Major U.S. Hotels Hit by Payment Card Breach HEI Hotels & Resorts is warning guests who stayed at some of its properties that they might have had their payment card data stolen while making purchases at onsite restaurants, gift shops and spas. The security breach affected 20 properties, including some Marriott, Starwood, Sheraton and Westin hotels, at various times between March 1, 2015 and June 21, 2016 […]
Humans have evolved a disproportionately large brain as a result of sizing each other up in large cooperative social groups, researchers have proposed. A team led by computer scientists at Cardiff University suggest that the challenge of judging a person’s relative standing and deciding whether or not to cooperate with them has promoted the rapid expansion of human brain size over the last 2 million years. In […]
Normally, individual molecules of genetic material repel each other. However, when space is limited DNA molecules must be packed together more tightly. This case arises in sperm, cell nuclei and the protein shells of viruses. An international team of physicists has now succeeded in artificially recreating this so-called DNA condensation on a biochip. Recreating important biological processes in cells to better understand them currently is a major […]
The newest smartphones in Samsung’s Galaxy line come with contactless mobile payment capability. That’s good news when it comes to convenience, but it might be bad news when it comes to security. During a presentation given recently at the Def Con security conference in Las Vegas, a computer science student demonstrated a variety of attacks against Samsung Pay, Samsung’s mobile payment service. The attacks Mendoza described were […]
A reported data breach affecting retailers using Oracle’s Micros point-of-sale systems could be linked to a Russian hacking group that stole up to $1 billion from banks in 2014. The attack on Oracle’s computer systems and Micros customer portal first came to light on July 25, according to IT security writer Brian Krebs. That’s when a Micros customer contacted the KrebsOnSecurity blog to report “a potentially large […]
Recently uncovered security flaws could mean trouble for owners of devices that run the Android operating system. Researchers at security firm Check Point recently discovered the vulnerabilities, together labeled Quadrooter, which may affect as many as 900 million Android devices. Speaking about the discoveries last week at the Def Con security conference in Las Vegas, Adam Donenfeld, Check Point’s lead mobile security researcher, revealed four new privilege […]
Software security firm Symantec has identified a group called Strider that’s aiming spying-related malware at individuals and organizations in Belgium, China, Russia and Sweden. Apparently active since at least late 2011, Strider has kept a low profile and could be a nation-state attacker, Symantec said. Strider uses “stealthy,” hard-to-detect malware called Remsec that provides backdoor access to infected computers for stealing data, logging keystrokes and other actions, […]
Quantum computing remains mysterious and elusive to many, but USC Viterbi School of Engineering researchers might have taken us one step closer to bring such super-powered devices to practical reality. The USC Viterbi School of Engineering and Information Sciences Institute is home to the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center (QCC), a super-cooled, magnetically shielded facility specially built to house the first commercially available quantum optimization processors — […]
Nobody likes managing passwords — remembering, maintaining and regularly changing them is a chore that most computer users avoid. Now, Canadian software developer AgileBits is aiming to make that chore easier — or at least cheaper. AgileBits’ 1Password password manager now has a new subscription plan for individuals. AgileBits’ family and team password management platforms have been successful, so now it has introduced a service that’s aimed […]
Today, Facebook officially took the wraps off what co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the “biggest and most advanced hardware lab” in the company’s history. Designed for Facebook engineers and designers working on everything from improved data center equipment to virtual-reality cameras, the Area 404 lab covers 22,000 square feet, “the size of half a football field,” at the company’s offices in Menlo Park, Calif., Zuckerberg said. […]
A researcher at Arizona State University has discovered how to control multiple robotic drones using the human brain. A controller wears a skull cap outfitted with 128 electrodes wired to a computer. The device records electrical brain activity. If the controller moves a hand or thinks of something, certain areas light up. “I can see that activity from outside,” said Panagiotis Artemiadis (pictured above), director of the […]
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — For most of his adult life, Ahmed Qassim al-Ghamdi worked among the bearded enforcers of Saudi Arabia. He was a dedicated employee of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — known abroad as the religious police — serving with the front-line troops protecting the Islamic kingdom from Westernization, secularism and anything but the most conservative Islamic practices. […]
