Privacy | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Explosive revelations of massive surveillance programs conducted by government agencies by the former contractor Edward Snowden triggered new debate about the security and privacy of each individual who is connected somehow to the Internet and after the Snowden's disclosures they think that by adopting encrypted communications, i.e. SSL enabled websites, over the Internet, they'll be secure. People do care of their privacy and many have already changed some of their online habits, like by using HTTPS instead of HTTP while they are surfing the Internet. However, HTTPS may be secured to run an online store or the eCommerce Web site, but it fails as a privacy tool. The US researchers have found a traffic analysis of ten widely used HTTPS-secured Web sites " exposing personal details, including medical conditions, financial and legal affairs and sexual orientation. " The UC Berkeley researchers Brad Miller, A. D. Joseph and J. D. Tygar and Intel Labs' researchers, Li

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

Earlier this year encrypted communications firm Silent Circle and Spanish Smartphone maker Geeksphone  announced a  privacy-focused  encrypted  S martphone  called ' Blackphone ' and today the company has revealed it as ' Mobile World Congress ' in Barcelona. The Blackphone titled as, " world's first Smartphone which places privacy and control directly in the hands of its users, " has a fully customized version  customized version of Android called PrivatOS   and pre-installed with lots of  privacy-enabled applications, is now available for pre-order for about $629 . Silent Circle was co-founded by a respected Cryptographer  Phil Zimmermann,  best known as the creator of  Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) , which is a widely used email encryption software. The Blackphone handsets main focus is keeping all of your data secure, and to stop government agencies snooping on your communications. Blackphone will come with a set of application developed by Silent Circle , incl

Security leaders are in a tricky position trying to discern how much new AI-driven cybersecurity tools could actually benefit a security operations center (SOC). The hype about generative AI is still everywhere, but security teams have to live in reality. They face constantly incoming alerts from endpoint security platforms, SIEM tools, and phishing emails reported by internal users. Security teams also face an acute talent shortage.  In this guide, we'll lay out practical steps organizations can take to automate more of their processes and build an autonomous SOC strategy . This should address the acute talent shortage in security teams, by employing artificial intelligence and machine learning with a variety of techniques, these systems simulate the decision-making and investigative processes of human analysts. First, we'll define objectives for an autonomous SOC strategy and then consider key processes that could be automated. Next, we'll consider different AI and automation

WhatsApp for Android added most awaited privacy option for all who do not want to display information about when they last used the app. This is the first impressive update of the  WhatsApp after acquisition by Facebook , who   has paid a lot of money in cash and stock to acquire it. The Popular Smartphone messaging application  WhatsApp version 2.11.169 will provide you more ability and control over privacy options i.e. Hiding ' last seen at ' time, Profile picture, status updates from others, which are currently visible for all WhatsApp users. Currently, these options are set to  'everyone'  by default, that allows any WhatsApp user to find out exactly when you used WhatsApp for the last time, also reveals your image and Status message. Most of the times we don't want it to be shown to anyone or to non-contact users. How to hide WhatsApp 'last seen at' time and Profile Picture? WhatsApp now allows you to Modify your Privacy settings in three wa

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

With the beginning of a new week, we always came across a new revelation of surveillance programs run by the U.S. Government. A Recent NYT Report disclosed that how whistleblower Edward Snowden downloaded 1.7 million classified files which are revealing a number of secret spying projects that are being executed by NSA. The only lesson we have learned, is about taking our PRIVACY very seriously.  To Communicate using electronic media, we need to explore something which can make the conversation more secure and private. The only point where my search ends is to 'Encrypt the message' to be sent with a robust encryption technique which might provide at least a handy balance of security and convenience. Recently, it was reported that most widely adopted encryption technique RSA had a backdoor for the NSA . So 'Privacy' becomes a question to all of us and what technology we should trust upon. We have various sets of options to choose encryption e.g. Advanced Encryp

Last Saturday millions of France Internet users saw a strange message on Google's Homepage, rather than any GOOGLE DOODLE, as shown above. Despite Paying €150,000 ($228,147)  Fine to France Government, Google has been forced to post a ' Privacy Fine Notice ' on its French Search Engine homepage for violating Data-Processing and Freedoms Laws. The French Data-protection authority - ' The Commission Nationale de l'information et des Liberties ' (CNIL) said on Friday that Google's appeal to suspend the order of January decision has been denied by the Conseil d'Etat i.e. The Administrative Court and the company is ordered to post a notice for 48 hours on its Google.fr page within eight days as of the notification of the decision. In 2012, Google's new privacy policy that combined several separate policies under one umbrella and allowed Google to take advantage of user data from multiple different services at once, was in violation of " fun

