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Trump's Cybersecurity Pick Already Hacked?

Photo by Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0 / Cropped from original

There are only two days left until the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States. If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know we’ve been following the news of Trump’s plans for cybersecurity and Internet privacy—and what those plans mean for you—pretty closely. Unfortunately, until last week, we didn’t have much to go on as far as what Trump plans to do to ensure US cybersecurity; we were only able to see what he planned not to do, at least when it came to following recommendations put forward by the outgoing Obama administration.

Last week, however, Donald Trump named Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and CEO of security consulting firm Giuliani Partners, to head up his cybersecurity team. Giuliani formed the company in 2005 in response to reports showing that cybersecurity threats would only increase, and since then has been offering services such as penetration testing to corporate clients.

At first glance, it seems like good news that Trump has appointed someone with over 10 years of experience in the field to head up his cybersecurity expert team. Unfortunately, it’s not clear that Giuliani’s experience in corporate cybersecurity will translate to keep the government—and the country—safe from cyber threats.

In fact, many industry experts in cybersecurity haven’t even heard of Giuliani Partners (or Giuliani Security and Safety, its subsidiary) and have expressed scepticism that the former NYC mayor has the skills to deal with the sort of cyber threats the US is likely to encounter. In the wake of the announcement, some security researchers decided to visit Giuliani Partners’ websites—and found a number of vulnerabilities, which they published on Twitter late last week.

This week, if you try to visit giulianipartners.com or giulianisecurity.com, you won’t find those vulnerabilities. You won’t find much of anything: both websites are currently offline, although the Wayback Machine offers an older cached version of the giulianisecurity.com site. It’s possible that after the sites’ vulnerabilities were publicized the companies chose to pull them in order to shore up their security, although some are speculating that the nation’s newest cybersecurity leader has already been the victim of a hack.

Of course, Giuliani wouldn’t be personally working as a White Hat hacker for the US government in his new role, but it is concerning that someone taking over as head of the country’s cybersecurity team doesn’t have stronger ties or a better (or any) reputation among top security experts.

Trump’s Cybersecurity Pick Already Hacked? was originally published on Liquidum Blog

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The Samsung Explosion Cause Is...

Officially, the results of Samsung’s months-long investigation into the Galaxy Note 7 overheating (and exploding) problem are being released next week. But you don’t have to wait until next Monday; a Korean outlet has leaked the final report findings and we now know the cause of the Note 7 explosions.

We originally speculated that the issue was caused by third-party chargers, but as more incidents were reported, it became clear that wasn’t the case. Most people then assumed the Note 7 batteries were faulty, until Samsung switched battery suppliers and issued replacement Note 7s that started exploding, too. Once it became clear that the supposedly safe models were afflicted with the same issue, Samsung took the extreme step of completely shutting down production of the Note 7 and issuing a total recall for all Note 7s worldwide.

It’s great that a phone manufacturer is so safety-conscious, but of course it was frustrating for everyone who loved their Note 7 and had used it for months with no problems—especially once Samsung sent out a final over-the-air update that would effectively brick the few devices remaining in the wild.

We’ve been waiting since December and today we finally know what it is that sent the Galaxy Note 7 up in smoke.

It turns out, a fatal combination of a hardware and software issue are behind the cases of spontaneous phone combustion.

An official source told Korean outlet Chosun that the Note 7’s design didn’t allocate enough space to allow the battery room to expand once it grew warm. There was also a software failsafe designed to detect overheating and shut down power to the phone, but this software didn’t work.

Now that Samsung has determined why the Note 7s kept exploding, no doubt they’ll devote plenty of time and resources to fixing it in future models. The heat-check software will most likely be the easier fix, but the design issue is tougher. With the industry pushing toward more features, longer battery life, and thinner phones, something has to give. In the case of the Note 7, which was loaded with a ton of tech-heavy features like the S Pen and an iris scanner, it was the extra space needed for safety that Samsung gave up. Going forward, we’ll be watching closely to see what Samsung decides to compromise on, at least until new breakthroughs can extend battery life with the same size or even smaller batteries.

Get the full story on Pocketnow for more details from the report.

The Samsung Explosion Cause Is… was originally published on Liquidum Blog

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Is Low-Tech Safer Than High-Tech?

Photo courtesy Adobe Stock.

With all the speculation about Russian hackers and the effect they may have had on the American presidential election, many people have been curious about President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to ensure the USA’s top-secret information remains protected. As we’ve discussed before, Trump has made general comments saying the issue is important to him, but he hasn’t yet presented a clear plan, nor has he signed on to cybersecurity recommendations outlined by the outgoing Obama administration.

Last week, however, Donald Trump made a surprising suggestion that has security experts baffled: send top-secret messages in hard copy via courier rather than via encryption.

You know, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way. Because I’ll tell you what: No computer is safe.

