Security

Canadian communications giant Rogers is to give extra credit to customers hit by a 15-hour Internet outage. But regulators want to know more about what caused the problem and how it can be prevented in the future. The outage had a huge impact, ... partly because of the sheer size of Rogers' customer base. It has a reported 11 million customers in a country with a population of 38 million. To make things even worse, the outage also affected some critical infrastructure including emergency phone lines and bank machines. That's prompted the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ... (view more)

At least half the zero-day bugs discovered by Google this year were preventable according to one of its security experts. She pointed to sloppiness by software developers. The claims came in a talk and subsequent blog post by Maddie Stone. She's ... part of Google's Project Zero security program. While precise definitions sometimes vary, the general principle of a zero-day bug is that it's where attackers are exploiting the vulnerability before the software developers have a chance to develop a fix - in most cases because they aren't even aware of the bug. The name comes from the way the ... (view more)

Password manager LastPass will let users prove their identity with a biometric login rather than a master password. It could overcome one of the off-putting points for some users. Like most password managers, LastPass lets users store passwords for ... other websites in a secure vault that's encrypted in a way that means even LastPass itself can't access the information. It's protected with a master password that gives the service its name, the logic being it's the last password a user will ever need to remember. That does mean the master password needs a bit of a Goldilocks quality. It needs to ... (view more)

Three cyber security experts say proposals to scan user devices for illegal material will do more harm than good. They've condemned European proposals to deal with illegal collection of child abuse images. The argument is about "client-side ... scanning" which means looking for images or other material on a user's device, rather than waiting until the images are uploaded to the Internet. It's a controversial practice that Apple has previously explored. It appears to have dropped plans to scan iPhones to look for specific images that matched a database in which children were abused. Although Apple ... (view more)

Nearly half of all leading websites are vulnerable to an audacious hacking method according to a new report. The attacks involve hijacking an account before it has even been created. The scam uses various methods, but usually involves creating an ... account using an email address, then waiting for the actual owner of that email address to attempt to create an account on a specific website. Microsoft's Andrew Paverd and independent researcher Avinash Sudhodanan detailed the problems in a research paper and blog post. (Source: microsoft.com ) They say the "root cause" of the problem is that many ... (view more)

Google is making it easier to change passwords on an Android device after a security breach. It's automating much of the process through the Google Assistant feature. It works with the saved passwords tool on Chrome, which can automatically fill in ... user names and password fields on websites. The passwords themselves are then stored securely in the user's Google account, which is one of the reasons it's so important to keep the Google password secure. On both desktop and mobile devices, Chrome can already warn users if their saved login details for a particular site is known to have been ... (view more)

Two separate reports point to a spike in zero-day bugs . That's when would-be attackers trying to exploit a bug have a head-start over developers who are trying to fix and patch it. When software developers discover a security vulnerability (or are ... told about it by responsible researchers), they are in a race against time to find and roll out a fix before attackers discover it and start trying to take advantage. Often they'll only have a matter of days. A zero-day bug is defined as one whose existence is (or was) discovered by hackers before it is known to the software developers. That means ... (view more)

A new variant of Android malware quite literally hides its activities. 'Octo' darkens the screen so that users can't see it stealing data. Researchers at Threat Fabric say the malware takes advantage of a built-in Android feature called ... "STREAM_SCREEN". It's not quite a live feed, but remotely transmits around one screenshot a second. (Source: threatfabric.com ) The scammers then misuse an accessibility feature in Android to remotely control the device. The stream screening lets them see what they are doing, despite not having physical access. Black Screen Disguise The sneakiest ... (view more)

Google has issued a third zero-day bug warning for Chrome this year. While the browser will auto-update, it's a reminder not to leave it open indefinitely. In short, a zero-day bug refers to the time developers discovered the problem and were able ... to roll out a fix. Ideally, they'll have a head start and can either get the patch in place before would-be attackers even start working on exploiting it. In this case, however, attackers not only know about the bug but are already taking advantage before developers can roll out a fix. Memory Compromised This particular bug is described as a "type ... (view more)

Microsoft is releasing a major security update to Windows 11 that could theoretically block malicious applications completely. It's such a fundamental change in the operating system that it will require a reset and clean installation of Windows. At ... the moment, most of the built-in security on Windows uses two main approaches. One is to scan any files or links the user wants to open or download, then alerts the user if they match any know threats. This is referred to as file and link scanning. The other is to scan files on the hard drive to look for anything suspicious. This is usually done in ... (view more)