“Super Bowl Security: Inside secret, first-of-its-kind command center.”
http://deadspin.com/cbs-broadcasts-wi-fi-password-for-secret-super-bowl-sec-1514436573/@lukeplunkett
“Since the first story about how a secret court order gave the government access to millions of Verizon phone records, we’ve learned about many other overreaches by the federal government, including a government program that gains access to private information on popular services like Facebook, a tool the NSA can use to wiretap virtually anyone in the world, widespread spying on friendly foreign countries and even that the NSA has been infiltrating the online gaming world with forays into World of Warcraft. Here’s a roundup of some of the most unnerving stories about the NSA, starting before the Snowden revelations.”
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/guide-leaks-exposing-nsas-perversion-privacy?paging=off
“Google, Facebook, and Microsoft were among the technology companies to release new figures Monday showing a rising number of requests for their users’ data coming from a secretive U.S. surveillance court. Depending on the company, the content might include private messages, documents, photos or videos. By releasing the new numbers, the companies hope to become more transparent about the government data requests they receive tied to national security. ‘Publishing these numbers is a step in the right direction,’ said Richard Salgado, Google’s legal director for law enforcement and information security, in a blog post breaking out the figures.”
“Stuxnet was reportedly created by the U.S. and Israel. There are no signs that Mask was created by the same group. Kaspersky instead found evidence that the attackers may be native Spanish speakers. Raiu said it’s the first APT malware they’ve seen with Spanish language snippets; usually, it’s Chinese. Kaspersky believes the espionage operation belongs to a nation state because of its sophistication and because of an exploit the attackers used that the Kaspersky researchers believe may have been sold to the attackers by Vupen, a company in France that sells zero-day exploits to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/02/mask/
“This week a Texas grand jury declined to indict a marijuana grower for shooting and killing a sheriff’s deputy who burst into his home in the early morning to execute a search warrant. Henry Goedrich Magee, who was indicted on drug and weapon charges (the latter only because he was growing marijuana), said he believed Burleson County Sgt. Adam Sowders was a burglar. ‘This was a terrible tragedy that a deputy sheriff was killed, but Hank Magee believed that he and his pregnant girlfriend were being robbed,’ Magee’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, told A.P. ‘He did what a lot of people would have done. He defended himself and his girlfriend and his home.'”
http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/07/texas-grand-jury-declines-to-indict-pot
“If you’ve ever lost access to your PayPal holdings through no fault of your own — say, following a shady money transfer — you may be tempted to enjoy a little schadenfreude today. PayPal president David Marcus reports that someone used a skimming device to clone his credit card while he was in the UK, letting the perpetrator make a “ton” of fraudulent purchases. It’s virtually the embodiment of karmic payback, isn’t it? In fairness, the executive is right when he notes that the incident wouldn’t have happened if the merchant accepted PayPal; the company would have masked the card number and rendered the skimmer useless.”
http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/10/paypal-presidents-credit-card-gets-hacked/
“As many as 27,000 customer files containing personal and financial information were taken, the Mail on Sunday reported yesterday, citing an unidentified whistle-blower. It’s unclear how the files were stolen, the newspaper said, adding data was sold to brokers to be used for ‘investment scams.’ The information included details on income, savings, mortgages, health issues, insurance policies and passport and national insurance numbers, the Mail on Sunday said. The newspaper said the whistle-blower provided a memory stick containing files on 2,000 customers and had told it that each of the 27,000 files could be sold for as much as 50 pounds ($82).”
“Both MasterCard and Visa have outlined a planned shift to the new EMV system and set a October 2015 deadline to begin using the system, The Wall Street Journal reports. Under the EMV system consumers will use a smartcard embedded with microchip and provide their PIN to complete a transaction. The chips make reproducing a card difficult for criminals. Even if the credit card information is gathered, without the chip the card is useless. Another significant piece of the new system is creating a shift of liability. If a merchant is using the old swipe-and-sign system they are liable for the fraudulent charges if the customer has a chip card.”
http://consumerist.com/2014/02/07/visa-mastercard-to-end-swipe-and-sign-by-2015/
“In a few hours on December 15th, Jeff lost nearly $10,000. It’s part of a string of Bitcoin thefts that have hit the service in recent weeks. The Verge has confirmed two other Coinbase users with stories similar to Jeff’s, one taken for $16,000 and another for $5,000. In the first case, the victim was using two-factor authentication and received a refund; in the second, two-factor hadn’t been enabled and the refund was denied, on grounds that the user hadn’t properly set up the account’s security measures. Several other as-yet-unverified reports have also been posted on the Coinbase subreddit.”
“If you’re traveling overseas, across borders or anywhere you’re afraid your laptop or other equipment might be tampered with or examined, you’ve got a new secret weapon to improve security. Glitter nail polish. Don’t laugh. It works. Security researchers Eric Michaud and Ryan Lackey, making a presentation at the Chaos Communication Congress on Monday, highlighted the power of nail polish – along with metallic paints and even crappy stickers – to help people know when their machines have been physically tampered with and potentially compromised.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/12/better-data-security-nail-polish/