It talks, it squawks, it even blocks! The stocking-stuffer on every hobby hacker’s wish list this year is the Flipper Zero. “Talk” across low-frequency radio to surreptitiously change TV channels, emulate garage door openers, or even pop open your friend’s Tesla charging port without their knowing! “Squawk” with the Flipper Zero’s mascot and user-interface tour guide, a “cyber-dolphin” who can “read” the minds of office key fobs and insecure hotel entry cards. And, introducing in 2023, block...

Like the grade-school dweeb who reminds their teacher to assign tonight’s homework, or the power-tripping homeowner who threatens every neighbor with an HOA citation, the ransomware group ALPHV can now add itself to a shameful roster of pathetic, little tattle-tales. In November, the ransomware gang ALPHV, which also goes by the name Black Cat, notified the US Securities and Exchange Commission about the Costa Mesa-based software company MeridianLink, alleging that the company had failed to...

A worrying trend is cropping up amongst Americans, particularly within Generation Z—they're spying on each other more. Whether reading someone's DMs, rifling through a partner's text messages, or even rummaging through the bags and belongings of someone else, Americans enjoy keeping tabs on one another, especially when they're in a relationship. According to recent research from Malwarebytes, a shocking 49% of Gen Zers agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “Being able to track my...

In September, the Las Vegas casino and hotel operator MGM Resorts became a trending topic on social media... but for all the wrong reasons. A TikTok user posted a video taken from inside the casino floor of the MGM Grand—the company's flagship hotel complex near the southern end of the Las Vegas strip—that didn't involve the whirring of slot machines or the sirens and buzzers of sweepstake earnings, but, instead, row after row of digital gambling machines with blank, non-functional...

What are you most worried about online? And what are you doing to stay safe?  Depending on who you are, those could be very different answers, but for teenagers and members of Generation Z, the internet isn't so scary because of traditional threats like malware and viruses. Instead, the internet is scary because of what it can expose. To Gen Z, a feared internet is one that is vindictive and cruel—an internet that reveals private information that Gen Z fears could harm their relationships...

When you think of the modern tools that most invade your privacy, what do you picture? There's the obvious answers, like social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram. There's email and "everything" platforms like Google that can track your locations, your contacts, and, of course, your search history. There's even the modern web itself, rife with third-party cookies that track your browsing activity across websites so your information can be bundled together into an ad-friendly...

In 2022, Malwarebytes investigated the blurry, shifting idea of “identity” on the internet, and how online identities are not only shaped by the people behind them, but also inherited by the internet’s youngest users, children. Children have always inherited some of their identities from their parents—consider that two of the largest indicators for political and religious affiliation in the US are, no surprise, the political and religious affiliations of someone’s parents—but the transfer...

Becky Holmes is a big deal online.  Hugh Jackman has invited her to dinner. Prince William has told her she has "such a beautiful name." Once, Ricky Gervais simply needed her photos ("I want you to take a snap of yourself and then send it to me on here...Send it to me on here!" he messaged on Twitter), and even Tom Cruise slipped into her DMs (though he was a tad boring, twice asking about her health and more often showing a core misunderstanding of grammar).  Becky has played it cool,...

"Freedom" is a big word, and for many parents today, it's a word that includes location tracking.  Across America, parents are snapping up Apple AirTags, the inexpensive location tracking devices that can help owners find lost luggage, misplaced keys, and—increasingly so—roving toddlers setting out on mini-adventures.  The parental fear right now, according to The Washington Post technology reporter Heather Kelly, is that "anybody who can walk, therefore can walk away."  Parents wanting to...

Earlier this month, a group of hackers was spotted using a set of malicious tools—that originally gained popularity with online video game cheaters—to hide their Windows-based malware from being detected. Sounds unique, right?  Frustratingly, it isn't, as the specific security loophole that was abused by the hackers has been around for years, and Microsoft's response, or lack thereof, is actually a telling illustration of the competing security environments within Windows and macOS. Even more...

The language of a data breach, no matter what company gets hit, is largely the same. There's the stolen data—be it email addresses, credit card numbers, or even medical records. There are the users—unsuspecting, everyday people who, through no fault of their own, mistakenly put their trust into a company, platform, or service to keep their information safe. And there are, of course, the criminals. Some operate in groups. Some act alone. Some steal data as a means of extortion. Others steal it...

In the United States, when the police want to conduct a search on a suspected criminal, they must first obtain a search warrant. It is one of the foundational rights given to US persons under the Constitution, and a concept that has helped create the very idea of a right to privacy at home and online.  But sometimes, individualized warrants are never issued, never asked for, never really needed, depending on which government agency is conducting the surveillance, and for what reason. Every...

