Amazon reversed course on its unpopular decision to remove encryption from its Fire OS 5 tablets. Over the weekend, Amazon said, customers’ device-level encryption support will return this spring. The move comes after Amazon customers and privacy activists expressed outrage over the company’s choice to remove encryption from its popular consumer line of Fire tablets running...

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...

Google today patched two critical holes in its problematic Android Mediaserver component which would allow an attacker to use email, web browsing, and MMS processing of media files to remotely execute code. With this latest vulnerability, Google has patched its Mediaserver more than two dozen times since the Stagefright vulnerability was discovered in August. The patch...

Amazon’s decision to remove encryption from its tablets running the latest Fire OS 5 release of its software has many privacy-minded tablet owners are crying foul. They are blasting Amazon for making their tablets less secure and no longer safe to store personal data from email credentials, credit card numbers and sensitive business information. “Amazon...

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—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...

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...

It took Apple nine words to make its point: “This is not a case about one isolated iPhone.” Apple on Thursday filed a motion to vacate a court order mandating it assist the FBI in unlocking an iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino shooter. Apple said the order violates its First Amendment rights—software code is...

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...

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s major argument in objecting to the FBI’s request to assist in unlocking San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s iPhone 5c is the precedent it would set in doing so. As it turns out, Cook had a leg to stand on when he defiantly objected to a federal magistrate’s order last week. Apple...