Apple’s head of software engineering told law enforcement and the government via a Washington Post op-ed on Sunday that a precedent-setting backdoor into the iPhone threatens to turn back the clock on mobile security to less safe times. The column, written by Craig Federighi and posted last night, argues that the removal of security features...

Mike Mimoso and Chris Brook recap RSA 2016, including how pervasive the FBI vs. Apple debate has been around the conference, OpenSSL two years after Heartbleed, and why hacking back is always a bad idea. Download: Threatpost_News_Wrap_March_4_2016.mp3 Music by Chris Gonsalves

SAN FRANCISCO—A laundry list of past and present iPhone experts and cryptography experts today filed an amicus brief asking the courts to vacate their order mandating Apple assist the FBI in unlocking a phone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook. Filed by Jennifer Granick and Riana Pfefferkorn of the Stanford Law School Center for...

SAN FRANCISCO—Surely all breached organizations consider hacking back as some means of response to being attacked and losing intellectual property. Thankfully there was a room full of lawyers at RSA Conference on Wednesday to remind IT pros of what a colossally bad idea that is. Putting aside the illegality of hacking back for a second,...

SAN FRANCISCO—National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command director Admiral Michael S. Rogers stood before tens of thousands of RSA Conference attendees on Tuesday and asked for help. In what has almost become a speaking slot reserved for the government to use as a recruiting pitch of some sort, Rogers laid out his case for...

SAN FRANCISCO—One would think that six of the smartest security people on the planet could come to some sort of collective conclusion on the FBI-Apple debate. But that wasn’t the case today during the annual Cryptographers’ Panel at RSA Conference. The debate over whether Apple should assist the FBI in unlocking an accused terrorist’s iPhone...

The White House, lawmakers said yesterday, wants to renegotiate the divisive U.S. implementation of the Wassenaar Arrangement rules as they relate to intrusion software. A draft of the rules was pulled off the table in July by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) following a 90-comment period during which advocates in the...

As automakers rush to market connected cars to feed drivers hungry for collision avoidance systems and self-parking features, security experts are urging the industry to pump its brakes and prioritize the their cars’ cyber defenses. In a report released Tuesday by IDC and the security firm Veracode, researchers say when it comes to car hacking...

Mike Mimoso and Chris Brook discuss the news of the week including the ongoing FBiOS battle, a judge’s confirmation that the DoD funded research to uncloak Tor users, and news surrounding Operation Blockbuster. They also preview next week’s RSA Conference in San Francisco, Calif. Download: http://traffic.libsyn.com/digitalunderground/Threatpost_News_Wrap_February_26_2016.mp3 Music by Chris Gonsalves

Apple, like most advanced tech companies, understands threats and how to close them off. But one salient point that’s emerged from its ongoing dispute with the FBI over unlocking the San Bernardino shooter’s phone is that Apple is a threat to itself. Therefore, expect any future iPhone security updates to take into account that Apple...