In theory, this makes some sense—after all, you can’t hack a piece of paper from Moscow—but it ignores that this method of transmitting information comes with its own set of risks. If your courier is bribed, threatened, even intercepted and kidnapped, your message can be copied and passed on to your enemies, perhaps without you ever even knowing it happened. If it is Russia trying to get a peek at your message, they have a lot of practice from doing exactly this kind of thing during the Cold War.

Another major disadvantage to using a courier is the delay. For any truly pressing intelligence matter, waiting hours for a courier to arrive could have huge consequences compared to the near-instantaneous digital data transfers we’ve come to rely on.

The world has moved on since Cold War–era spycraft, and going back to those tactics won’t keep us safe; we’ll just be vulnerable in different ways. For the US to truly address cybersecurity, it will need to devote time and resources to monitoring and upgrading its security, particularly its encryption methods.

For more on this story, read the full article at The Next Web. If you’re looking for ways to keep your personal data secure, you probably don’t need a government-level encryption, but make sure to only send sensitive messages and files via services that use end-to-end encryption. For an added security boost, use Rocket VPN to protect your private data.

Is Low-Tech Safer Than High-Tech? was originally published on Liquidum Blog

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Trump to Announce New Russia Hacking Details This Week

It’s been nearly impossible to ignore the headlines in recent weeks about the alleged Russian hacks of the Democratic National Convention, and what effect they may have had on the US election this past November. President Obama responded to the allegations with new sanctions against Russia. But of course, later this month Donald Trump will officially become the President of the United States, so many of us are wondering how the President-elect will be handling the issue.

As we’ve reported on this blog previously, Trump doesn’t have a clear plan for US cybersecurity. During his campaign, he only gave vague answers about the issue, with no specifics as to how to handle concrete concerns about hacks and other threats. Of course, the president doesn’t have to be a cybersecurity expert, provided he listens to and follows the recommendations of people who are experts. Unfortunately, it’s not clear Trump will do that, either.

This week, however, Trump’s camp have announced that they have exclusive information about the Russian hacks, which they will be sharing tomorrow or Wednesday. Trump has expressed scepticism that the hacks were in fact the work of the Russian government, saying:

[…] I want them to be sure. I think it’s unfair if they don’t know. And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.

The source of Trump’s unique information, if any, isn’t yet known, but we hope he will reveal it at the same time as the announcement, whatever it is. That being said, it’s important to consider Trump’s track record with the truth when evaluating any new statements from his camp.

See the full story about this week’s announcement on Gizmodo, and watch for updates when the details are released tomorrow or Wednesday.

Trump to Announce New Russia Hacking Details This Week was originally published on Liquidum Blog

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The Snooper's Charter Is On Hold . . . For Now

We recently wrote about the Investigatory Powers Bill, better known as the Snooper’s Charter, when the UK’s House of Parliament and House of Lords both passed it. Among the contents of the bill is a provision forcing ISPs to collect their customers’ web history for one full year and hand it over to government agencies with no warrant.

UK citizens may just have been granted a reprieve. The European Court of Justice today ruled that “general and indiscriminate” data retention such as that granted by the Snooper’s Charter is a violation of EU law, and the practice must only be used when investigating specific incidents of “serious crime.” Holding on to the data from all citizens goes above and beyond what’s reasonable, the court ruled.

The fact that the data is retained without the users of electronic communications services being informed of the fact is likely to cause the persons concerned to feel that their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance. Consequently, only the objective of fighting serious crime is capable of justifying such interference.

This ruling doesn’t mean it’s time for privacy advocates to take a vacation, though. Conspicuously absent from the court’s decision was any mention of data collection, as opposed to retention. In other words, governments may not be justified in asking ISPs to maintain records of all their customers’ Internet history for a full year, but there’s no check on the government’s ability to use active surveillance to spy on its citizens.

For UK residents, this ruling may also not mean very much in a post-Brexit landscape. The UK is still a part of the European Union and so it’s still bound by EU laws…for now. But if the UK leaves the European Union, it can choose to ignore the European Court of Justice’s ruling and could even decide to impose even more stringent anti-privacy laws on its citizens, who would no longer have a higher court outside the UK to appeal to.

Read the whole story on TechCrunch for more details. If you’re in the UK, are you concerned about your digital privacy? Be sure to use a VPN like Rocket VPN to protect yourself!

The Snooper’s Charter Is On Hold . . . For Now was originally published on Liquidum Blog

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If You See Super Mario for Android, Run

Photo by JD Hancock / CC BY 2.0 / Cropped from original

Your friends with iPhones may be rubbing their shiny new copy of Super Mario Run in your face. Perhaps you’ve even tried it out for a few minutes. Now you’re itching to get it on your Android and you don’t think you can wait until it finally arrives in the Google Play Store in the new year.

