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Released Emails Show 'Google in a Relationship With NSA'

Released Emails Show 'Google in a Relationship With NSA'

May 06, 2014
Edward Snowden 's leaks last year questioned the integrity of several big and reputed companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft that were found in relation with the NSA in its surveillance programs.  Thereafter they maintained distance with the Agency and claimed to be unaware of such government spying activities. Now, email exchanges between Google executives Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt and former NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander , obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that in real do not reveal anything ridiculously outrageous but suggest that the tech companies behind the services you use are very closely in relationship with the NSA and have worked with them over the years. The series of emails obtained by Al Jazeera clearly indicate that the relationship between Google and the National Security Agency (NSA) was far cozier than anyone thought. This revelation questions not only the reputation of the largest Internet giant, but also the privac
Google Chrome vulnerability allows Websites to Eavesdrop on You

Google Chrome vulnerability allows Websites to Eavesdrop on You

Apr 11, 2014
Just imagine, you are sitting in front of your laptop and your laptop is listening to your nearby conversations. What if the recorded audio from the system's microphone is being instantly uploaded to a malicious website? Google has created a speech-recognition Application Programming Interface (API) that allows websites to interact with Google Chrome and the computer's microphone allows you to speak instead of typing into any text box, to make hands-free web searches, quick conversions, and audio translator also work with them. In January, a flaw was discovered in Google Chrome that enabled malicious websites with speech recognition software to eavesdrop on users' conversations from background without their knowledge using an outdated Google speech API. CHROME IS LISTENING YOU A new similar vulnerability in Google Chrome has been discovered by Israeli security researcher, Guy Aharonovsky, claimed that the Chrome's speech-recognition API has a vulnerability that allo
How to Accelerate Vendor Risk Assessments in the Age of SaaS Sprawl

How to Accelerate Vendor Risk Assessments in the Age of SaaS Sprawl

Mar 21, 2024SaaS Security / Endpoint Security
In today's digital-first business environment dominated by SaaS applications, organizations increasingly depend on third-party vendors for essential cloud services and software solutions. As more vendors and services are added to the mix, the complexity and potential vulnerabilities within the  SaaS supply chain  snowball quickly. That's why effective vendor risk management (VRM) is a critical strategy in identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks to protect organizational assets and data integrity. Meanwhile, common approaches to vendor risk assessments are too slow and static for the modern world of SaaS. Most organizations have simply adapted their legacy evaluation techniques for on-premise software to apply to SaaS providers. This not only creates massive bottlenecks, but also causes organizations to inadvertently accept far too much risk. To effectively adapt to the realities of modern work, two major aspects need to change: the timeline of initial assessment must shorte
Researchers explained How ANGRY BIRDS Sharing Your Personal Data

Researchers explained How ANGRY BIRDS Sharing Your Personal Data

Apr 02, 2014
We are already aware about the fact that most probably every mobile app is collecting our data in one or the other form. Thanks to Edward Snowden, who provided the secret documents that revealed that the world's most popular Smartphone applications, including gaming apps such as Angry Birds , are telling the government intelligence agencies (NSA) everything about us. We  reported earlier  that how the government intelligence agencies, such as British intelligence agency GCHQ and U.S. intelligence firm NSA, use popular games to collect users' personal data including their GPS location. Yes, the popular game Angry Bird , which is the top-selling paid mobile application in the United States and Europe for the iPhones, Android and has been downloaded more than a billion times by the devoted game players worldwide, who often spend hours squawking and playing the game.  In fact earlier this month,  CBS 60 Minutes  shows that how Rovio shares users' locations. Recently, t
cyber security

Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
Microsoft Admits Spying on Hotmail Account to track Source of Windows 8 leak

