inc, Citigroup, eBay’s PayPal, JPMorgan Chase & Co, TD Ameritrade Holding Corp and the U.S. Department of Defense, Fishman said. The charges come as law enforcement officials crack down on cybercrime heists. This has included arrests announced last week of 11 people in the United States, United Kingdom and Vietnam in a worldwide credit card fraud ring, and a May raid on Liberty Reserve, a Costa Rica company that provided a “virtual currency” system to move money without using traditional banking.
To read more click here:
