#1 Trusted Cybersecurity News Platform Followed by 4.50+ million
The Hacker News Logo
Subscribe – Get Latest News
Cloud Security

Internet spying | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

New Snowden Doc Exposes How NSA's Facility in Australia Aids Drone Strikes

New Snowden Doc Exposes How NSA's Facility in Australia Aids Drone Strikes

Aug 20, 2017
The new documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has exposed a United States secretive facility located near a remote town in Australia's Northern Territory for covertly monitoring wireless communications and aiding US military missions. The leaked documents have come from the massive trove of classified material stolen by Snowden from the US National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 that exposed the extent of the US government's global surveillance programs. The newly released classified documents, obtained by The Intercept, contained references to a secretive facility, which was codenamed "Rainfall," but is officially known as the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap . The documents reveal that the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, located outside Alice Springs, deployed cutting-edge satellite technology for detailed geolocation intelligence that helps the US military locate targets for special forces and drone strikes . The use of unmanned air v
Microsoft Wins! Govt Can't Force Tech Companies to Hand Over Data Stored Overseas

Microsoft Wins! Govt Can't Force Tech Companies to Hand Over Data Stored Overseas

Jul 15, 2016
Especially after the Snowden revelations of global  mass surveillance by US intelligence agencies at home and abroad, various countries demanded tech companies including Google, Apple, and Microsoft to set-up and maintain their servers in respective countries in order to keep their citizen data within boundaries. The US government has powers to comply US-based tech companies with the court orders to hand over their customers' data stored on servers, even if the data centers are beyond US borders. Now, the recent court decision has proven that the data centers and servers located outside the US boundaries are safe haven. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled Thursday that the United States government cannot force tech companies to give the FBI or other federal authorities access to their non-US customers' data stored on servers located in other countries. US Government Can't go Beyond its Boundaries to Collect Data Yes, the Stored Communicatio
Code Keepers: Mastering Non-Human Identity Management

Code Keepers: Mastering Non-Human Identity Management

Apr 12, 2024DevSecOps / Identity Management
Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or
How Spy Agencies Hacked into Israeli Military Drones to Collect Live Video Feeds

How Spy Agencies Hacked into Israeli Military Drones to Collect Live Video Feeds

Feb 01, 2016
Featured Image Only. See Original leaked images below. In a joint surveillance program, the US intelligence agency NSA ( National Security Agency ) and the British intelligence agency GCHQ ( Government Communications Headquarters ) hacked into, decrypted, and tracked live video feeds of Israeli Military Drones and Fighter Jets . This could be one of the most shocking and embarrassing disclosures for Israel, who is the United States' ally and prides itself on its technical capabilities. Published by The Intercept, the newly released documents from the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that in an operation dubbed " Anarchist ," UK and US intelligence officials have been… ...regularly accessing Israeli drone cameras, allowing them to watch live video feeds from drones and fighter jets while Israel bombed Gaza and spied on Syria. But, how the intelligence officials were able to do so. Also Read: Google Wants to Fly Drones Over Your Head
cyber security

WATCH: The SaaS Security Challenge in 90 Seconds

websiteAdaptive ShieldSaaS Security / Cyber Threat
Discover how you can overcome the SaaS security challenge by securing your entire SaaS stack with SSPM.
WhatsApp Ranked Worst at Protecting Your Privacy and Data

WhatsApp Ranked Worst at Protecting Your Privacy and Data

Jun 21, 2015
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released its annual report card of tech companies for 2015 based upon how much they keep your personal data secure from government snoops. And the Worst Companies Award goes to… At&T WhatsApp Verizon Yes, you heard right! WhatsApp is one of the three worst companies at protecting its users' data so if you are concerned about your data privacy, you should think twice before using WhatsApp. The EFF released its latest Who Has Your Back report based on 5 basic criteria that included: Follows Industry Accepted Best Practices Tells Users About Government Data Demands Discloses Policies on Data Retention Discloses Government Content Removal Requests Pro-user Public Policy: opposes backdoors The prominent privacy advocacy group analysed 24 companies in total, and among them AT&T, Verizon and WhatsApp came out to be the worst companies at protecting its users' data. Where Verizon met two criteria of the EFF&#
90 Percent of the Information Intercepted by NSA Belongs to Ordinary Internet Users

90 Percent of the Information Intercepted by NSA Belongs to Ordinary Internet Users

Jul 08, 2014
If anybody says that NSA is watching you, nobody surprises. But, a large scale investigation published by Washington Post indicates that the scope of surveillance carried out by US National Security Agency was massive even than the expectation of you and me. Just because you are an ordinary person doesn't mean that you are safe, as 90 percent of messages intercepted by the NSA were not foreign targets but ordinary users , like you and me, from the United States and abroad. Interestingly, your all those " startingly intimate " data and personal photographs had been left in plain view on NSA databases for someone else, according to a new report in The Washington Post published Sunday detailing a four-month review of about 160,000 intercepted e-mail and text message conversations involving 11,000 online accounts provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden . The National Security Agency has gathered nearly half of the files which contains names, email addresses or other details be
Germany to step up Counter Espionage Program against United States