Microsoft Admits Spying on Hotmail Account to track Source of Windows 8 leak

Mar 22, 2014
Earlier this week, Microsoft admitted that they have accessed a French Blogger's private Hotmail account to identify a former Microsoft employee who had leaked the company's trade secrets in 2012. Microsoft defined this private investigation as part of " Protecting our customers and the security and integrity of our products ", mentioned in the Microsoft's terms of service, which says that the action was within the boundaries of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. U.S. Authorities arrest Alex Kibkalo , ex-Microsoft employee. The indictment states , Kibkalo " uploaded proprietary software and pre-release software updates for Windows 8 RT as well as the Microsoft Activation Server Software Development Kit (SDK) to his personal SkyDrive account in August 2012. " Kibkalo not only leaked the secret screenshots of Windows 8 , but also provided the information about ' activation of Windows ' that helped the crackers to create a keygen for
French intelligence agency gets complete access to Orange Telecom Data

French intelligence agency gets complete access to Orange Telecom Data

Mar 21, 2014
Another leak from  Edward Snowden files, but this time not about the NSA, rather the documents revealed that France's central intelligence agency, the DGSE has complete and unconditional  access to all of  telecom giant  Orange's data, not just metadata . Yes! It is the same  Orange company who threatened to sue the NSA for hacking into the underwater cable that it jointly owns with 15 other companies. According to the French paper Le Monde -- Orange, the leading telecom company in France with more than 26 million customers worldwide cooperated allegedly illegally for years with France's main intelligence agency. DGSE and Agents with military clearance have been working with Orange for at least 30 years. France has a PRISM like surveillance  program to target phone communications, emails and data from tech companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo. Furthermore, DGSE is also sharing this data with foreign allies like GCHQ.  The revelations c
World’s First Google Glass Spyware app unveiled

World's First Google Glass Spyware app unveiled

Mar 20, 2014
In the mob of Smart Devices, after Smartphones... Google glass would definitely be the next must-have device. It's non-other than a small computer you wear like eyeglasses allows you to surf the Web, email, text, take photos, live videos and more, -- all hands free. Google Glasses are yet in very limited release, but researchers have developed the world's first spyware that could hijack your Google's Glass computer eyepieces. Two Polytechnic graduate researchers, 22-year-old Mike Lady and 24-year-old Kim Paterson , from California designed an app that has the capability to convert the Google Glass into a Spy Camera, click a photo every ten seconds without giving any visible sign to the wearer, Forbes reported yesterday . The malware app developed by the researchers, masquerades itself as a fair piece of note-taking software, ironically dubbed as ' Malnotes ', that trick users accept the permissions which allow them to capture images of whatever the glass wearer is l
Project TURBINE: NSA spreads sophisticated Malware Worldwide

Project TURBINE: NSA spreads sophisticated Malware Worldwide

Mar 13, 2014
Besides collecting metadata and inserting backdoor to the devices and softwares, the US National Security Agency (NSA) has an eye on each post, picture, message you have ever sent on Facebook. I know you won't be feeling free considering your privacy, but, this is what the NSA is doing to you. The new revelation from the Glenn Greenwald 's desk remove the mask from one more secret surveillance operation carried out by the US intelligence agency NSA, the extensive program dubbed as ' TURBINE ', according to the classified files provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden . Yes, the NSA, who has been working with its dedicated hacking unit, Tailored Access Operations (TAO) from the past several years on enlarging its caliber to infect devices with spyware and creating its own command-and-control servers to manage millions of infected systems at a time. The secret documents presented by The Intercept  website shows that the NSA with its British counterpart G
Federal judge blocks NSA surveillance records from being destroyed

Federal judge blocks NSA surveillance records from being destroyed

Mar 11, 2014
Last week, The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) ruled the National Security Agency (NSA) to do not keep Internet and phone metadata gathered through bulk surveillance programs longer than five years and destroy them. Judge Reggie Walton said, keeping records for more than 5 years " would further infringe on the privacy interests of United States persons whose telephone records were acquired in vast numbers and retained by the government ," Later, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet privacy and civil liberties group asked the Court to temporarily hold the destroy orders, saying the records may be used as an evidence in its lawsuits challenging the NSA surveillance . U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, who is overseeing an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA), ruled to stop the destruction of millions of Telephone records collected by the National Security Agency's surveillance program and ruled to safeguard th
TextSecure: End-to-End encrypted and Open Source Messaging app

