Legislating encryption standards might “do more harm than good” in the fight against terrorism, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said on Thursday. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., lawmakers have been debating whether to move a bill that would force U.S. companies to decrypt data ...
The U.S. is playing “catchup” with terrorists and cyber vigilantes who coordinate via encrypted communications, according to the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "Today’s digital battlefield has many more adversaries that just nation states,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said in a Tuesday column for Bloomberg. “Terrorist groups such as ISIS [the Islamic State in ...
When the NSA subcontractor Edward Snowden released classified documents in June 2013 baring the U.S. intelligence community’s global surveillance programs, it revealed the lax attention to privacy and data security at major Internet companies like Apple, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Warrantless surveillance was possible because data was unencrypted as it flowed between internal company data ...
US politicians have been urging tech companies to weaken the security of smartphones and other products by inserting encryption backdoors that let the government access personal data. Numerous tech companies—including Apple—have come out strongly against the idea, saying that encryption backdoors would expose the personal data of ordinary consumers, not just terrorists. But tech company ...
The 2016 Cisco Security Report highlighted the duality of cybersecurity and described a number of issues, including encryption security and dwell time as a constant struggle between threat actors looking for more effective and efficient attack techniques and security providers responding to those changes. One of the statistics in the report that could have been ...
A protocol designed and promoted by the British government for encrypting voice calls has a by-design weakness built into it that could allow for mass surveillance, according to a University College London researcher. Steven Murdoch, who works in the university's Information Security Research Group, analyzed a protocol developed by CESG, which is part of the ...
During last night’s democratic debate we were once again inundated with calls from politicians who sought compromise from Silicon Valley in its on-going battle with terrorism. Encryption was the point of contention. The candidates echoed previous statements regarding the dangerous world we live in. The reason for danger, or so it goes, is the inability ...
Have you heard the one about the Mexican drug kingpin, the eccentric movie star and the Ugly Duckling smartphone that's all of a sudden the talk of the tech town for all the wrong reasons? No? Me neither, but recent reports about the role Sean Penn and BlackBerry phones allegedly played in the capture of ...
As expected, Apple CEO Tim Cook urged White House and government officials to come to terms with strong encryption practices that protect consumer data, at one point saying such intentions should be stated publicly. Cook's plea came during a cybersecurity summit held in San Jose, Calif., last week, where government officials met with Silicon Valley ...
WASHINGTON — Growing concern about terrorists' use of encrypted communication is spurring Congress to act, but the first major piece of legislation is taking a cautious approach as lawmakers grapple with how to spy on suspected criminals without weakening cybersecurity and privacy. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., ...