When you think about the word "cyberthreat," what first comes to mind? Is it ransomware? Is it spyware? Maybe it's any collection of the infamous viruses, worms, Trojans, and botnets that have crippled countless companies throughout modern history.  In the future, though, what many businesses might first think of is something new: Disinformation.  Back in 2021, in speaking about threats to businesses, the former director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris...

In May, a lawyer who was defending their client in a lawsuit against Columbia's biggest airline, Avianca, submitted a legal filing before a court in Manhattan, New York, that listed several previous cases as support for their main argument to continue the lawsuit. But when the court reviewed the lawyer's citations, it found something curious: Several were entirely fabricated.  The lawyer in question had gotten the help of another attorney who, in scrounging around for legal precedent to cite,...

On January 1, 2023, the Internet in Louisiana looked a little different than the Internet in Texas, Mississippi, and Arkansas—its next-door state neighbors. And on May 1, the Internet in Utah looked quite different, depending on where you looked, than the Internet in Arizona, or Idaho, or Nevada, or California or Oregon or Washington or, really, much of the rest of the United States.  The changes are, ostensibly, over pornography.  In Louisiana, today, visitors to the online porn site PornHub...

Ransomware is becoming bespoke, and that could mean trouble for businesses and law enforcement investigators.  It wasn't always like this.  For a few years now, ransomware operators have congregated around a relatively new model of crime called "Ransomware-as-a-Service." In the Ransomware-as-a-Service model, or RaaS model, ransomware itself is not delivered to victims by the same criminals that make the ransomware. Instead, it is used almost "on loan" by criminal groups called "affiliates"...

In January, a mental health nonprofit admitted that it had used Artificial Intelligence to help talk to people in distress.  Prompted first by a user's longing for personal improvement—and the difficulties involved in that journey—the AI tool generated a reply, which, with human intervention, could be sent verbatim in a chat box, or edited and fine-tuned to better fit the situation. The AI said: “I hear you. You’re trying to become a better person and it’s not easy. It’s hard to make changes...

This week on Lock and Code, we speak with Bennett Cyphers about one largely unknown company's efforts to package and sell Americans' location data almost exclusively to cops.

This week on Lock and Code, we speak with Anna Pobletts about the "death" of passwords, and how passkeys can become the non-compromising fix to authentication's biggest problems.

Becky Holmes knows how to throw a romance scammer off script—simply bring up cannibalism.  In January, Holmes shared on Twitter that an account with the name "Thomas Smith" had started up a random chat with her that sounded an awful lot like the beginnins stages of a romance scam. But rather than instantly ignoring and blocking the advances—as Holmes recommends everyone do in these types of situations—she first had a little fun.  "I was hoping that you'd let me eat a small part of you when we...

Government threats to end-to-end encryption—the technology that secures your messages and shared photos and videos—have been around for decades, but the most recent threats to this technology are unique in how they intersect with a broader, sometimes-global effort to control information on the Internet. Take two efforts in the European Union and the United Kingdom. New proposals there would require companies to scan any content that their users share with one another for Child Sexual Abuse...

In November of last year, the AI research and development lab OpenAI revealed its latest, most advanced language project: A tool called ChatGPT. ChatGPT is so much more than "just" a chatbot. As users have shown with repeated testing and prodding, ChatGPT seems to "understand" things. It can give you recipes that account for whatever dietary restrictions you have. It can deliver basic essays about moments in history. It can—and has been—used to cheat by university students who are giving a...

In 2020, a photo of a woman sitting on a toilet—her shorts pulled half-way down her thighs—was shared on Facebook, and it was shared by someone whose job it was to look at that photo and, by labeling the objects in it, help train an artificial intelligence system for a vacuum. Bizarre? Yes. Unique? No. In December, MIT Technology Review investigated the data collection and sharing practices of the company iRobot, the developer of the popular self-automated Roomba vacuums. In their reporting,...

Last month, the TikTok user TracketPacer posted a video online called “Network Engineering Facts to Impress No One at Zero Parties.”  TracketPacer regularly posts fun, educational content about how the Internet operates. The account is run by a network engineer named Lexie Cooper, who has worked in a network operations center, or NOC, and who’s earned her Cisco Certified Network Associate certificate, or CCNA.  In the video, Cooper told listeners about the first spam email being sent over...

When did technology last excite you?  If Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is to be believed, your own excitement ended, simply had to end, after turning 35 years old. Decades ago, at first writing privately and later having those private writings published after his death, Adams had come up with "a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies." They were simple and short:  Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is...