National Security Agency (NSA) – the one that had ruled over the privacy of the entire world from countries to individuals, the one with master access to read anyone's data, intruded into large fiber networks, and can target anyone, at any time, at any place; but lapsed somewhere in protecting its own privacy and security of the confidential data. If I am wrong, then from where did Snowden gets hold over roughly 1.7 million NSA's confidential files in sequence? According to the Intelligence officials who has investigated the insider theft by Snowden, noticed that he had accessed all these documents using some ' web crawler ', a freely available automated tool also known as spiders, which used to search, index and backup a website, " scraped data out of our systems " he said. " We do not believe this was an individual sitting at a machine and downloading this much material in sequence ," he added. He used the web crawler tool against NSA 's internal network and 'probably

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

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

Now there is really great news for all the supporters of Former National Security Agency ( NSA ) contractor Edward Snowden , as he is nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize by two Norwegian lawmakers. Snorre Valen and Baard Vegar Solhjell , parliamentarians from Norway's Socialist Left Party said, " He has contributed to revealing the extreme level of surveillance by nations against other nations and of citizens ," Edward Snowden revealed various widely extended NSA spying projects and responsible for handing over the material from one of the world's most secretive organizations the NSA. He faces charges of theft and espionage and is in Russia on temporary asylum. " Snowden contributed to people knowing about what has happened and spurring public debate " on trust in government, which he said was " a fundamental requirement for peace ". Snorre Valen also added that, " There's no doubt that the actions of Edward Snowden may have damaged the security interes

Privacy is "workings of your mind". We share our personal moments captured in images, credit card details, thoughts that are personal or professional with a person or a certain group at different instances of time and want it to be safe and secure. We use an electronic gadget to share something trusting blindly the service provider company which may have to obey some unveiled laws of that country to which it belong and our data might be at risk. The surveillance programs can force these companies to store the information and share it with the Government and can even sniff all the data passing through the channels i.e. Wire or Air, and hence compromise our privacy. Though surveillance programs were in existence before Snowden's leaks, but after the revelation of NSA's surveillance programs, we need to think twice when it comes to our privacy. 28% of all Internet users, i.e. 415 Million people say that they use some sort of privacy tool for their Internet browsing sessio

The Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman ' Patrick Leahy ' reintroduced a revamped version of the " Personal Data Privacy and Security Act " for tough criminal penalties for hackers, that he originally authored in 2005. During last Christmas Holidays, a massive data breach had occurred at the shopping giant  Target,  involving hack of 40 million credit & debit cards, used to pay for purchases at its 1500 stores nationwide in the U.S. Reason: "Target Data Breach? Seriously"?  In a statement, as published below, the Senator wrote: "The recent data breach at Target involving the debit and credit card data of as many as 40 million customers during the Christmas holidays is a reminder that developing a comprehensive national strategy to protect data privacy and cybersecurity remains one of the most challenging and important issues facing our Nation" It seems that the  TARGET Breach  was scheduled, as the best opportunity to ramp up the cyber secu

Now that we have enough details about how the NSA's Surveillance program, running for a long time against almost each country of this planet.  Hundreds of top-secret NSA documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden already exposed that Spying projects like PRISM and MUSCULAR are tapping directly into Google and Yahoo internal networks to access our Emails. NSA's tactics are even capable to defeat the SSL encryption, so unsecured email can easily be monitored and even altered as it travels through the Internet. One major point on which all of us are worrying is about the privacy of communication among each other and If you're looking for a little personal privacy in your communications you will need to encrypt your messages. To avoid privacy breaches; rather I should say to make it more difficult for the NSA or British GCHQ surveillance program to read our communication, we should use PGP encryption (Pretty Good Privacy). Why we should Encrypt ou

After being an owner of Smartphones, now it's your turn to own a Smart Car. Wouldn't it sound great if you could use your favorite mobile apps on Car's dashboard display? Yes! You heard right.. Google has tied-up with several Auto manufacturers with the goal to bring Android to Cars with built-in controls and hardware by the end of this year. Google has announced at the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas, the Open Automotive Alliance (OAA) will achieve this with their partners i.e. General Motors, Honda, Audi, Hyundai and chipmaker Nvidia. This new project is designed to accelerate innovation in the Automotive sector, with the customized version of most popular mobile platform 'Android' for Cars, that will bring Google Places, Maps, Voice, Earth and developer support to cars. " This open development model and common platform will allow automakers to more easily bring cutting-edge technology to their drivers, and create new opportunities for developers to delive

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