Security, Spoken

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Intel Chip Flaws Leave Millions of Devices Exposed Nov 24, 2017

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Security researchers have raised the alarm for years about the Intel remote administration feature known as the Management Engine. The platform has a lot of useful features for IT managers, but it requires deep system access that offers a tempting target for attackers; compromising the Management Engine could lead to full control of a given computer. Now, after several research groups have uncovered ME bugs, Intel has confirmed that those worst-case fears may be possible.

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The Robocall Nightmare Is Only Getting Worse—But Help Is Here Nov 23, 2017

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You probably get robocalls all the time. Some pretend to be from the IRS, others come from a phone number very similar to yours. And then there's the rash of free airline tickets/problem with your credit card/complete this short survey intrusions. If it feels like they're cropping up more than ever, you're right. The blocking service YouMail estimates that 2.49 billion robocalls were placed to US consumers last month, marking a 4.1 percent increase over September. This translates to 80.

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The ‘Vapor Wake’ Dogs That Protect the Thanksgiving Day Parade Nov 23, 2017

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As many as a million spectators turn out for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Another 200,000 show up the night before to watch the enormous balloons inflate. Keeping New York City safe on an ordinary day is challenging enough; locking down a massive parade route is all the more so. But the New York Police Department has recently deployed a new secret weapon to counter body-worn bombs: A team of Labrador retrievers who have graduated from patent-pending "Vapor Wake" security training.

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Hack Brief: Uber Paid Off Hackers to Hide a 57-Million User Data Breach Nov 22, 2017

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By now, the name Uber has become practically synonymous with scandal. But this time the company has outdone itself, building a Jenga-style tower of scandals on top of scandals that has only now come crashing down. Not only did the ridesharing service lose control of 57 million people's private information, it also hid that massive breach for more than a year, a cover-up that potentially defied data breach disclosure laws.

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Security News This Week: The Pentagon Left Data Exposed in the Cloud Nov 22, 2017

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Well, it’s been a wild and wooly week for security, especially for Face ID, which a group of hackers at a Vietnamese security firm convincingly claim to have broken just a week after the iPhone X release. They’re joined by a 10-year-old boy, who managed to break into his mother’s iPhone X thanks to a little trick known as genetics.

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Feds Indict Iranian for HBO Hack—But Good Luck Arresting Him Nov 22, 2017

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Four months ago, HBO faced a punishing series of leaks of unreleased episodes, scripts, and even celebrities' contact information. On Tuesday, the Department of Justice named the alleged culprit behind that extortion campaign: An Iranian hacker named Behzad Mesri. By indicting Mesri, prosecutors have sent a message that even anonymous cybercriminals in countries as distant as Iran can be tracked down and unmasked.

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Everything Attorney General Jeff Sessions Has Forgotten Under Oath Nov 21, 2017

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We get it. Presidential campaigns are a blur. One day you're kissing babies in an Iowa cornfield, the next you're working the spin room at a Las Vegas debate. Who among us can remember every hand shaken, every appointment kept, every 30-year-old underling plotting a backroom conversation with Vladimir Putin to acquire dirt on a political opponent? Certainly not Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

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WikiLeaks Hitting Up Donald Trump Jr. Shouldn't Surprise You Nov 20, 2017

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WikiLeaks has been sliding into Donald Trump Jr.’s DMs. The mostly one-sided conversation, surfaced by The Atlantic, lasted at least from September 2016 to July 2017. Throughout that stretch, WikiLeaks sent Donald Trump Jr. direct messages through Twitter, asking him for his father's tax returns, suggesting Trump Senior reject election results if Hillary Clinton won, and even oh-so-casually floating the idea that Julian Assange might make a good Australian ambassador. Trump Jr.

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He Perfected a Password-Hacking Tool—Then the Russians Came Calling Nov 17, 2017

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Five years ago, Benjamin Delpy walked into his room at the President Hotel in Moscow, and found a man dressed in a dark suit with his hands on Delpy's laptop. Just a few minutes earlier, the then 25-year-old French programmer had made a quick trip to the front desk to complain about the room's internet connection. He had arrived two days ahead of a talk he was scheduled to give at a nearby security conference and found that there was no Wi-Fi, and the ethernet jack wasn't working.

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The Pentagon Opened Up to Hackers—And Fixed Thousands of Bugs Nov 16, 2017

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The United States government doesn't get along with hackers. That's just how it is. Hacking protected systems, even to reveal their weaknesses, is illegal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the Department of Justice has repeatedly made it clear that it will enforce the law. In the last 18 months, though, a new Department of Defense project called "Hack the Pentagon" has offered real glimmers of hope that these prejudices could change.

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