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In Brief Viber, the popular mobile messaging app announced Tuesday that it has added full end-to-end encryption for video, voice and text message services for its millions of users. Here, the end-to-end encryption means only you and the person you are communicating with can read the content, and nobody in between, not even the company and if court orders company to provide user data, they will get only the heaps of encrypted data. Viber is the latest messaging platform to join WhatsApp , Telegram , and Apple iMessage , who strengthened their default privacy features in recent times. Founded in 2010 and acquired by Japanese e-commerce titan Rakuten for $900 Million in 2014, Viber is currently being used by more than 700 Million users globally across Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and desktop, the company claimed in a blog post published today. The move comes just a couple of weeks after Facebook-owned Whatsapp messaging app implemented full end-to-end encryption by default

In Brief What if we could Predict when a cyber attack is going to occur before it actually happens and prevent it? Isn't it revolutionary idea for Internet Security? Security researchers at MIT have developed a new Artificial Intelligence-based cyber security platform, called ' AI2 ,' which has the ability to predict, detect, and stop 85% of Cyber Attacks with high accuracy. Cyber security is a major challenge in today's world, as government agencies, corporations and individuals have increasingly become victims of cyber attacks that are so rapidly finding new ways to threaten the Internet that it's hard for good guys to keep up with them. A group of researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are working with machine-learning startup PatternEx to develop a line of defense against such cyber threats. The team has already  developed an Artificial Intelligence system that can detect 85 percent of attacks by

Super Low RPO with Continuous Data Protection: Dial Back to Just Seconds Before an Attack Zerto , a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, can help you detect and recover from ransomware in near real-time. This solution leverages continuous data protection (CDP) to ensure all workloads have the lowest recovery point objective (RPO) possible. The most valuable thing about CDP is that it does not use snapshots, agents, or any other periodic data protection methodology. Zerto has no impact on production workloads and can achieve RPOs in the region of 5-15 seconds across thousands of virtual machines simultaneously. For example, the environment in the image below has nearly 1,000 VMs being protected with an average RPO of just six seconds! Application-Centric Protection: Group Your VMs to Gain Application-Level Control   You can protect your VMs with the Zerto application-centric approach using Virtual Protection Groups (VPGs). This logical grouping of VMs ensures that your whole applica

In Brief Chrome apps and extensions make things easier, but they can also do terrible things like spy on web users and collect their personal data. But, now Google has updated its browser's User Data Policy requiring all Chrome extension and app developers to disclose what data they collect. Furthermore, developers are prohibited from collecting unnecessary browsing data and must also use encryption when handling sensitive information from users. Around 40 percent of all Google Chrome users have some kind of browser extensions, plugins or add-ons installed, but how safe are they? The company plans to enforce developers starting this summer, to "ensure transparent use of the data in a way that is consistent with the wishes and expectations of users." Google is making its Chrome Web Store safer for its users by forcing developers to disclose how they handle customers' data. Google's new User Data Policy will now force app developers, who use the Chrome We

In Brief The famous '60 Minutes' television show shocked some viewers Sunday evening when a team of German hackers demonstrated how they spied on an iPhone used by U.S. Congressman, then recorded his phone calls and tracked his movement through Los Angeles. Hackers leverage a security flaw in SS7 (Signalling System Seven) protocol that allows hackers to track phone locations, listen in on calls and text messages. The global telecom network SS7 is still vulnerable to several security flaws that could let hackers and spy agencies listen to personal phone calls and intercept SMSes on a potentially massive scale, despite the most advanced encryption used by cellular networks. All one need is the target's phone number to track him/her anywhere on the planet and even eavesdrop on the conversations. SS7 or Signalling System Number 7 is a telephony signaling protocol used by more than 800 telecommunication operators around the world to exchange information with one

