Oracle’s stewardship of Java has been scrutinized by the security community, which in 2013 languished through nearly a full year of targeted attacks exploiting zero days and other vulnerabilities in the platform. Since then, Oracle has improved the Java user experience by denying unsigned applets the ability to execute by default, and putting security restrictions...

Researchers from two security firms have uncovered the password guarding one of the backdoors discovered in Juniper Networks’ ScreenOS, the operating system behind its NetScreen enterprise-grade firewalls. Fox-IT and Rapid7 found the secret code, which was disguised to look like debug code, said Rapid7 chief research officer HD Moore. “This password allows an attacker to...

A relatively small number of Twitter users, including a few connected to security and privacy advocacy, have been informed that their accounts have been targeted by state-sponsored hackers. Notifications began appearing in the inboxes of affected users two days ago, with very little concrete information accompanying the warning. Twitter said in the notification that the...

Now that encryption has been elevated to a default technology on mobile devices, the government has heightened its “Going Dark” rhetoric, again on Wednesday insisting during a Senate Judicial Committee hearing that Silicon Valley figure out how to deliver plain-text communication between criminal and terror suspects to law enforcement. FBI Director James Comey and California...

In March when Moxie Marlinspike and Open Whisper Systems released the iOS version of the Signal encrypted messaging app, the noted security researcher promised to expand its reach and among other things, eventually release a desktop version of Signal. That vision was realized on Wednesday with the public availability of the Signal Desktop beta, written...

An APT gang linked to China and alleged to be responsible for targeted attacks against foreign governments and ministries, has now pointed its focus inward at China’s autonomous territory Hong Kong. An August attack against several media companies in Hong Kong was carried out shortly after a high-profile controversy over an appointment at the prestigious...