Blog Profile / The Firewall
| URL : | http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Technology / Security | |
| Posts on Regator: | 410 | |
| Posts / Week: | 3.5 | |
| Archived Since: | February 24, 2011 | |
Blog Post Archive
An Excerpt From ‘This Machine Kills Secrets’: The Education Of Julian Assange
The following is an excerpt from This Machine Kills Secrets, my new book on the history and future of anonymous information leaks. In this passage I introduce, the man would revolutionize the act of leaking information, at a less visible moment in his life: Between his career as a fugitive hacker and his rise [...]
Twitter Hires Elite Apple Hacker Charlie Miller To Beef Up Its Security Team
In Twitter’s early days, hackers enjoyed breaking into the company’s accounts to embarrass news anchors or make obscene jokes about Britney Spears’ nether regions. Lately, it seems like world-class hackers are less interested in attacking Twitter, and more interested in working there. The latest hacker to join Twitter: Charlie Miller, one of the world’s most [...]
Why I Wrote ‘This Machine Kills Secrets,’ A Book That Charts The History And Future Of Anonymous Information Leaks (Video)
Two years ago, Forbes published my interview with along with a cover story I wrote on WikiLeaks and the new reality it represents, where data can be anonymously leaked from any institution on a massive scale. Since then, I’ve been working to trace the history and future of this idea of high volume, untraceable data [...]
WikiLeaks Lamest Claim Ever: Benghazi Embassy Violence Linked To UK Threat To Arrest Assange
If WikiLeaks’ goal is to offend every last supporter it might have retained after nearly six years of constant controversy, its Twitter feed has just pulled a master stroke. On Thursday, the secret-spilling group wrote in its Twitter feed that the attack on an American embassy that killed four State Department staffers in the Libyan [...]
Anonymous Hackers Didn’t Steal Your Apple ID From The FBI–Thanks To Apple, They Didn’t Need To
Last week, the hacker group Anonymous set off a storm of outrage–its favorite recreational activity–when it claimed that it had stolen 12 million device identifiers from an FBI laptop. But the truth, it now turns out, was disturbing in a different way: the massive collection of users’ data came instead from one of the hundreds [...]
Google Snaps Up Malware Scanning Firm VirusTotal To Boost Its Web Security Push
wants to be the antivirus scanner for the entire Web. And the tools it can’t build for that mission, it’s willing to buy. On Friday it announced it’s acquiring Web-based security firm VirusTotal, a small Web-based security firm that allows anyone to scan files and website URLs for malware, running them through dozens of different [...]
Welcome To ToorCamp: Summer Camp For Supergeeks
Hacker utopia at ToorCamp, a vacation where
you can sharpen your code-breaking
skills?and get an RFID chip implant.
Beware Fake Microsoft And Amazon Emails Exploiting Java Security Vulnerability
When leaves a security flaw in one of the world’s most widely used programs unpatched for four months and then issues a half-baked fix, the company is practically inviting cybercriminals to exploit its users en mass. Now that invitation has been accepted. Over the weekend, researchers at the SANS’ Institute’s Internet Storm Center and security [...]
Anonymous Hackers Claim To Release One Million Apple Devices’ Unique Identifiers Stolen From FBI
Anonymous has a way of releasing massive collections of information that raise many more questions than they answer. Case in point: On Monday night, the segment of the hacker group that calls itself Antisec announced that it had dumped 1,000,001 unique device identifier numbers or UDIDs for devices–the fingerprints that, apps and ad networks [...]
Oracle’s Java Security Woes Mount As Researchers Spot A Bug In Its Critical Bug Fix
Another day, another embarrassment for the security team at Oracle responsible for safeguarding one of the most widely used pieces of software on the planet. Researchers at the Polish security firm Security Explorations say they’ve found yet another bug in Java–this time in the patch intended to fix a set of security issues in the [...]
Oracle Quietly Releases Fix For Serious Java Security Bug–Months After It Was Reported
just scored points with the security community for rushing out an early patch for a critical security flaw in Java that was already being widely exploited by the cybercriminal underground. But given that the company pushed the fix only months after the bug was initially reported, ‘s definition of “early” leaves something to be desired. [...]
Videos Show Hackers Refining Hotel Lock Trick That Opens Millions Of Rooms
When lock maker Onity first responded last month to news that a hacker’s exploit could open millions of its keycard locks installed on hotel room doors around the world, it downplayed the attack on its hardware as “unreliable, and complex to implement.” It seems the hacker community took that statement as a challenge. In videos [...]
Disable Java In Your Browser To Avoid A Nasty New Malware-Spreading Attack
With a new attack that targets a security vulnerability in ‘s Java spreading through the hacker underground and no available fix in sight, it may be time for users to deal with the plugin’s bug themselves–by unplugging it. Over the weekend, security firm FireEye spotted a new attack that exploits a vulnerability in Java to [...]
Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian Plans Bus Tour To Make Internet Freedom A 2012 Campaign Issue
In his push for Internet freedom, Reddit co-founder and angel investor Alexis Ohanian has tried a strike, a boycott, and even a bat-signal. But as the 2012 campaign ramps up, he’s planning a more traditional political move: a bus tour. On Thursday, Ohanian launched a project on fundraising site Indiegogo to raise $40,000 with the [...]
‘Wiki Weapon Project’ Aims To Create A Gun Anyone Can 3D-Print At Home
Cody Wilson has a simple dream: To design the world’s first firearm that can be downloaded from the Internet and built from scratch using only a 3D printer–and then to share it with the world. Earlier this month, Wilson and a small group of friends who call themselves “Defense Distributed” launched an initiative they’ve dubbed [...]
Documents Show U.S. Customs Tracks Millions Of License Plates, Shares Data With Insurance Firms
It may come as little surprise that every time you cross the border, cameras record your license plate number and feed it into a database of driver locations. More disturbing, perhaps, is the fact that the government seems to share that automobile surveillance data with an unexpected third party: insurance companies. Documents obtained through a [...]
Hotel Lock Security Fix Requires Hardware Changes For Millions Of Locks
Good news for the security of hotels and travelers: Onity, whose keycard locks can be found on at least four million rooms around the world, has a plan to fix a security flaw that could allow hackers to insert a homemade device into its keycard locks and open them in seconds. The bad news: the [...]
‘Mind-Control’ Gaming Devices Leak Brain Data That Help Researchers Guess Users’ Secrets
The budding field of brain-machine interfaces promises a science-fictional future where games, computer operating systems, and prosthetics can be controlled with thought alone. But a new study shows that connecting minds to machines could let sensitive private information leak out along with those mental commands. At the Usenix security conference in last week, a group [...]
As Ecuador Grants Assange Asylum, Former UK Ambassador Says Embassy Raid Is Coming
As Ecuador puts its weight behind protecting, tension is building in the tug-of-war between the small South American country and the United Kingdom over the WikiLeaks founder’s fate. And according to one former UK ambassador, it might be about to reach a breaking point. Hours before Ecuador’s announcement that it would grant asylum to [...]
Google Doubles Down On Rewards For Bug Reports With $2 Million In Hacking Prizes
If hadn’t made the message clear enough already: It really, really wants you to hack its software. On Wednesday the company announced that it’s holding another competition for hackers to target its Chrome browser, following the Pwnium competition it held in Vancouver in March, where it offered a total of $1 million in hacking prizes. [...]