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The Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) has fined Uber a record €290 million ($324 million) for allegedly failing to comply with European Union (E.U.) data protection standards when sending sensitive driver data to the U.S. "The Dutch DPA found that Uber transferred personal data of European taxi drivers to the United States (U.S.) and failed to appropriately safeguard the data with regard to these transfers," the agency said . The data protection watchdog said the move constitutes a "serious" violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In response, the ride-hailing, courier, and food delivery service has ended the practice. Uber is believed to have collected drivers' sensitive information and retained it on U.S.-based servers for over two years. This included account details and taxi licenses, location data, photos, payment details, and identity documents. In some cases, it also contained criminal and medical data of drivers. The DPA accu

Pavel Durov, founder and chief executive of the popular messaging app Telegram, was arrested in France on Saturday, according to French television network TF1. Durov is believed to have been apprehended pursuant to a warrant issued in connection with a preliminary police investigation. TF1 said the probe was focused on a lack of content moderation on the instant messaging service, which the authorities took issue with, turning the app into a haven for various kinds of criminal activity, including drug trafficking, child pornography, money laundering, and fraud. The hands-off approach to moderation on Telegram has been a point of contention , fueling cybercrime and turning the platform into a hub for threat actors to organize their operations, distribute malware, and peddle stolen data and other illegal goods  "This messaging app has transformed into a bustling hub where seasoned cybercriminals and newcomers alike exchange illicit tools and insights creating a dark and well-

For years, securing a company's systems was synonymous with securing its "perimeter." There was what was safe "inside" and the unsafe outside world. We built sturdy firewalls and deployed sophisticated detection systems, confident that keeping the barbarians outside the walls kept our data and systems safe. The problem is that we no longer operate within the confines of physical on-prem installations and controlled networks. Data and applications now reside in distributed cloud environments and data centers, accessed by users and devices connecting from anywhere on the planet. The walls have crumbled, and the perimeter has dissolved, opening the door to a new battlefield: identity . Identity is at the center of what the industry has praised as the new gold standard of enterprise security: "zero trust." In this paradigm, explicit trust becomes mandatory for any interactions between systems, and no implicit trust shall subsist. Every access request, regardless of its origin,

Google has announced that it's adding a new layer of protection to its Chrome browser through what's called app-bound encryption to prevent information-stealing malware from grabbing cookies on Windows systems. "On Windows, Chrome uses the Data Protection API ( DPAPI ) which protects the data at rest from other users on the system or cold boot attacks," Will Harris from the Chrome security team said . "However, the DPAPI does not protect against malicious applications able to execute code as the logged in user – which info-stealers take advantage of." App-bound encryption is an improvement over DPAPI in that it interweaves an app's identity (i.e., Chrome in this case) into encrypted data to prevent another app on the system from accessing it when decryption is attempted. "Because the app-bound service is running with system privileges, attackers need to do more than just coax a user into running a malicious app," Harris said. "Now, th

A suspected pro-Houthi threat group targeted at least three humanitarian organizations in Yemen with Android spyware designed to harvest sensitive information. These attacks, attributed to an activity cluster codenamed OilAlpha , entail a new set of malicious mobile apps that come with their own supporting infrastructure, Recorded Future's Insikt Group said . Targets of the ongoing campaign include, CARE International, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and the Saudi Arabian King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre. "The OilAlpha threat group is highly likely active and executing targeted activity against humanitarian and human rights organizations operating in Yemen, and potentially throughout the Middle East," the cybersecurity company said. OilAlpha was first documented in May 2023 in connection with an espionage campaign targeting development, humanitarian, media, and non-governmental organizations in the Arabian peninsula. These attacks leveraged What

After months of negotiations, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has approved a record $5 billion settlement with Facebook over its privacy investigation into the Cambridge Analytica scandal . The settlement will put an end to a wide-ranging probe that began more than a year ago and centers around the violation of a 2011 agreement Facebook made with the FTC that required Facebook to gain explicit consent from users to share their personal data. The FTC launched an investigation into the social media giant last year after it was revealed that the company allowed Cambridge Analytica access to the personal data of around  87 million Facebook users without their explicit consent. Now, according to a new report published by the Wall Street Journal, the FTC commissioners this week finally voted to approve a $5 billion settlement, with three Republicans voting to approve the deal and two Democrats against it. Facebook anticipated the fine to between $3 billion and

A team of security researchers has claims to have found a publicly-accessible database that exposes information on more than 80 million U.S. households—nearly 65 percent of the total number of American households. Discovered by VPNMentor's research team lead by hacktivists Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, the unsecured database includes 24GB of extremely detailed information about individual homes, including their full names, addresses, ages, and birth dates. The massive database which is hosted on a Microsoft cloud server also contains coded information noted in "numerical values," which the researchers believe correlates to homeowners' gender, marital status, income bracket, status, and dwelling type. Fortunately, the unprotected database does not contain passwords, social security numbers or payment card information related to any of the affected American households. The researchers verified the accuracy of some data in the cache, but they did not download the

