Tag Archives: Security

Tangible Cryptography Raises $600k to Launch Bitcoin Sales Portal

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“Tangible Cryptography Inc., announces the completion of a $600,000 seed round investment, funded completely in the virtual currency Bitcoin. The funding will allow the company to launch a new Bitcoin sales portal, BitSimple.  BitSimple provides a simple, fast, and secure alternative to large traditional Bitcoin exchanges. It is the first direct broker to enable the purchase and sale of Bitcoins directly from any digital wallet. That is a good thing as large exchanges continue to be targets for hackers and other cyber criminals. One report finds that almost half of all Bitcoin exchanges have failed due to hacks or internal theft. When Bitcoin exchanges fail, account holders are often wiped out.”

http://www.i-newswire.com/tangible-cryptography-raises-600k/258281

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Angry Birds, ‘leaky’ phone apps targeted for user data by NSA, GCHQ

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“The National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have been developing capabilities to take advantage of ‘leaky’ smartphone apps, such as the wildly popular Angry Birds game, that transmit users’ private information across the internet, according to top secret documents.  Many smartphone owners will be unaware of the full extent this information is being shared across the internet, and even the most sophisticated would be unlikely to realise that all of it is available for the spy agencies to collect.  Dozens of classified documents detail the NSA and GCHQ efforts to piggyback on this commercial data collection for their own purposes.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/nsa-gchq-smartphone-app-angry-birds-personal-data

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Scottish company Maidsafe claims to have built a Bitcloud-like system

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“Last week’s announcement of Bitcloud, a theoretical peer-to-peer network project that bypasses centralised servers and uses individual devices as secure nodes for routing and distributing network traffic captured significant media attention.  A Scottish company, MaidSafe, claims that it has nearly finished building a system that does what Bitcloud is proposing. You can imagine our scepticism when a company we’ve never heard of, in the tiny town of Troon, told me it had solved one of the most compelling problems on the internet.  Here’s what I have translated from the team of exuberant programmers who have been deep in code, deep in Scotland, for the past eight years.”

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-01/27/maidsafe-bitcloud

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Crypto Stamp, Secure Timestamping Using Bitcoin

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“Explanation video of a simple, free, secure timestamping service which utilizes Bitcoin. The service is provided at cryptostamp.net.”

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Michaels retailer probing possible customer data breach

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“Michaels Stores says it is investigating a possible company data security breach that may have affected its customers’ payment card information.  The Irving, Tex.-based company said Saturday that it launched the probe after learning of possible fraudulent activity on some U.S. payment cards used at the home decor and crafts retailer.  CEO Chuck Rubin suggests Michaels customers take steps to protect themselves, such as reviewing their account statements for unauthorized charges. Michaels has more than 1,250 locations in the United States.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/01/25/michaels-retailer-credit-card-breach-reported/4895123/

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Why Using Bitcoin Could Make a Target-Style Data Breach Obsolete

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“Bitcoin is actually much more like cash than most other forms of payment.  Each transaction only contains an address (a unique string of characters) for the sender, an address for the recipient, and the amount of Bitcoin being transferred between them. The address can only successfully send Bitcoin if it has access to the private key associated with a person’s Bitcoin wallet. This private key is never sent as part of the transaction, however.  But just as importantly, using Bitcoin instead of a credit card also means that no personal data is transmitted or stored. That leaves potential data thieves empty-handed save for the Bitcoin addresses, which are useless without the private keys.”

http://moneymorning.com/2014/01/17/using-bitcoin-make-target-style-data-breach-obsolete/

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FBI warns retailers: more breaches are coming

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“A report to sent out to retailers last week says that there were a total of 20 hacking cases in the past year, and they that involved the same kind of software that was used to hit Target.  The FBI is explicitly warning that it will almost certainly happen again. ‘We believe POS malware crime will continue to grow over the near term, despite law enforcement and security firms’ actions to mitigate it,’ the FBI said in the report.  ‘The accessibility of the malware on underground forums, the affordability of the software and the huge potential profits to be made from retail POS systems in the United States make this type of financially motivated cyber crime attractive to a wide range of actors.'”

http://vator.tv/news/2014-01-24-fbi-warns-retailers-more-breaches-are-coming

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Neiman Marcus hack hit 1.1 million customers

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“About 1.1 million customers were impacted by a breach of luxury retailer Neiman Marcus’ payment systems that lasted more thanthree months, the company said.  Malicious software scooped up customer credit and debit card information between July 16 and Oct. 30 of last year, Neiman Marcus Group President and CEO Karen Katz said in a message on the retailer’s website.  Visa (V, Fortune 500), MasterCard (MA, Fortune 500) and Discover (DFS, Fortune 500) reported 2,400 cards were then used fraudulently, Katz said.  The software — described as ‘sophisticated, self-concealing malware, capable of fraudulently obtaining payment card information’ — has since been disabled.”

http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/23/news/companies/neiman-marcus-hack/index.html

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Police Whistle-blower Justin Hanners: Founding Member of Liberty.me

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“Former Police Officer Justin Hanners has written a guide to practical ways for dealing with the police who are more concerned with generating revenue or meeting quotas than with protecting people and property. Hanners was an officer for 6 years before being discharged for exposing corruption and illegal quotas within his department. He has been featured on Reason TV, John Stossel, Ron Paul Channel, Fox & Friends, Russia Today, and many other news outlets.”

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Chrome hack lets websites keep listening after you close the tab

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“Toying around with voice-recognition apps, developer Tal Ater noticed something strange. Because of a quirk in Chrome’s microphone settings, any site enabled for voice-recognition could use a pop-up window to keep recording almost indefinitely, hidden in the background. In Ater’s demonstration, he closes the tab and continues talking, only to reveal a pop-up behind the main Chrome window, transcribing everything he says. The core of the problem is Chrome’smicrophone permissions policy. Once you’ve given an HTTPS-enabled site permission to use your microphone in Chrome, every instance of the site has permission, even windows that pop up unnoticed in the background.”

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/21/5332316/chrome-exploit-lets-websites-keep-listening-after-you-close-the-tab

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