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Denial of service attacks against advocacy groups skyrocket In figures published Tuesday, the internet security firm Cloudflare said it blocked more than 135 billion malicious web requests against advocacy sites, compared to less than 30 million blocked requests against U.S. government websites, such as police and military organizations. The company did not disclose which websites were affected, specifically. “As we’ve often seen in the past, real world protest and violence is usually accompanied by attacks on the…

MIT’s AI-powered device lets doctors monitor coronavirus patients remotely A new device that uses AI to monitor coronavirus symptoms is helping doctors treat patients beyond the reach of infection. The box-like device emits wireless signals that bounce off human bodies before returning to the system. Algorithms then analyze changes in the signals to infer the person’s breathing rate, sleep patterns, and movements. The system, named Emerald, was developed at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).…

The US is formalizing Team Telecom rules to restrict foreign ownership of internet and telecom assets It has the simplest name, but the sort of shadowy overtones that national security writers lust after. Team Telecom, a mostly informal working committee of the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Justice (along with affiliated agencies) has for years been quietly tasked with evaluating and maintaining the security of America telecom infrastructure in concert with the FCC. Its…

1 - Developers Hack McDonald’s Reward System to Get Free Hamburgers A couple of German software developers discovered an oversight in McDonalds’ promotion systems that allowed them to get as many hamburgers as they wanted, without paying anything. While software vulnerabilities or loopholes are sometimes used for nefarious purposes, that’s not always the case. The same can be said of white hackers and software developers who want to make the online world a safer place.…

1 - Proof-of-concept exploits published for the Microsoft-NSA crypto bug Security researchers have published earlier today proof-of-concept (PoC) code for exploiting a recently-patched vulnerability in the Windows operating system, a vulnerability that has been reported to Microsoft by the US National Security Agency (NSA). The bug, which some have started calling CurveBall, impacts CryptoAPI (Crypt32.dll), the component that handles cryptographic operations in the Windows OS. According to a high-level technical analysis of the bug from cyber-security researcher…

1 - Facebook Is Forcing Its Moderators to Log Every Second of Their Days — Even in the Bathroom When Valera Zaicev began working in Dublin as one of Facebook’s moderators a couple years ago, he knew he’d be looking at some of the most graphic and violent content on the internet. What he didn’t know was that Facebook would be counting the seconds of his bathroom breaks. “People have to clock in and clock…

1 - FBI program offers companies data protection via deception The Federal Bureau of Investigations is in many ways on the front lines of the fight against both cybercrime and cyber-espionage in the US. These days, the organization responds to everything from ransomware attacks to data thefts by foreign government-sponsored hackers. But the FBI has begun to play a role in the defense of networks before attacks have been carried out as well, forming partnerships with some…

1 - Google rolls out Verified SMS and Spam Protection in Android Google announced today two updates for Messages, the default SMS app in the Android mobile operating system. Starting today, Android users in the US and selected countries will get access to two new features named Verified SMS and Spam Protection. As the name of the first feature hints, Verified SMS works by confirming the identity of the SMS sender. "When a message is…