surveillance

Pierluigi Paganini May 02, 2017
NSA announces it will stop surveillance activities on emails, texts and other internet communications

NSA announces a change in its surveillance activities, it will no longer spy on citizens’ emails, texts, and other Internet communications. It is official, the US NSA announced it will no longer spy on emails, texts and other internet communications that mention targets of surveillance.The NSA issued the official statement last week, announcing a historical change of tactic […]

Pierluigi Paganini April 17, 2017
Microsoft biannual transparency report – US foreign intelligence surveillance requests more than doubled

Microsoft published the biannual transparency report – The number of US foreign intelligence surveillance requests more than doubled. Microsoft shared data included in the biannual transparency report, the IT giant received more than double what the company said it received under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the preceding six months. Microsoft Corp announced […]

Pierluigi Paganini April 13, 2017
CVE-2017-0199 Zero Day exploit used to deliver FINSPY spyware

Security researchers at FireEye discovered that the Microsoft Word CVE-2017-0199 exploit was linked to cyberspying in Ukraine conflict. The zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Office that was recently fixed by Microsoft was used to deliver a surveillance malware to Russian-speaking targets. Security experts from firm FireEye spotted the targeted attacks leveraging specifically crafted Microsoft Word documents that […]

Pierluigi Paganini April 13, 2017
Hackers can steal PINs and Passwords capturing data from smartphone sensors

A group of researchers has demonstrated that attackers can steal PINs and Passwords capturing data from smartphone sensors. Modern mobile devices are full of sensors (i.e. GPS, Camera, microphone, accelerometer, magnetometer, proximity, gyroscope, pedometer, and NFC) that could be exploited by hackers to gather data about owner’s activities? A group of researchers from Newcastle University demonstrated that […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 17, 2017
Who is spying on communications in the Washington area? A rogue state is suspected of mass surveillance

US authorities uncovered a surveillance activity allegedly powered by a rogue entity that is tracking phones of Government officials and foreign diplomats. Something very strange has happened in the Washington, D.C., region, experts noticed an unusual amount of highly suspicious cellphone activity. The fear is that a rogue actor is attempting to spy on communications of numerous individuals, […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 14, 2017
Facebook and Instagram will not allow developers from scanning social media profiles for surveillance

Facebook company and Instagram will not allow developers scanning their social media profiles for surveillance activities. Facebook and it app Instagram have updated the terms and conditions to prevent developers from scanning social media profiles for surveillance activities. A report recently published revealed the US Department of Homeland Security used software to scan social media […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 12, 2017
Flaws in MAC address randomization implemented by vendors allow mobile tracking

Researchers devised a new attack method that can be leveraged to track mobile devices that rely on MAC address randomization mechanism. The MAC address is a unique and an hardcoded identifier assigned to a device’s network interface. This characteristic makes it an excellent tool for the tracking of the devices. A group of researchers from the U.S. Naval […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 08, 2017
Wikileaks CIA Files – What this means for Internet security and encryption

Earlier today, Wikileaks dumped a large database of secret documents from the CIA in a released dubbed Vault7. Here we do a deeper analysis of the leak and the broader implications on online security and encrypted services. Our in-depth analysis of the leaked CIA files is found at the bottom of this post. First, we […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 02, 2017
Tor webmail provider Sigaint is unavailable at least since February 11

Dark net webmail provider For the third consecutive week, the popular Tor web email service SIGAINT is unavailable and the real cause is a mystery. SIGAINT is one of the largest web email services on the TOR network that is used to send messages preserving the user’s anonymity. For the third consecutive week, the popular email service is unavailable […]

Pierluigi Paganini February 27, 2017
Prisons and Courts Bill allows mobile networks to deploy IMSI catchers outside of prisons

The new UK Prisons and Courts Bill will let mobile networks to deploy IMSI catchers outside of prisons to snoop on mobile phone users. The Prisons and Courts Bill, introduced to Parliament last week, will let mobile networks to deploy IMSI catchers outside of prisons to snoop on mobile phone users. The IMSI catchers are surveillance equipment […]