Facebook has a lot of problems, then there are a lot of problems for Facebook—and both are not going to end anytime sooner. Though Facebook has already set aside $5 billion from its revenue to cover a possible fine the company is expecting as a result of an FTC investigation over privacy violations, it seems to be just first installment of what Facebook has to pay for continuously ignoring users' privacy. This week, Facebook has been hit with three new separate investigations from various governmental authorities—both in the United States and abroad—over the company's mishandling of its users' data . New York Attorney General to Investigate Facebook Email Collection Scandal New York Attorney General is opening an investigation into Facebook's unauthorized collection of the email contacts of more than 1.5 million users during site registration without their permission. Earlier this month, Facebook was caught practicing the worst ever user-verification mechanism

Facebook expects to face a massive fine of up to $5 billion from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as the result of an investigation into its privacy policies—that's about one month's revenue for the social media giant. To be clear the amount of fine is not what the FTC has announced or hinted yet; instead, it's an estimated due that Facebook disclosed on Wednesday in its first quarter 2019 financial earnings report. In its earnings report, Facebook said the company had set $3 billion aside in anticipation of the settlement with the FTC, who launched a probe into Facebook following the Cambridge Analytica scandal . The probe centers around the violation of a 2011 agreement Facebook made with the FTC that required the social media to gain explicit consent from users to share their data. The FTC launched an investigation into Facebook last year after it was revealed that the company allowed Cambridge Analytica access to the personal data of around 50 million Face

U.S. Congress has sent an open letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking for more information about its Sensorvault database that's reportedly being used by law enforcement agencies to solve crime cases. Last week, we reported a story based upon NY Times findings that revealed how using a "geofence" warrant, authorities obtain location history of all devices from Google's Sensorvault database that pass through a crime scene over a certain time period. For those unaware, Google maintains Sensorvault database over nearly the past decade which contains precise location information from hundreds of millions of smartphones around the world and shares it with authorities to help in criminal cases. However, Google does not share identifiable information on all devices after receiving a warrant. Instead, authorities have to first narrow down their list of suspects using the location history data, only after which Google shares further information about a few selected u

Facebook is once again in trouble regarding its users' privacy. The social media giant has recently been heavily fined once again for a series of privacy violations in Spain. Recently, Google also incurred a record-breaking fine of $2.7 billion (€2.42 billion) by the European antitrust officials for unfairly manipulating search results since at least 2008. Now, the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) has issued a €1.2 Million (nearly $1.4 Million) fine against Facebook for breaching laws designed to protect its people's information and confidentiality. According to the data protection watchdog, the social network collects its users' personal data without their 'unequivocal consent' and makes the profit by sharing the data with advertisers and marketers. The AEPD also found Facebook collects sensitive data on user's ideology, religious beliefs, sex and personal tastes and navigation—either directly from its own services or through third parties—w

In this world of global mass surveillance by not the only US, but also intelligence agencies across the world, every other country wants tech companies including Google, Apple, and Microsoft to set-up and maintain their servers in their country to keep their citizen data within boundaries. Last year, Microsoft won a case which ruled that the US government cannot force tech companies to hand over their non-US customers' data stored on servers located in other countries to the FBI or any other federal authorities. However, a new notable ruling just goes against the court judgment last year, raising concerns regarding people's privacy. A US magistrate reportedly ruled Friday that Google has to comply with FBI search warrants seeking customer emails stored on servers outside of the United States, according to RT . U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia noted that transferring emails from outside servers so FBI could read them locally as part of a domestic f

Just last month, the most popular messaging app WhatsApp updated its privacy policy and T&Cs to start sharing its user data with its parent company, and now both the companies are in trouble, at least in Germany and India. Both Facebook, as well as WhatsApp, have been told to immediately stop collecting and storing data on roughly 35 Million WhatsApp users in Germany. The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information Johannes Caspar even ordered Facebook on Tuesday to delete all data that has already been forwarded to WhatsApp since August. Also in India, the Delhi High Court on September 23 ordered WhatsApp to delete all users' data from its servers up until September 25 when the company's new privacy policy came into effect. When Facebook first acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in cash in 2014, WhatsApp made a promise that its users' data would not be shared between both companies. But now apparently this has changed, which, according to Caspa

Recently, two European countries, France and Germany, have declared war against encryption with an objective to force major technology companies to built encryption backdoors in their secure messaging services. However, another neighborhood country, Netherlands, is proactively taking down cyber criminals, but do you know how? Dutch Police has seized two servers belonging to Virtual Private Network (VPN) provider Perfect Privacy , as part of an investigation, without even providing any reason for seizures. Switzerland-based VPN provider said they came to know about the servers seizure from I3D, the company that provides server hosting across Rotterdam. For those unfamiliar, Virtual Private Networks or VPNs are easy security and privacy tools that route your Internet traffic through a distant connection, protecting your browsing, hiding your location data and accessing restricted resources. VPNs have now become a great tool not just for large companies, but also for individual

