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The court found that the state had a right to sue because the ban harmed its universities and scientific community. The post The Ninth Circuit Banned Trump’s Ban Because It Hurts Science appeared first on WIRED.
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Apple’s iCloud appears to have been holding on to users’ deleted internet browsing histories, including records over a year old.
Moscow-based forensics firm Elcomsoft noticed it was able to pull supposedly deleted Safari browser histories from iCloud accounts, such as the date and time the site was visited and when the record was deleted.
“In fact, we were able to access records dated more than one year back,” wrote Elcomsoft’s CEO Vladimir Katalov in a Thursday blog post.
Users can set iCloud to store their browsing history so that it’s available from all connected devices. The researchers found that when a user deletes that history, iCloud doesn’t actually erase it but keeps it in a format invisible to the user.
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Not sure what your phone is collecting about you? A free Android app is promising to simplify the privacy settings on your smartphone, and stop any unwanted data collection.
The English language app, called Privacy Assistant, comes from a team at Carnegie Mellon University, which built it after six years of research studying digital privacy.
“It’s very clear that a large percentage of people are not willing to give their data to any random app,” said CMU professor Norman Sadeh. “They want to be more selective with their data, so this assistant will help them do that.”
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Banks are being hit by a type of stealthy malware attack that doesn’t leave a file trace. Anyone could be next. The post Say Hello to the Super-Stealthy Malware That’s Going Mainstream appeared first on WIRED.
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A Microsoft lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice over indefinite gag orders attached to search warrants can proceed, following a federal judge’s ruling on Thursday.
The tech titan sued last year to end the government’s practice of indefinitely blocking it from informing customers of search warrants for their information. Microsoft alleged that such orders violate its First Amendment frees speech rights and the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of its users.
The Justice Department argued that Microsoft couldn’t bring either of the claims in a motion argued in front of the judge two weeks ago.
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Fileless malware attacks, which were recently discovered in the networks of at least 140 banks, telecoms and governments, account for about 15% of known attacks today and have been around for years in different forms.
“Fileless malware attacks are becoming much more common and circumvent most of the endpoint protection and detection tools deployed today,” Gartner security analyst Avivah Litan said.
A recent discovery of fileless malware was reported on Wednesday by researchers at Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs. The attackers have not been identified and “attribution [is] almost impossible,” according to Kaspersky.
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Attackers have started to use Windows and Android malware to hack into embedded devices, dispelling the widely held belief that if such devices are not directly exposed to the Internet they’re less vulnerable.
Researchers from Russian antivirus vendor Doctor Web have recently come across a Windows Trojan program that was designed to gain access to embedded devices using brute-force methods and to install the Mirai malware on them.
Mirai is a malware program for Linux-based internet-of-things devices, such as routers, IP cameras, digital video recorders and others. It’s used primarily to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and spreads over Telnet by using factory device credentials.
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In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need passwords, lock screens, or to take any other steps to protect our security and privacy.
In the real world, we need to find the right balance of security and convenience. It can be difficult to find the sweet spot with an acceptable level of risk and ease of use because — even though no one likes to think it will happen to them — millions of phones are lost or stolen each year.
A modern smartphone can provide access to almost every aspect of your life, ranging from your email to your banking information. It is important to keep the level of risk in mind when you are choosing how much effort you are willing to put towards ensuring that information remains private.
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