FBI paid at least $1.3M to get San Bernardino iPhone unlocked

FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday the agency paid more to get into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters than he will make in the remaining seven years and four months he has in his job.

According to figures from the FBI and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Comey's annual salary as of January 2015 was $183,300. Without a raise or bonus, Comey will make $1.34 million over the remainder of his job.

That suggests the FBI paid the largest ever publicized amount for a hacking technique, given the most previously paid was $1 million by U.S. information security company Zerodium to break into phones.
Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in London, Comey was asked by a moderator how much the FBI paid for the software that eventually broke into the iPhone.

"A lot. More than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months for sure," Comey said. "But it was, in my view, worth it."

The Justice Department said in March it had unlocked the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone with the help of an unidentified third party and dropped its case against Apple Inc (AAPL.O), ending a high-stakes legal clash but leaving the broader fight over encryption unresolved.

Comey said the FBI will be able to use software used on the San Bernardino phone on other 5C iPhones running IOS 9 software.

The FBI gained access to the iPhone used by Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California on Dec. 2.


The case raised the debate over whether technology companies' encryption technologies protect privacy or endanger the public by blocking law enforcement access to information.




Source: Rueters

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Opera Offers Free VPN integrated in its Browser For Better Online Privacy

Opera has released a developer version of its desktop web browser with native VPN support. You only have to flick a virtual switch to get a 256-bit encrypted connection that hides your connection details and prevents sites or governments from blocking content they don't want you to see.

The preview version only gives you three simulated locations for the VPN (Canada, Germany and the US), so this won't give you access to a whole lot until the finished browser is ready. However, the VPN is free. If all you want is to access a forbidden streaming service or make it harder for snoops to monitor your traffic, this might be your easiest and most affordable solution.




Source: Opera
Via: Engadget

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Whatsapp turns on end-to-end encription by default

WhatsApp (iOS, Android),which is  used by approximately 1 billion people worldwide, announced end-to-encryption throughout its network, for all types of messages (texts, videos, phone calls) shared within its app. With end-to-end encryption, even the company itself cannot view the contents of your communications. All the bits sent from one WhatsApp user to another are scrambled in a way that cannot be unscrambled by anyone except the sender and the recipient.
This upgrade does not require you to update the app itself (in fact, no new version of WhatsApp has come out in several days). It takes place on the server side. So as long as there is a version of WhatsApp that's compatible with your device, you will benefit from this change whenever you use the app, and your messages are encrypted whether your network is Wi-Fi, 4G LTE, 3G, or Ethernet.

WhatsApp makes its case for privacy

WhatApp's blog does not mention Apple or the FBI by name, instead saying, "Recently there has been a lot of discussion about encrypted services and the work of law enforcement. While we recognize the important work of law enforcement in keeping people safe, efforts to weaken encryption risk exposing people's information to abuse from cyber criminals, hackers, and rogue states." CEO Jan Koum adds, "The desire to protect people's private communication is one of the core beliefs we have at WhatsApp, and for me, it's personal. I grew up in the USSR during communist rule, and the fact that people couldn't speak freely is one of the reasons my family moved to the United States."

Other options for encrypted messaging

WhatsApp is not the only messaging app to receive end-to-end encryption. For example, Signal Private Messenger (iOS, Android) (originally known as RedPhone) has had that security feature from the beginning. But WhatsApp has by far the biggest reach of your available end-to-end encryption options.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a privacy scorecard for messaging apps, some of which are still technically more trustworthy than WhatsApp, due to its lack of independent code review. Apps that skip independent review generally do so to protect their trade secrets.


Source: Cnet

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WordPress.com turns on HTTPS encryption for all websites

WordPress.com is adding HTTPS support for all of its blogs. If you have a custom domain or a blog under the wordpress.com domain name (like bestcrabrestaurantsinportland.wordpress.com), you’re good to go.

While many social services like Facebook and Twitter have supported HTTPS for a while now, WordPress.com was still lagging behind for custom domain names.

Since 2014, WordPress.com subdomains have supported HTTPS, but not the others. But this isn’t as easy as flipping a switch for custom domain names as you need certificates for all domain names.

Thanks to the Let’s Encrypt project, it has become much cheaper and easier to implement HTTPS across the web. WordPress.com is taking advantage of this initiative for its websites. Each website now has an SSL certificate and will display a green lock in your address back.

As a nice side effect, Google tends to favor websites that support HTTPS over HTTP-only website. So your WordPress.com website should rank higher in Google search results.





Source: Techcrunch

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Cyber threats a major challenge in Nigeria

A new report has been published to highlight the extent of cyber threats in Nigeria.

According to Kaspersky Security Network (KSN), in the third quarter of 2015, overall 45.3 percent of KSN participants in Nigeria encountered malware that spread in local networks, via universal serial bus (USBs) and storage disks, while 13.8 percent faced cyber threats emanating from the internet.

The report, titled IT Threat Evolution, puts the country on the 128th place worldwide by the percentage of users who encountered the two types of malware.

Meanwhile, the report sheds light on the increase in mobile threats, the attempted theft of money from online bank accounts and targeted cyber-attacks in the evolving threat landscape.

Globally according to KSN data, Kaspersky Lab solutions detected and repelled a total of 235.4 million malicious attacks from online resources located all over the world.

Kaspersky Lab’s web antivirus detected 38.2 million unique malicious objects. There were 46.9 percent higher than in Q2.

There were 5.68 million registered notifications about attempted malware infections that aim to steal money via online access to bank accounts.

There were more than 1.5 million malicious packages installed on mobiles during the quarter, 1.5 times more than in the previous quarter.

Cyber threat refers to the possibility of a malicious attempt to damage or disrupt a computer network or system.

“The developments in Q3 demonstrate that the global threat landscape is continuing to evolve at a fast pace,” said David Emm, Principal Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research and Analysis.

Source :news24

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