It's no secret that Google knows a lot about you. The company tracks almost everything you do on the Internet, including your searches, music you listen to, videos you watch, and even the places you travel to, and it does this for targeting relevant ads to its users and better improve its service. Now the technology giant has a plan to make it easier to control all the data the company collects throughout all your different devices. Google has rolled out a new My Activity page that shows a searchable history of pretty much everything you do online, including previously visited websites, voice searches, searched things and places, watched Netflix programs, and all activities you did on each of its products. "My Activity is a central place to view and manage activity like searches you've done, websites you've visited, and videos you've watched," Google says. "Your activity is listed as individual items, starting with the most recent. These items

The United States anti-encryption bill will kill your Privacy. In the wake of the Apple vs. FBI case, two leading Intelligence Committee Senators have introduced an anti-encryption bill that would effectively ban strong encryption. Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) released the official version of their bill today in response to concerns that criminals and terrorists are increasingly using encrypted devices to hide their plans and plots from authorities. As its name suggests, the Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016 [ PDF ] would require people and technology firms like Apple and Google to comply with court orders to decrypt phones and its data. The draft copy of the Burr-Feinstein proposal was leaked last week, which has already faced heavy criticism from both the technology and legislative communities. Even the White House has declined to support the bill. The official version of the anti-encryption bill seems to be even wors

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has put forward a proposal that aims to protect Internet user's privacy. The proposal [ pdf] will regulate the amount of customers' online data the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are able to collect and sell to the advertising companies. Currently, there is no particular rule by law covering broadband providers and customer privacy, and if adopted, this would be the first privacy rule for ISPs. The FCC already governs how phone companies can use and resell customer data, and the Chairman Tom Wheeler believes similar rules should be applied to ISPs. Is Your ISP Tracking Your Web Surfing and Selling Data to Advertisers? Your complete Internet traffic passes through your Internet Service Provider, which gives it the ability to access to vast and potentially lucrative amount of your web-browsing activity. If you are using a mobile phone, your ISP can also track your physical location throughout the day in real time. ISPs

8th February 2016 would be considered as a cursed day in the history of Facebook. You might have known that just yesterday India bans Facebook's Free Basic Internet in the country. Now, Zuckerberg had got another bombshell in the form of a French Order from the European Data Protection Authority, who ordered Facebook to stop tracking non-users' online activity and to stop data transfers of personal data to the US servers. Facebook Is Following You Everywhere Do you know: Facebook can still track you, even if you log out, with the help of its tracking cookies and plugins ( like, share buttons ) placed on any 3rd-party website. Facebook knows what sites you are visiting, and by " you ," I mean specifically your account, not an anonymous Facebook user . As per the French Order, Facebook is not legalized to track the web browsing habits of all European citizens, even those without a Facebook account. The French Government had also provided a tim

Recently the Facebook-owned messaging app dropped its $1 annual subscription fee to make WhatsApp Free for Lifetime . Now, WhatsApp has plans to introduce a new feature that would allow its users to integrate their Facebook accounts with the most widely used messaging app. So far, the social media giant has been focusing on its own messaging platform, Messenger and both WhatsApp and Facebook have been working separately in terms of adding new features. WhatsApp to Share User Data With Facebook Android developer Javier Santos spotted a new feature in the latest beta build of WhatsApp, which indicates that soon you'll start seeing some features interconnected between WhatsApp and Facebook. The feature (optional, for now), dubbed " Share my account info ," when selected will share your personal WhatsApp account information with Facebook in order "to improve your Facebook experience," according to the description. Although it's uncle

After several controversial data mining and privacy invasion features within Microsoft's newest operating system, Microsoft continued convincing its users that Windows 10 is not spying on anyone and that the company is not collecting more data than it needs. In addition, Microsoft also updated its privacy policy in order to clear how and when Windows 10 utilizes users' data. But wait, before you convinced yourself by this statement, just have a look on the milestones (listed below) that Microsoft recently announced, revealing that Windows 10 is now actively running on 200 Million devices . Also Read:   Microsoft WARNING — 'Use Windows 7 at Your Own Risk' Microsoft Tracks Your Every Move Here's the list of milestones that Microsoft just achieved: People spent over 11 Billion hours on Windows 10 in December 2015. More than 44.5 Billion minutes were spent in Microsoft Edge across Windows 10 devices in December alone. Windows 10 users aske

North Korea has its own homegrown computer operating system that looks remarkably just like Apple's OS X, which not only prevents potential foreign hacking attempts but also provides extensive surveillance capabilities. Two German researchers have just conducted an in-depth analysis of the secretive state's operating system and found that the OS does more than what is known about it. Dubbed Red Star OS , the operating system based on a Linux 2009 version called Fedora 11 limits its users to a government-approved view of the world and has the tendency to ' watermark ' files on USB sticks to track user's shuttling contraband material. Red Star OS Tracks User's Every Move In short, whenever a user inserts a USB storage device containing photos, videos or other documents, into a computer running Red Star, the OS takes the current hard disk's serial number, encrypts that number, and writes that encrypted serial into the file, marking it. The p