Unfortunately, if you take a risk and try downloading a “Super Mario Run” APK, what you’re really getting will definitely be fake and will almost certainly be malware.

This is different from when Pokémon GO launched and genuine APK files were floating around online (although even then, some of the APKs were corrupted with malware). Because Pokémon GO had been released in some countries, the APK was out there to be uploaded. But Super Mario Run has yet to launch at all on the Play Store; barring a leak from someone at Nintendo, that APK just is not available. But that won’t stop unscrupulous people from releasing malware and calling it “Super Mario Run for Android” just in case they can trick you into downloading it.

What can you do if you’re an Android user and you’re dying to carry Mario in your pocket? Unfortunately, iOS emulators aren’t a great choice either: they’re just as likely to be infected with malware as a fake APK, and even if you find one that isn’t outright malicious, there’s still no guarantee it will work as expected. For now, your best option is to pack your Game Boy or DS and hold out for the official Android release of Super Mario Run in 2017.

If you need more persuasion, check out the full article on Android Central for more reasons why downloading shady APKs is a bad idea. Are you dying to play Super Mario Run on your Android? Or will you stick with your Nintendo consoles and handhelds?

If You See Super Mario for Android, Run was originally published on Liquidum Blog

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Unplug Your Router Today

Photo by Sinchen.Lin / CC BY 2.0 / Cropped from original

Do you know the model of your router? Most of us know exactly which model of phone we use, or which computer. On the other hand, if someone asked for our router brand the answer might be a little fuzzy, even though we depend on our routers to keep us connected at all times, in every room of the house.

This week, we’ve learned of a vulnerability affecting many routers manufactured by Netgear. The vulnerability could let hackers gain control of your router and turn it into part of a botnet, where it can be used to bring down Internet sites in DDOS attacks.

The bad news: Netgear have known about this vulnerability for months.

The even worse news: for many models, there is no way to fix it.

We’ve talked before about the vulnerabilities of Internet-connected devices, including smart appliances and wireless routers. Unfortunately, the Netgear routers are merely the latest product that can be hacked this way, and they won’t be the last. But it’s particularly worrying that the company hasn’t come up with a reliable fix for all their models despite being warned about the issue back in August.

Eight Netgear routers are affected by the issue (R6250, R6400, R6700, R7000, R7100LG, R7300, R7900, R8000), three of which are among Amazon’s top five most popular routers, so go check your router right now to see if it’s on the list.

Unfortunately, if your modem is affected, there may not be a fix. Netgear released patches yesterday for certain models, although they were quick to say that they might not work for everyone; the company hasn’t fully tested the fixes. You’ll also have to manually download and install the patch yourself, unlike with over-the-air security updates for smartphone software.

Homeland Security’s CERT, which issued an advisory about the problem, is recommending that if you have one of the affected routers, you stop using it entirely.

Check out the full story on Wired for more information about the vulnerability and how to fix it.

How much attention do you pay to your router? Do you have a Netgear router, and if so, have you patched it yet?

Unplug Your Router Today was originally published on Liquidum Blog

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Bad News for Note 7 Holdouts

Photo courtesy FreeImages.com/Simon Hilton.

Most Galaxy Note 7 owners have by now returned their handsets to Samsung in the massive recall, but the numbers are still not at 100%. Maybe you love your Note 7 so much you can’t imagine giving it up. You’ve never noticed it getting hot during charging and it still works fine, so why bother?

If you’re among the last diehard Note 7 lovers, Samsung is about to force you to hand it over.

Starting next week, Samsung will be pushing an update to the remaining Note 7s that will stop all wireless communication to and from the device, and will also prevent the smartphone from charging entirely. Once a Note 7 gets the update, it will be impossible to continue to use it as a phone, or even to charge it, so within a few hours all remaining Note 7s will be so many very fancy paperweights.

There’s been a ton of speculation about the cause of the Note 7 battery fires, although we’re still waiting on the official explanation from Samsung about the cause. Certainly, only a small percentage of phones ever actually caught fire, but Samsung has been extremely aggressive with their recall, even going as far as halting production of the model entirely. It seems like they’re not taking any chances when it comes to leaving remaining Note 7s in the wild.

Based on the timing of the update and Samsung’s statement that they’ll announce the cause of the problem by the end of 2016, it’s quite possible that Samsung is planning both these moves for the same time, or perhaps they want to scoop up the last of the flawed phones before letting us know what the issue was.

Either way, if you’ve been refusing to hand in your Note 7, you have a last week with it before you’ll finally have to say goodbye. Check out the full article on Phandroid to see when the final update is coming.

But Samsung is doing what they can to ease the transition with generous credits, especially if you’re willing to exchange your Note 7 for another Galaxy model, so it shouldn’t be too painful. Have you kept your Note 7 all this time? Tell us what you’ll be replacing it with.

Bad News for Note 7 Holdouts was originally published on Liquidum Blog