TextSecure: End-to-End encrypted and Open Source Messaging app

Mar 05, 2014
With revelations of NSA spying and some of the most jaw-dropping surveillance leaks, many people feel unencrypted and central-server service is bad in most of the cases, but end-to-end encryption can be used to reduce this problem. Worldwide Government surveillance raises privacy concerns and acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook also made us think about the security concern with chat applications as well; though it was not so secure previously. People who care about having their SMS and Instant messages protected from prying eyes, now they can use end-to-end encrypted services, like  TextSecure .  It is a free Android-based messaging app, completly open-source , easy to use and designed with privacy in mind. Encrypting the stored data on the servers is as important as transferring data over an encrypted connection, but the most important factor of the encryption is that ' who has the decryption key '. If the company has the keys, then Government could snoop through your fi
Hacking Team sold Spyware to 21 Countries; Targeting Journalists and Human Right Activists

Hacking Team sold Spyware to 21 Countries; Targeting Journalists and Human Right Activists

Feb 24, 2014
Spying on the world by injecting sophisticated backdoors in software, systems, and mobile phones, leads to violation of the Privacy and Security of every individual. Yes, we are talking about Surveillance , but this time not about NSA . Instead, Countries including some with poor human-rights records and a much less technically advanced nation are the likely culprits, as they apparently used commercial spyware in making surveillance capabilities that once were the exclusive expertise of the known spy agencies, such as National Security Agency (NSA) and GCHQ. Citizen lab , a nonprofit research lab has  found traces of a remote hacking tool  in 21 countries , developed by  Hacking Team,  including Ethiopia, Sudan, Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia, which the team had already  denied  back in 2013. Hacking Team, also known as HT S.r.l , is an Italian company, which is known for its powerful surveillance software, Remote Code System (RCS) that it sells to Governments and law enforcement
5 Best WhatsApp alternatives with end-to-end Encryption

5 Best WhatsApp alternatives with end-to-end Encryption

Feb 24, 2014
WhatsApp acquisition may have had a negative impact on the reputation of the company, it seems many users are planning to switch the service and a few of them have already done it. In our previous article, we have mentioned that why you should switch from WhatsApp to an encrypted Chat messaging service . Mobile messaging apps often used to deliver sensitive data or used for personal and corporate communications, so the data stored by the service provider should be encrypted end-to-end, which is not yet in the case of WhatsApp. There are many mobile messaging applications like Japan-based  Line , China's  WeChat , Korea-based  KakaoTalk , and Canada's  Kik , India-based  Hike  and many more, but they are not end-to-end encrypted messengers. Time is loudly announcing the need to shift to some alternates which provides end-to-end encryption for communication between two devices and respect your Privacy. There are a number of solutions available includes -  Telegram,  Surespot
Dear Internet, Today is 'The Day We Fight Back', Biggest protest against NSA Surveillance

Dear Internet, Today is 'The Day We Fight Back', Biggest protest against NSA Surveillance

Feb 11, 2014
The US Government has allotted a large share of its ' Black Budget ' for secret military research and weapons programs, along with surveillance programs, that is harvesting hundreds of millions of Metadata from emails, web activity, chats, social networks, and everything else around the world. To make this happen, NSA has used a number of unethical ways, but labeled as legal solutions.  Today, on February 11th, we all unite to fight against the Government intrusion on the privacy of innocent people worldwide, under one banner of ' The Day We Fight Back ', along with other 7000 websites by hosting a large banner at the bottom of the websites; reading " Dear Internet, we're standing with 300+ nonprofits worldwide in demanding an end to mass, suspicionless surveillance ", asking people of the world to vote against proposed NSA reforms that the American Civil Liberties Union has labeled " Bad for Privacy ". The Banner, you can see at the bottom of this page, e
'Chaos Computer Club' filed criminal complaint against German government Over Mass Spying

'Chaos Computer Club' filed criminal complaint against German government Over Mass Spying

