Security, Spoken

One of the most basic premises of computer security is isolation: If you run somebody else's sketchy code as an untrusted process on your machine, you should restrict it to its own tightly sealed playpen. Otherwise, it might peer into other processes, or snoop around the computer as a whole. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you have tons of leftovers you put them in Tupperware. When you have an excess of phone calls, you send them to voicemail. And when you have a deluge of junk from a botnet attacking your network, you put all that malicious traffic into a sinkhole. Sinkholing is a technique for manipulating data flow in a network; you redirect traffic from its intended destination to the server of your choosin...

2017 was bananas in lots of ways, and cybersecurity was no exception. Whether critical infrastructure attacks or insecure databases, hacks, breaches, and leaks of unprecedented scale impacted institutions around the world—along with the billions of people who trust them with their data. This list includes incidents disclosed in 2017, but note that some took place earlier. Learn more about your ad...

Think of a country that stifles internet freedom. You might first jump to the oppressive regimes of North Korea, China, or Cuba, where internet access is either forbidden or radically restricted. But in fact, according to a recent study by the non-profit Freedom House, the principles of internet freedom are under attack worldwide—including in the United States. And it's only getting worse. Overt g...

Back in July, WIRED security writer Lily Hay Newman assessed the year in hacks and breaches and found, "the first six months of 2017 have seen an inordinate number of cybersecurity meltdowns. And they weren't just your standard corporate breaches. It's only July, and already there's been viral, state-sponsored ransomware, leaks of spy tools from US intelligence agencies, and full-on campaign hacki...

Cryptojacking, which exploded in popularity this fall, has an ostensibly worthy goal: Use an untapped resource to create an alternative revenue stream for games or media sites, and reduce reliance on ads. It works by embedding a JavaScript component in a website that can leverage a visiting device's processing power to mine a cryptocurrency (usually Monero). Each visitor might only do a tiny bit o...

Not so long ago, the internet often felt like a fully detached realm of ephemeral fun. Today, we wake up to tweets from a president that seem intended to goad a rogue state into nuclear war. Hackers launch ransomware worms that tear across the globe in a matter of hours, paralyzing massive multinational infrastructure companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Perhaps you've been hearing strange sounds in your home—ghostly creaks and moans, random Rick Astley tunes, Alexa commands issued in someone else's voice. If so, you haven't necessarily lost your mind. Instead, if you own one of a few models of internet-connected speaker and you've been careless with your network settings, you might be one of thousands of people whose Sonos or Bose devices have be...

In 2013, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden famously brought to light a series of classified US government spying programs. For the first time, the American people learned that the NSA was collecting millions of their phone calls and electronic communications—emails, Facebook messages, texts, browsing histories—all without a warrant. Several of the programs Snowden revealed...

Seven months after the WannaCry ransomware ripped across the internet in one of the most damaging hacking operations of all time, the US government has pinned that digital epidemic on North Korea. And while cybersecurity researchers have suspected North Korea's involvement from the start, the Trump administration intends the official charges to carry new diplomatic weight, showing the world that n...

Happy holidays from your security news friends! As a special gift, we got you this analysis of the Resistance’s tactical shortcomings in The Last Jedi. And so much more! The US this week officially pinned this year’s devastating WannaCry ransomware attack on North Korea, after the security community had largely come to that same conclusion months ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcas...

In the early bitcoin years, proponents promised that you would soon be able to pay for anything and everything with cryptocurrency. Order pizza! Buy Etsy trinkets! Use a bitcoin ATM! While PayPal had existed for more than a decade, frictionless, social payment platforms like Venmo were just first taking off, and cryptocurrency seemed like a legitimate way for digital transactions to evolve. It did...

Your digital security, any sufficiently paranoid person will remind you, is only as good as your physical security. The world's most sensitive users of technology, like dissidents, activists, or journalists in repressive regimes, have to fear not just hacking and online surveillance, but the reality that police, intelligence agents, or other intruders can simply break into your home, office, or ho...

As a fourth year medical student at Yale, Matthew Erlendson says he had to think long and hard about whether to participate in a recent hackathon at the Department of Health and Human services. The two-day event seemed like an innovative way to confront the opioid crisis, which kills more than 90 people in the US every day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tech giants love to tout how good their computers are at identifying what’s depicted in a photograph. In 2015, deep learning algorithms designed by Google, Microsoft, and China’s Baidu superseded humans at the task, at least initially. This week, Facebook announced that its facial-recognition technology is now smart enough to identify a photo of you, even if you’re not tagged in it. Learn more abo...

For last-minute shoppers, tech toys hold a special appeal. They’re crowdpleasers, and generally available with two-day shipping—or faster—from any number of online retailers. Stapling on internet connectivity also might make these flashy kids gadgets sound all the more appealing; it’s not just a teddy bear, it’s a machine learning teddy bear. On the other hand: don't. Learn more about your ad choi...

The biggest story in tech this week—and maybe this year—was net neutrality, which the FCC effectively abolished by rolling back Obama-era rules that prevented the creation of internet “fast lanes.” They did so despite overwhelming evidence that the mandatory public comment period was overrun with bots, form letters, and over maladies. How bad was it? We tracked down all 39 Nicholas Thompsons who c...

The International Space Station is one of the few nonstellar things up there that we can see from down here without instruments. It’s a prefab home the size of a football field, 462 tons and more than $100 billion worth of pressurized roomlike modules and gleaming solar arrays, orbiting 250 miles above the surface of the Earth. Its flight path is available online, and you can find out when it will...

Over the course of the Star Wars franchise, we’ve been treated to some epic battles: dogfights between X-Wings and TIE fighters at Yavin-4, AT-ATs on the frozen wastes of Hoth, jungle warfare on Endor, and Rogue One’s epic battles on the beaches of Scarif. The Last Jedi offers no shortage of skirmishes, either. Except this time, the Resistance’s consistently bad military tactics finally catch up w...

All software has flaws, no matter how carefully you vet it. So the question isn't how to write perfect code, but how to respond to mistakes as you find them. And while Apple has earned a strong reputation for security, a string of significant vulnerabilities in macOS and iOS have strained Apple's safety net—and led some security researchers and developers to question whether the issues are systemi...

The Federal Communications Commissions' public comment period on its plans to repeal net neutrality protections was bombarded with bots, memes, and input from people who don't actually exist. The situation's gotten so bad that FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, as well as several members of Congress, including one Republican, have called for the FCC to postpone its December 14 net neutrality vo...

There was a time when high-status people signaled their worth with an ostentatious key fob for an expensive car. Today the keyring of an important person—or at least a paranoid one—might be distinguished by a less obvious marker: a pair of inconspicuous plastic dongles that protect an inbox full of secrets worth keeping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hackers can threaten your smartphone in lots of ways, and if you want (or need) to lock it down completely, ironclad protection gets a little complicated. Fortunately, you can take some quick and easy steps to make big improvements to your mobile security. They don’t eliminate all risk, but they’re a solid baseline for any smartphone owner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.co...

Any self-respecting paranoiac long ago taped over the webcam on their laptop—and for good measure, the cameras on their smartphone too. But for those truly concerned that their computers have been hacked and turned into spy tools, the microphones on those devices represent just as much of a security threat as the cameras. They would allow a hacked gadget to bug an entire room. Learn more about you...

You've covered the basics. You've checked off the more-than-basics. But you still can't fight a nagging feeling that it's not quite enough. At a certain point, if a nation-state wants to compromise your devices or your privacy badly enough, it's going to find a way. You can at least make it harder for them. Here are a few measures designed to do just that. The Air Gap Up There The best way not to...