The Senate Intelligence Committee voted overwhelmingly to advance a cybersecurity bill meant to expand information-sharing between the private sector and the government, though privacy advocates contend it only strengthens domestic surveillance programs. Dubbed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), the bill cleared the Senate Intelligence Committee by a 14-1 vote, with outspoken civil... 

Austria’s Green Party says the US National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ have hacked into 13 million SIM cards in Austria. Addressing reporters in Vienna, the party’s security spokesman raised concerns over cyber attacks on phones, cars, banks and ministries. Peter Pilz called for a government investigation, sanctions and court action. Based on documents revealed by US whistleblower Edward... 

Almost all automobiles sold today contain systems that can potentially be compromised by hackers, a United States Senator warns, but automakers appear largely unaware of the implications, according to his report. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) is calling on the world’s automobile makers to implement mandatory safeguards after his congressional inquiry revealed a widespread absence of security... 

Edward Snowden, the infamous former contractor for the National Security Agency who leaked thousands of pages of previously classified NSA intelligence documents, reportedly thinks that Apple’s iPhone has “special software” that authorities can activate remotely to be able to gather information about the user. “Edward never uses an iPhone; he’s got a simple phone,” said the lawyer of Snowden,... 

UK PM David Cameron may block encrypted messaging platforms Snapchat and WhatsApp if the Conservatives win May’s general election, as part of the party’s agenda to bolster surveillance powers following last week’s terror attacks in Paris. During a meeting with Britain’s security chiefs, the Prime Minister pledged to halt the use of communications platforms that can withstand snooping from... 

Researches find security flaws in a system used by cellphone carriers that allows spying on mobile phone traffic. Researchers have found a security hole in a system used by global cellphone carriers that can open the door for hackers to eavesdrop on private phone calls, text messages and data traffic on a large scale. The security flaws discovered by the Berlin-based Security Research Labs could affect... 

Thousands of cellphone users in Kentucky were surprised to receive an “emergency alert” from the federal government warning them to “prepare for action,” a message local authorities later blamed on “human error” during testing. The alert, which was was sent out to people in the Corbin and London areas of Southern Kentucky earlier today, came from the Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort... 

An ominous report prepared by the General Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU) circulating in the Kremlin today states that the emergency meeting held Saturday morning in Moscow between President Putin and French President François Hollande was due to the discovery of France’s General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) of a “la terreur spectaculaire” [English: terror... 

Surveillance conducted by British intelligence agency GCHQ does not contravene human rights, a tribunal has heard, despite warnings from civil and internet liberties activists. The decision was made by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), after the case was brought to British courts by a collection of civil liberties groups including Privacy International, Amnesty International and Liberty earlier... 

A human rights group has criticized Saudi Arabia for blocking its website inside the conservative Persian Gulf Arab kingdom. The [Persian] Gulf Center for Human Rights posted a message on its website (http://gc4hr.org) on Tuesday deploring the move “as a form of repression that is part of intimidation patterns that are being used persistently in the Kingdom these days.” Attempts inside the... 

Homeland Security mouse pads tell football fans to report “unusual” activity. The Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” campaign is giving out free promotional mouse pads at NFL games that urge attendees to watch their fellow Americans for “unusual behavior.” Most recently handed out at a Baltimore Ravens game, the mouse pads, developed by Securetransit.org,... 

Canada is adopting some of its North American neighbor’s controversial police methods and dipping its toes into the pool of facial recognition technology, with Calgary police paving the way for a full-scale automated biometric identification system. Beginning this month, the Calgary Police Service will start taking advantage of this software to compare mugshots with videos and photographs captured... 

Government requests for Facebook user data shot up nearly a quarter worldwide in the first six months of 2014 over the second half of last year, a biannual report from the company reveals. Over 40 percent of those requests originated in the United States. Between January and June of this year, governments made 34,946 requests for data globally. During the same period, the amount of Facebook content... 

Samsung’s new global privacy policy for its line of Smart TVs states that a user’s personal conversations will be recorded by the device’s microphone and transmitted to third parties. A 46-page privacy policy which is now included in all newly purchased Samsung Smart TVs states that voice recognition technology “may capture voice commands and associated texts” in order to “improve the... 

To infiltrate foreign networks and gain access to sensitive systems, the NSA has been using the tactics of “physical subversion” – deploying undercover agents in Chinese, German, South Korean and possibly even American companies, The Intercept reports. Past reports on the National Security Agency (NSA) have typically depicted a government organ that hacks other systems or works with private...