security News of 07/18/19

Microsoft Has Warned 10,000 Victims Of State-Sponsored Hacking

Microsoft said it has notified close to 10,000 people in the past year that they have been targeted by state-sponsored hackers. The tech giant said Wednesday that the victims were either targeted or compromised by hackers working for a foreign ...

Dust Identity Secures $10m Series A To Identify Objects With Diamond Dust

The idea behind Dust Identity was originally born in an MIT lab where students developed a system of uniquely identifying objects using diamond dust. Since then, the startup has been working to create a commercial application for the advanced ...

Snyk Brings In New CEO To Help Lead Future Expansion

Startup founders typically face a management challenge. They often began their careers in technical engineering jobs, and are thrust into the CEO role when starting a company. Sometimes it makes sense to bring in a more experienced executive to guide ...

Another 2.2 Million Patients Affected By AMCA Data Breach

Another clinical lab ensnared in the AMCA data breach has come forward. Clinical Pathology Laboratories (CPL) says 2.2 million patients may have had their names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, dates of service, balance information and ...

Aavgo Security Lapse Exposed Hotel Bookings

A security lapse at a hotel management startup has exposed hotel bookings and guests’ personal information. The security lapse was resolved Monday after TechCrunch reached out to Aavgo, a hospitality tech company based in San Francisco, which ...

No Technical Reason To Exclude Huawei As 5g Supplier, Says UK Committee

A UK parliamentary committee has concluded there are no technical grounds for excluding Chinese network kit vendor Huawei from the country’s 5G networks. In a letter from the chair of the Science & Technology Committee to the UK’s ...

The U.K.’S Version Of The NSA Wants Access To Encrypted Chats. Here’S How It Would Work

The term “ghost protocol” might remind you of a famous blockbuster starring Tom Cruise , but here it applies to a new proposal by the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in the United Kingdom . The GCHQ is the British ...

TrickBot Malware Learns How To Spam, Ensnares 250m Email Addresses

Old bot, new tricks. TrickBot, a financially motivated malware in wide circulation, has been observed infecting victims’ computers to steal email passwords and address books to spread malicious emails from their compromised email accounts. ...

T-Mobile Quietly Reported A Sharp Rise In Police Demands For Cell Tower Data

T-Mobile has reported a small decline in the number of government data requests it receives, according to its latest transparency report, quietly published this week . The third-largest cell giant in the U.S. reported 459,989 requests during 2018, ...

FEC Says Political Campaigns Can Now Get Discounted Cybersecurity Help

In a long awaited decision, the Federal Elections Commission will now allow political campaigns to appoint cybersecurity helpers to protect political campaigns from cyberthreats and malicious attackers. The FEC, which regulates political campaigns ...

‘World’S First Bluetooth Hair Straighteners’ Can Be Easily Hacked

Here’s a thing that should have never been a thing: Bluetooth-connected hair straighteners. Glamoriser, a U.K. firm that bills itself as the maker of the “ world’s first Bluetooth hair straighteners “, allows users to link ...

OneTrust Raises $200m At A $1.3b Valuation To Help Organizations Navigate Online Privacy Rules

GDPR, and the newer California Consumer Privacy Act, have given a legal bite to ongoing developments in online privacy and data protection: it’s always good practice for companies with an online presence to take measures to safeguard ...

Apple Disables Walkie Talkie App Due To Vulnerability That Could Allow IPhone Eavesdropping

Apple has disabled the Apple Watch Walkie Talkie app due to an unspecified vulnerability that could allow a person to listen to another customer’s iPhone without consent, the company told TechCrunch this evening. Apple has apologized for the ...

Apple Has Pushed A Silent Mac Update To Remove Hidden Zoom Web Server

Apple has released a silent update for Mac users removing a vulnerable component in Zoom, the popular video conferencing app, which allowed websites to automatically add a user to a video call without their permission. The Cupertino, Calif.-based ...

What CISOs Need To Learn From WannaCry

In 2017 — for the first time in over a decade — a computer worm ran rampage across the internet, threatening to disrupt businesses, industries, governments and national infrastructure across several continents. The WannaCry ransomware attack ...

YL Ventures, A Specialist In Israeli Cybersecurity Startups, Has Closed Its Fourth Fund With $120 Million

YL Ventures , a 12-year-old, Mill Valley, Ca-based, seed-stage venture firm that invests narrowly in Israeli cybersecurity startups, just closed its fourth fund with $120 million in capital commitments, bringing the total capital it now manages to ...

Visa Funds $40m For No-Password Crypto Vault Anchorage

Visa and Andreessen Horowitz are betting even bigger on cryptocurrency, funding a big round for fellow Facebook Libra Association member Anchorage’s omnimetric blockchain security system . Instead of using passwords that can be stolen, ...

The Commerce Department Will Accept Applications From Companies That Want To Supply Huawei, But It Remains Blacklisted

About two months after Huawei was placed on the Commerce Department’s Entity List, the Chinese telecom equipment and smartphone giant will be able to do business with American suppliers again–but only if they get a license from the U.S. ...

Flaws In Hospital Anesthesia And Respiratory Devices Allow Remote Tampering

Security researchers have found a vulnerability in a networking protocol used in popular hospital anesthesia and respiratory machines, which they say if exploited could be used to maliciously tamper with the devices. Researchers at healthcare ...

Mozilla Blocks Spy Firm DarkMatter From Firefox Citing ‘Significant Risk’ To Users

Firefox maker Mozilla said it will not trust certificates from surveillance maker DarkMatter, ending a months-long effort to be whitelisted by the popular browser. Months earlier, the United Arab Emirates-based DarkMatter had asked Mozilla to ...