BlackBerry has long been known for its stance on mobile security, as it was the first mobile phone maker to provide end-to-end encryption. But a new report revealed that the company has provided a master backdoor to law enforcement in its secure devices since 2010. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have been in possession of a global decryption key for BlackBerry phones since 2010, according to a new report from Vice News published yesterday. The report suggests that the Canadian police used the master key to intercept and decrypt over 1 Million messages sent using its own encrypted and allegedly secure BlackBerry Messenger ( BBM ) service in a criminal investigation over the course of 2 years. Single Encryption Key to Protect All Customers The issue with Blackberry's security mechanism is that the company uses a single global encryption key to protect all its regular customers, though the corporate BlackBerry phones use their own encryption keys generated

The San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone that the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said was critical in their investigation has absolutely nothing useful on it , at least so far. Yes, the same iPhone that was subject of so much attention from the past few months. Here's a brief look at what happened in recent months over the iPhone: The DoJ and Apple were engaged in a legal battle over a court order that was forcing Apple to help the FBI access data on a locked iPhone tied to Syed Farook. Farook was one of two terrorists involved in the San Bernardino shooting incident last year that left 14 people dead. The FBI desperately wanted access to that locked iPhone , not because it was expecting any case-breaking evidence on Farook's work-issued iPhone, but it was just trying to gather all available information, leaving no stone unturned. When Apple refused to comply with the court order, the FBI found an altern

Microsoft is suing the Department of Justice (DoJ) to protest the gag order that prevents technology companies from telling their customers when their cloud data is handed over to authorities. In layman's terms, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) allows the government to issue gag orders saying that the people or companies involved in a legal case cannot talk about the case or anything related to it in public. So, the government is continuously forcing tech companies to hand over their customers' emails or personal records stored in the cloud servers without their clients' knowledge. Microsoft has filed a lawsuit [ PDF ] against the DoJ, arguing that it is " unconstitutional " and violates constitutional protection of free speech to force the tech companies for not informing their customers when their stored data has been shared with authorities. "We believe these actions violate two of the fundamental rights that have been part of this countr

The United States anti-encryption bill will kill your Privacy. In the wake of the Apple vs. FBI case, two leading Intelligence Committee Senators have introduced an anti-encryption bill that would effectively ban strong encryption. Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) released the official version of their bill today in response to concerns that criminals and terrorists are increasingly using encrypted devices to hide their plans and plots from authorities. As its name suggests, the Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016 [ PDF ] would require people and technology firms like Apple and Google to comply with court orders to decrypt phones and its data. The draft copy of the Burr-Feinstein proposal was leaked last week, which has already faced heavy criticism from both the technology and legislative communities. Even the White House has declined to support the bill. The official version of the anti-encryption bill seems to be even wors

Former Reuters journalist Matthew Keys , who was convicted last year of helping the Anonymous group of hackers, has been sentenced to 24 months in prison for computer hacking charges. Keys was found guilty last year in October of giving Anonymous login credentials that allowed the group to deface the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Media-owned newspaper, back in 2013. After leaving the job at Tribune Company-owned Sacramento KTXL Fox 40 in 2010, Keys posted login credentials for the company's content management system (CMS) on a chatroom where hacking collective Anonymous planned out their operations. The hacking collective then logged into the CMS and defaced an LA Times article that remained defaced for about 40 minutes before a journalist noticed and changed it back – though Keys still denies all allegations. Keys faced a possible sentence of up to 25 years for three counts of hacking charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Although the US Attorne

The National Crime Agency (NCA) of United Kingdom is forcing the British citizen, and political hacktivist Lauri Love accused of hacking to hand over encryption keys to equipment seized from his home. Love, 31, is currently fighting extradition to the United States where he faces up to 99 years in prison for allegedly hacking into the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI), the US Missile Defence Agency, NASA and Federal Reserve Bank of New York during 2012 and 2013. US Prosecutors claim that Love was allegedly involved in #OpLastResort , an online protest linked with the Anonymous group, following the persecution and untimely death of activist Aaron Swartz , who committed suicide in 2013 while under federal charges for data theft. Love was initially arrested from his home in Stradishall, England in October 2013 by the NCA and had criminal charges filed against him in New York, East Virginia, and New Jersey. During a court hearing at Westminster Magistrates on Tues