With ever more tech in our lives, our data is vulnerable. Here are our six top tips to keep it safe in the new year
Technology is changing our lives for the better; yet it’s also exposing us to organised crime, online scammers and hackers – and whole industries built around monetising our personal data. But you don’t have to be resigned to cyber-victimhood. Give yourself, and your devices, a security update for 2020 and start fighting back.
Continue reading...Chairman Eric Xu warns that hit from US sanctions means telecoms firm must ‘go all out’ to maintain sales
The embattled Chinese telecommunications company Huawei says “survival” is its first priority after announcing sales were hit hard by a boycott from western countries.
Eric Xu, the company’s chairman, said estimated sales revenue would reach 850bn yuan for 2019 (US$121bn) - up roughly 18% from the previous year, but much lower than initially expected.
Continue reading...Whistleblower tells Guardian of growing alarm over secret transfer of medical history data, which can be accessed by Google staff
A whistleblower who works in Project Nightingale, the secret transfer of the personal medical data of up to 50 million Americans from one of the largest healthcare providers in the US to Google, has expressed anger to the Guardian that patients are being kept in the dark about the massive deal.
Related: Mick Mulvaney drops impeachment lawsuit but will not comply with House subpoena – live
Continue reading...Messages can only be seen under UV light and can be erased using a hairdryer
Forget lemon juice and hot irons, there is a new way to write and read invisible messages – and it can be used again and again.
The approach, developed by researchers in China, involves using water to print messages on paper coated with manganese-containing chemicals. The message, invisible to the naked eye, can be read by shining UV light on the paper.
Continue reading...Users of Zao can now add themselves into the scenes of their favourite movies. But is our desire to insert ourselves into everything putting our privacy at risk?
‘You oughta be in pictures,” goes the 1934 Rudy Vallée song. And, as of last week, pretty much anyone can be. The entry requirements for being a star fell dramatically thanks to the launch, in China, of a face-swapping app that can decant users into film and TV clips.
Zao, which has quickly become China’s most downloaded free app, fuses the face in the original clip with your features. All that is required is a single selfie and the man or woman in the street is transformed into a star of the mobile screen, if not quite the silver one. In other words, anyone who yearns to be part of Titanic or Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory or the latest J-Pop sensation can now bypass the audition and go straight to the limelight without all that pesky hard work, talent and dedication. A whole new generation of synthetic movie idols could be unleashed upon the world: a Humphrey Bogus, a Phony Curtis, a Fake Dunaway.
Continue reading...Critics say face-swap app could spread misinformation on a massive scale
A Chinese app that lets users convincingly swap their faces with film or TV characters has rapidly become one of the country’s most downloaded apps, triggering a privacy row.
Related: The rise of the deepfake and the threat to democracy
Continue reading...Android and Windows devices also targeted in campaign believed to be state-backed
Chinese Uighurs were the target of an iOS malware attack lasting more than two years that was revealed last week, according to multiple reports.
Android and Windows devices were also targeted in the campaign, which took the form of “watering hole attacks”: taking over commonly visited websites or redirecting their visitors to clones in order to indiscriminately attack each member of a community.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Hannah Fry says ethical pledge needed in tech fields that will shape future
Mathematicians, computer engineers and scientists in related fields should take a Hippocratic oath to protect the public from powerful new technologies under development in laboratories and tech firms, a leading researcher has said.
The ethical pledge would commit scientists to think deeply about the possible applications of their work and compel them to pursue only those that, at the least, do no harm to society.
Continue reading...Kingdom targeted satirist Ghanem Almasarir with Israeli malware, letter of claim alleges
Saudi Arabia has been accused of launching a sophisticated hacking attack against a prominent dissident in London who is allegedly living under police protection, according to a letter of claim that has been sent to the kingdom and seen by the Guardian.
The letter of claim, which was delivered to the Saudi embassy in London on Tuesday, was sent on behalf of the Saudi satirist Ghanem Almasarir, and alleges he was targeted by Saudi Arabia with malware developed by the NSO Group, the controversial Israeli surveillance company.
Continue reading...New bill needed to tackle hostile activity by Russia and others, says home secretary
Hostile state actors – spies, assassins or hackers directed by the government of another country – are to be targeted by refreshed espionage and treason laws, the home secretary has announced.
In a speech to security officials in central London, Sajid Javid revealed plans to publish a new espionage bill to tackle increased hostile state activity from countries including but not limited to Russia.
Continue reading...Amnesty International fears its staff may be ‘surveilled via NSO Pegasus software’
The Israeli firm linked to this week’s WhatsApp hack is facing a lawsuit backed by Amnesty International, which says it fears its staff may be under surveillance from spyware installed via the messaging service.
Related: WhatsApp urges users to update app after discovering spyware vulnerability
Continue reading...NSO Group technology reportedly used against lawyer involved in civil case against the Israeli surveillance firm
The UK lawyer whose phone was targeted by spyware that exploits a WhatsApp vulnerability said it appeared to be a desperate attempt by someone to covertly find out the details of his human rights work.
The lawyer, who asked not to be named, is involved in a civil case brought against the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group whose sophisticated Pegasus malware has reportedly been used against Mexican journalists, and a prominent Saudi dissident living in Canada.
Continue reading...Arrests in Germany, Brazil and US relate to sale of drugs, stolen data and malicious software
German police have shut down one of the world’s largest illegal online markets in the so-called dark web and arrested the three men allegedly running it, prosecutors said on Friday.
The “Wall Street Market” (WSM) site enabled trade in cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamines as well as stolen data, fake documents and malicious software.
Continue reading...Company admits to mistake and says it has no evidence of abuse – but the risk was huge
Facebook mistakenly stored “hundreds of millions” of passwords in plaintext, unprotected by any encryption, the company has admitted.
The mistake, which led to user passwords being kept in Facebook’s internal servers in an insecure way, affects “hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users”, according to the social networking site. Facebook Lite is a version of Facebook created for use in nations where mobile data is unaffordable or unavailable.
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