UK watchdog says Huawei poses a national security risk

In its fifth annual report, the UK's Huawei oversight board says that the Chinese firm poses a threat to national security. It reached the conclusion after discovering that the company has made "no material progress" in addressing the security flaws highlighted in last year's report. But while the report was damning of Huawei, saying it found additional "significant technical issues in Huawei’s engineering processes leading to new risks in the UK telecommunications networks", the board stopped short of calling for a ban on Huawei's involvement in 5G in the UK. See also: Sources: Huawei is on the verge of suing… [Continue Reading]

Large enterprises face problems with unsecured applications

A new survey of more than 200 CISOs in the US and Canada finds that large enterprises typically operate 1,300 or more complex applications but only protect 60 percent of them, leaving more than 500 applications unprotected at a time where adversarial attacks are increasing. The study from crowdsourced security company Bugcrowd along with the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), also shows strong interest in using DevOps to automate security. Nearly four out of five organizations have adopted DevOps, and more than four out of five are planning to integrate cybersecurity processes and controls in the continuous integration and continuous delivery… [Continue Reading]

Viper Gaming launches VPN100 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD

If your computer has an NVMe M.2 slot, you should absolutely be using it. Look, I'm sure that SATA solid state drive you have is great and all, but the difference in performance can be significant. With prices dropping and speeds increasing, you really should upgrade to an NVMe variant if you have the cash -- it is a "no brainer." There are many solid NVMe SSDs on the market from respectable manufacturers, and today, another one enters the market. Called "VPN100," it is a new drive from Viper Gaming with a pre-installed black heatsink that should help performance through cooling.… [Continue Reading]

Encryption backdoors raise the likelihood of attack

Countries with government-mandated encryption backdoors are more susceptible to nation-state attacks according to 73 percent of security professionals. A survey from machine identity protection company Venafi also finds 69 percent believe countries with encryption backdoors suffer economic disadvantages in the global marketplace as a result. "This is a tense moment for industry professionals because they know backdoors make our critical infrastructure more vulnerable," says Kevin Bocek, vice president of security strategy and threat intelligence at Venafi. "This is not rocket science; backdoors inevitably create vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious actors. It's understandable that so many security professionals are… [Continue Reading]

Facebook explicitly bans white nationalism and white separatism

The "praise, support and representation" of both white nationalism and white separatism are to be explicitly banned on Facebook and Instagram. The new policies will be enforced as of next week. Facebook announced the change in policy as it and other social networks face increasing pressure to do more to counter hate speech. It also comes in the wake of the Christchurch, New Zealand mosque shooting, footage of which was shared on the platform. See also: Facebook stored millions of users' passwords in searchable plain text for years Pahahaha! Zuckerburg outlines his, *snort*, privacy-focused vision for Facebook and social networking… [Continue Reading]

See the Samsung Galaxy Fold hinge in action in an official stress-test video

Aside from 5G, it seems that the next big movement in the world of smartphones is going to be folding devices. Both Samsung and Huawei have announced foldables in recent weeks, with each adopting different designs. As smartphones with folding screens are a new category of device, users understandably have questions about them. What are they like to use? Is the crease visible? Will the screen hold up to continued folding and unfolding? In a new video, Samsung shows how its Galaxy Fold is stress-tested to ensure that it can withstand 200,000 openings and closings. See also: Battle of the… [Continue Reading]

Nearly three quarters of Windows 10 users still don’t have the October 2018 Update

The October 2018 Update, or Windows 10 1809, has been nothing short of a disaster for Microsoft. It was so buggy it had to be pulled shortly after its release last October, and it only began to be pushed out as an automatic update a week ago. AdDuplex, which monitors the share of each version of Windows 10, has been reporting for months on the incredibly poor adoption of Windows 10 1809, and March was another month in which the update gained hardly any additional share. With the next big feature version scheduled to arrive next month, it looks as… [Continue Reading]