Sean Michael Kerner

The security of mobile applications used to help monitor industrial control system (ICS) technology is severely lacking, according to a 32-page report released Jan. 11 by security firms IOactive and Embedi. The researchers found 147 different security vulnerabilities spread across 34 ICS mobile applications that are used with supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems […]

There is a price to be paid for not properly securing technology that leads a privacy data breach.  On Jan. 8, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it settled with VTech Electronics over charges that it violated children’s privacy law and the FTC Act. VTech will pay a fine of $650,000 as part […]

Encrypted traffic doesn’t always mean secure traffic, but how can an organization understand what’s going on with encrypted traffic without decrypting the data? That’s the goal of Cisco’s Encrypted Traffic Analytics offering, which became generally available on Jan. 10. Cisco announced ETA as a preview technology in June 2017 as part of the company’s wider […]

Technologies That Secure the Home, WiFi and More Debut at CES 2018 The annual Consumer Electronics Show is the place to be to check out the latest in up-and-coming technology. And this year’s CES is no different, with the latest TVs, connected appliances and voice-enabled products on display at the 2018 event. But also finding […]

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich used the opening of his Consumer Electronics Show keynote in Las Vegas on Jan. 8 to publicly comment on the recently disclosed Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities that impact the majority of the world’s CPUs. Jan. 9 was originally intended to be the day that the Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws […]

As the value of cryptocurrency continues to rise, so too is interest from attackers and security researchers alike.   So far in 2018, multiple new attack vectors against cryptocurrencies have been disclosed, as well as at least one major vulnerability. While there are potentially great opportunities to be had with cryptocurrency, the security issues serve […]

Users of Western Digital’s My Cloud network-attached storage devices are being urged to update to the latest firmware version to protect themselves against a series of security issues, including a built-in backdoor vulnerability. On Jan. 4, security researcher James Bercegay at GulfTech Research and Development publicly disclosed the WD My Cloud vulnerability. According to Bercegay, […]

Opera 50 Web Browser Features Cryptocurrency Mining Protection Unauthorized browser-based cryptocurrency mining has become a big problem in recent months, and it is a problem the Opera browser is now taking on in its latest release. On Jan. 4, Opera 50 was released with an anti-cryptocurrency mining feature built into the freely available web browser. […]

The open-source WordPress content management system has grown significantly over the last eight years and along with that growth, one of its leading backers, WP Engine, has also grown. On Jan. 4, WP Engine announced it raised a new $250 million round of funding from Silver Lake Partners. Silver Lake is well-known in the private […]

Security firm Proofpoint on Jan. 4 warned of a new attack vector that could enable hackers to abuse Google Apps Script to exploit cloud users. Google Apps Script is a JavaScript-based language used across the G Suite of applications, including Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms. The purpose of the language is to help developers and […]

After a rollercoaster day of speculation on Jan. 3 about a severe Intel chip flaw, Google’s Project Zero research team revealed later that same day details about the CPU vulnerabilities. The CPU flaws have been branded as Meltdown and Spectre and have widespread impact across different silicon, operating system, browser and cloud vendors. The Meltdown […]

Operating system vendors are rushing to put out a fix for an alleged Intel chip flaw that could be used to exploit systems. Intel has not officially disclosed details on the flaw yet, though a patch already exists in the Linux kernel, with patches for Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS expected by Jan. 9. The […]