Feb 03, 2014
After the revelation of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden , we all very well knew the impact of it on the world, but nobody would have estimated that the impact will be so worst. The revelation, not only defaced NSA, but also its counterpart GCHQ , and various other governments which were serving them in the world's spying scandal. Now, after various allegations on NSA , Chaos Computer Club (CCC) , one of the oldest and Europe's largest association of hackers, along with the International League for Human Rights (ILMR), has filed a criminal complaint with the Federal Prosecutor General's office on Monday. The Chaos Computer club accuses the German government of capitulating to UK, US and other government intelligence agencies and their communications surveillance whims. In a press release they said: " We accuse US, British and German secret agents, their supervisors, the German Minister of the Interior as well as the German Chancellor of illegal and prohibi
Microsoft launching 'Transparency Center' for Source code integrity Check

Microsoft launching 'Transparency Center' for Source code integrity Check

Feb 03, 2014
Last Friday at the 50th Munich Security Conference , Microsoft announced to launch ' Transparency centers ' around the World, where government customers will be able to verify the source code of Microsoft's products and can confirm that there are no backdoors. The recent chain of scandals over US global snooping has seriously damaged the trust in U.S. Government and top U.S. Tech companies, that could cost them billions of dollars over the next several years if international clients take their business elsewhere. German Chancellor Angela Merkel , whose private mobile phone was also allegedly bugged by the NSA , warned earlier that U.S. Spying operations are unacceptable. In an effort to re-gain the trust of its customers and Governments around the world, Microsoft has announced that it will expand encryption across its services, reinforce legal protections for customers' data and will also enhance the transparency of its software code. Encryption proced
Chainfire's Pry-Fi Android App released to defend against NSA Spying under Public Wi-Fi

Chainfire's Pry-Fi Android App released to defend against NSA Spying under Public Wi-Fi

Feb 01, 2014
Turn your face in any direction, someone is always trying to spy on you; doesn't matter who and what you are? Just yesterday we reported that Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) in Canada and NSA are together, running a spying program called ' game-changer '. It was revealed that the agencies are tracking all the travelers who passed through the airport terminal, and could be tracked throughout the country by referencing it with the intercepted information from Wi-Fi in cafes, libraries and other public places. Today XDA Senior Recognized Developer ' Chainfire ' has released a new Android app called Pry-Fi , that allow a user to disable Wi-Fi completely, including the background network scanning.  Pry-Fi will prevent your device from announcing all the networks it knows to the outside world, but it will still allow background scanning and automatically connecting to Wi-Fi networks. ' Retailers, crooks, the government, and other
Navy's Cyberwar Expert - New Director of NSA, replacing Gen. Keith Alexander

Navy's Cyberwar Expert - New Director of NSA, replacing Gen. Keith Alexander

Feb 01, 2014
It is very clear that when we talk about Intelligence and Surveillance, the first name comes to our mind is the U.S National Security Agency (NSA) and, the second is Gen. Keith Alexander , the Director of NSA..GEEK behind the massive surveillance Programs. Many documents revealed by the former NSA's contractor Edward Snowden exposed the extend level of worldwide spying scandals projected by U.S Government in the supervision of Gen. Keith Alexander. The Obama Administration has confirmed that they are replacing Gen. Keith Alexander and giving the command of NSA in the hand of a military officer, rather than a civilian who is experienced in Cryptography and Electronic Eavesdropping . Michael S. Rogers , presently the U.S Navy's Cyber Security Chief, will be the new Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and head of the US military cyber command. He has been involved in cyberdefense and offense policy issues as head of the Fleet Cyber Command. Neither Ro
Spying agencies tracking your location by capturing MAC address of your devices

Spying agencies tracking your location by capturing MAC address of your devices

Jan 31, 2014
Again a top secret revelation from the Snowden's Desk! A new document retrieved by the whistleblower Edward Snowden shows that the Canadian spy agency is tracking airline travelers even days after they left the terminal, just by capturing their device identification from the free Wi-Fi service at a major Canadian airport. CBC News reported that the US Intelligence agency worked with its counterpart Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) in Canada, and slurped information from the free Internet hotspots to track anyone who passed through the airport terminal, and could be tracked throughout the country by cross-referencing it with the intercepted information from Wifi at cafes, libraries and other public places, although it is not clear that they were tracking only the users who logged-in to the WiFi services or not. But It is also possible that one can capture the MAC addresses of all the available devices within the range of a Wi-Fi device (using some special tools
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