Security, Spoken

Latest Episodes:

Holes in 4G and 5G Networks Could Let Hackers Track Your Location Feb 27, 2019

Show notes

Over the past 18 months, revelations about wireless carriers selling smartphone location data to third parties have forced telecoms to promise reform. Worryingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, these user protections have been slow to actually materialize. Even if carriers shape up, though, an attacker can still track a smartphone's location and snoop on phone calls thanks to newly discovered flaws in 4G and even 5G protocols.

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Hackers Can Slip Invisible Malware into 'Bare Metal' Cloud Computers Feb 27, 2019

Show notes

The security world's paranoiacs have long cautioned that if a computer falls into a stranger's hands, it shouldn't be trusted again. Now one company's researchers have demonstrated how, in some cases, that maxim applies just as strongly to a class of machine that never touches your hands in the first place: cloud servers.

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7 Scenarios for How the Mueller Probe Might 'Wrap Up' Feb 26, 2019

Show notes

The breaking news hit a snowy Washington on Wednesday: Newly installed attorney general William Barr appears to be preparing to announce the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

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NATO Group Catfished Soldiers to Prove a Point About Privacy Feb 26, 2019

Show notes

The phony Facebook pages looked just like the real thing. They were designed to mimic pages that service members use to connect. One appeared to be geared toward a large-scale, military exercise in Europe and was populated by a handful of accounts that appeared to be real service members. In reality, both the pages and the accounts were created and operated by researchers at NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, a research group that's affiliated with NATO.

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Security News This Week: Google Forgot To Mention the Nest Secure's Hidden Mic Feb 25, 2019

Show notes

The Mueller investigation has lasted so long, it's easy to forget that it'll end at some point. In fact, according to recent reports, it may wrap up as early as next week. But what does that mean exactly? We took a look at seven distinct possibilities, from fizzle to fireworks. As though the border wall "national emergency" wasn't enough to worry about.

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The (Non-Trump) Surprise Inside Andrew McCabe's Memoir Feb 25, 2019

Show notes

If New Yorker writer George Packer hadn’t already taken the title, former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe’s new book might be best titled The Unwinding.

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A 'Smart Wall' Could Spark a New Kind of Border Crisis Feb 22, 2019

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After years of promises about a physical wall stretching along the United States-Mexico border, president Donald Trump declared a state of emergency last week in an attempt to secure wall funding in spite of Congressional opposition. But physical barriers alone have always been both ineffective and expensive.

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The Russian Sleuth Who Outs Moscow's Elite Hackers and Assassins Feb 22, 2019

Show notes

Ten years ago, Roman Dobrokhotov sat down in the front row of a Kremlin auditorium, surrounded by a polite audience of journalists and dignitaries attending a speech by Russia’s then-president Dmitri Medvedev. Medvedev was only a few minutes into his address on the importance of the country's constitution—which he had just amended to allow Vladimir Putin to serve as president again—when Dobrokhotov stood up, turned around, and addressed the audience himself.

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Android Users: Check This Facebook Location Privacy Setting ASAP Feb 21, 2019

Show notes

On Wednesday, Facebook introduced a new privacy setting for Android users. Previously, if you had Location History turned on, the app could track you in the background. In other words, even if you didn’t have the app open, it knew where you were. Now, you can stop it from doing so. And you should.

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Hacker Lexicon: What Is Credential Stuffing? Feb 20, 2019

Show notes

You may have noticed this happening more and more lately: Online accounts get taken over in droves, but the companies insist that their systems haven't been compromised. It's maddening, but in many cases, technically they're right. The real culprit is a hacker technique known as "credential stuffing." The strategy is pretty straightforward.

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