Germany to step up Counter Espionage Program against United States

Feb 17, 2014
Sooner or later it had to Happen! After whistle-blower Edward Snowden unfolded various spying operations that were controlled by the US Intelligence agency, it gave a reason to all other countries to start their own Counter-Surveillance programs. Last year in October, it was revealed that the National Security Agency ( NSA ) was eavesdropping the mobile communications of German Chancellor  Angela Merkel's  and  Gerhard Schroder's   from many years. Snowden documents detailed about a so-called  National Sigint Requirement List , a list of people and Institutions named as primary targets for the U.S. Intelligence Agency; whose telephone communications should be monitored. After Suffering from spying on them, Germany has finally decided to give a ' Roland for their Oliver ' and planning to resume active Counter Espionage Operations against both the US and several Western associate countries. " This step would be an about-face from the decades-long practic
Indian Intelligence Agencies going to deploy Internet Surveillance project NETRA

Indian Intelligence Agencies going to deploy Internet Surveillance project NETRA

Jan 06, 2014
Think twice before using some words like ' Bomb ', ' Attack ', ' Blast ' or ' kill ' in your Facebook status update, tweets or emails, because this may flag you as a potential terrorist under a surveillance project of Indian Security agencies. This Indian Internet surveillance project named as NETRA ( Network Traffic Analysis) ,   capable of detecting and capture any dubious voice traffic passing through software such as Skype or Google Talk, according to  the Economic Times . In Hindi, NETRA means " eye " and this project is an Indian version of PRISM i.e. A spying project by US National Security Agency (NSA), that also allows the government to monitor the Internet and telephone records of citizens. Reportedly, NETRA is under testing right now by the Indian Intelligence Bureau and Cabinet Secretariat and after on success will be deployed by all Indian National security agencies. Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), a lab under Defence Research and D
DROPOUTJEEP: NSA's Secret program to access any Apple iPhone, including microphone & camera

DROPOUTJEEP: NSA's Secret program to access any Apple iPhone, including microphone & camera

Jan 02, 2014
In the era of Smartphones, Apple's iPhone is the most popular device that exists, which itself gives the reason to target it. According to leaked documents shared by Security researcher  Jacob Appelbaum , a secret NSA program code named DROPOUTJEEP has nearly total access to the Apple's iPhones, which uses " modular mission applications to provide specific SIGINT functionality. " While giving the presentation at the Chaos Communications Congress (30C3) in Hamburg, Germany on Monday, Appelbaum revealed that NSA reportedly sniffing out every last bit of data from your iPhone. DROPOUTJEEP is a software implant for the Apple iPhone that utilizes modular mission applications to provide specific SIGINT functionality. This functionality includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell tower location, etc. Command, control and data exfiltration can occur over SMS messaging or a GPRS
STOP using Facebook and Google and if you fear US spying

STOP using Facebook and Google and if you fear US spying

Jul 03, 2013
Edward Snowden , a former NSA systems analyst, have revealed the NSA's sweeping data collection of U.S. phone records and some Internet traffic and the programs target foreigners and terrorist suspects mostly overseas. According to the Constitution of all countries, capturing and reading emails or text messages without privileges is illegal . Several Asian and European countries is worried about the US spying. Today a Germany's top security official has warned, " If you are worried about the US spying on you, you need to stop using Google and Facebook. " Internet users who fear their data is being intercepted by U.S. intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency's should stay away from American websites run through American servers, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said. " If these reports are true, it's disgusting. The United States would be better off monitoring its secret services rather than its allies. " Head of t
British spy agency has secret access to Global Internet and telephones

British spy agency has secret access to Global Internet and telephones

Jun 25, 2013
The Britain's spy agency GCHQ is running an online eavesdropping operation that has gained secret access to more than 200 optical fiber cables carrying global Internet traffic and telephone calls. The existence of the program has been disclosed in documents shown to the Guardian by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as part of his attempt to expose what he has called the largest program of suspicion less surveillance in human history. Dubbed as , Operation Tempora has been running for around 18 months and allows GCHQ to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days. GCHQ is also sharing this sensitive personal information with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA). The paper said GCHQ is tapping 200 internet links in total, each with a data rate of 10Gbps, with the agency having the technical capacity to concurrently analyze 46 of these 200 streams of data at a time. That access could
Cybersecurity Resources