Staples confirmed in October that it was investigating a possible cyber attack on its retail stores in the United States. The news followed major attacks on other U.S. businesses including Home Depot, Neiman Marcus and Target, among others. Now, Staples has confirmed that at estimated 1.16 million credit cards may have been affected during several attacks that occurred this summer and...
Google, Apple and a handful of tech giants joined together earlier this week to support the USA Freedom Act, a bill up for review in the U.S. Senate meant to curb NSA surveillance. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to save the bill, which failed to gain enough favorable votes on Tuesday, MSNBC reports. The bill managed to win the majority of votes at 58-42, but failed to grab the 60...
The Justice Department feels mobile encryption is getting so good that it could lead to tragedy. According to The Wall Street Journal, government officials apparently fear that new technology could make it impossible for law enforcement to look through phones—messages, photos, appointments, etc.—ultimately making their job more difficult. In fact, the Justice Department went so far as...
Several leading technology companies have already rallied against government surveillance and the NSA’s overreach, but today some of the biggest U.S. firms are joining together to support a new bill that may better protect consumer data from government prying. The Reform Government Surveillance group includes Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, AOL and others. The bill...
You know that airplane flying overhead? The Wall Street Journal reports it might be equipped with a fake communications tower designed to eavesdrop on your phone conversations. Deployed by the Justice Department, the secretive project is meant to be a "high-tech hunt for criminal suspects," though the mobile towers are apparently collecting data from thousands of innocent U.S. citizens...
Home Depot confirmed in September that its payment systems were breached by hackers, but those hackers walked away with more than just payment data. The company recently revealed the findings of an internal research report, which also included third-party IT experts, and said that the hackers also gained access to more than 53 million personal e-mail accounts that were stolen during the...
The FBI and other government agencies are already up-in-arms following the introduction of increased mobile security measures in iOS 8 and Android 5.0 Lollipop. However, the government may have another way to force users to turn over mobile data: through fingerprint readers. A court in Virginia recently ruled that, while an end-user cannot be forced to enter a password or passcode to...
Google already offers two-step verification for all your online accounts, but for some people that still might not be enough security. Now the search giant is introducing an even stronger way to protect your online profile with a physical security key that comes in USB form. Security Key is a new feature designed to work specifically with Google websites. Once set up you’ll be able to...
Staples may have been the latest victim in a series of cyber attacks on American retailers. Target was the center of a major breach last year, as was Neiman Marcus, and Home Depot made headlines last month when 56 million payment cards were compromised. Staples so far haven't confirmed whether or not such an attack took place, but the company admitted that it's digging into its systems...
Apple, Google and other firms are stepping up security measures to regain public trust following in the wake of news from Edward Snowden that the NSA and other government agencies may have been using backdoors to access data from tech companies. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said that the security in iOS 8 makes it almost impossible for Cupertino to pass information over to the feds, and...