Typing PIN numbers and passwords into a smartwatch or similar wearable can leave you vulnerable to hackers, according to researchers from Binghamton University and the Stevens Institute of Technology. The researchers found that it’s possible for attackers to figure out secret access codes by tracking and measuring “fine-grained” hand movements used when inputting security information into wearable devices. In 5,000 key-entry tests for three different security systems […]
KEFLAVIK, Iceland Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers […]
A 3D-printed logo for Twitter is seen in this picture illustration made in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina on January 26, 2016. Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Twitter Inc is in talks with the NBA, Major League Soccer and Time Warner Inc’s cable network Turner Broadcasting to buy digital streaming rights for content related to major sports and events, Recode reported. This content could either be actual game footage or […]
Despite some setbacks with an earlier program aimed at getting more people online, Facebook is pushing ahead with a new effort to provide wireless Internet access to remote parts of the world: the OpenCellular wireless access platform. Designed to support a variety of connection options from 2G to LTE, the OpenCellular system will be open sourced so telecom operators and other organizations can more easily build locally […]
Enterprises that depend on Symantec’s antivirus products to protect their networks may want to rethink their strategies. According to Google’s Project Zero, Symantec’s flagship enterprise security product is riddled with vulnerabilities that could be putting millions of companies at risk. The bugs affect all Symantec and Norton branded antivirus products, the Google team said. “These vulnerabilities are as bad as it gets,” Google researcher Tavis Ormandy wrote […]
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military has canceled a contentious directive known as the Hannibal procedure, which calls for the use of maximum force to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers, even at the risk of harming them. A military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with army rules, said on Tuesday that the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, had given instructions several […]
UAE. Boardrooms’ awareness of cyber risks has been recently growing in Europe, Middle East and Africa, with cyber security ranking far up on the agendas of non-executive directors in the region, according to Deloitte’s recent report entitled “EMEA 360 Boardroom Survey: Agenda priorities across the region.” The report reveals that innovation is also gaining ground with 60% of respondents ranking it as a very important issue. These […]
Security experts regularly urge people to make their online accounts safer with two-factor authentication. Now Google has introduced new settings designed to make that easier for Google Apps administrators and users. By changing their Google sign-in and security settings, users can now opt for an alternative to the six-digit codes Google usually sends out to enable identity verification via mobile devices. Instead, Google Apps users can choose […]
A lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in California has alleged that Apple, Broadcom and Avago Technologies, a Broadcom subsidiary, have infringed on several Wi-Fi-related patents held by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Filed Thursday in the Central District of California, the complaint claimed that the companies are wrongfully using intellectual property protected by four U.S. patents awarded to Caltech between 2006 and 2012. […]
A Bitcoin (virtual currency) paper wallet with QR codes and a coin are seen in an illustration picture taken at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris, France, May 27, 2015. Reuters/Benoit Tessier/File Photo LONDON The price of the web-based digital currency bitcoin soared to its highest in almost two years on Tuesday, rising to more than $500 per unit, as worries about a further weakening of the […]
Through a computer-simulated study, astronomers at Lund University in Sweden show that it is highly likely that the so-called Planet 9 is an exoplanet. This would make it the first exoplanet to be discovered inside our own solar system. The theory is that our sun, in its youth some 4.5 billion years ago, stole Planet 9 from its original star. An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is by […]
The application icons of Facebook, Twitter and Google are displayed on an iPhone next to an earphone set in this illustration photo taken in Berlin, June 17, 2013. Reuters/Pawel Kopczynski/Files BRUSSELS – Facebook, Twitter, Google’s YouTube and Microsoft on Tuesday agreed to an EU code of conduct to tackle online hate speech within 24 hours in Europe. EU governments have been trying in recent months to get […]
