hat

Microsoft addresses Windows 8 secure boot issue

Microsoft is trying to shed light on the new secure boot process in Windows 8 to address concerns from people who may want to dual-boot a non-Windows OS, such as Linux.

In an update posted Thursday to the Building Windows 8 blog , Tony Mangefeste, a member of Microsoft's Ecosystem team, discussed how secure boot attempts to protect the PC against boot loader attacks, which can compromise a system before the OS even loads.

Secure boot is actually a feature of Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), a new type of boot environment that has gradually been replacing the standard BIOS … Read more

Open Virtualization Alliance adds 100-plus members

The Open Virtualization Alliance, a consortium committed to fostering the adoption of open virtualization technologies, today announced total membership of more than 200, up from 65 in just over three months. New members include CA Technologies, DataStax and Jaspersoft.

I spoke with Scott Crenshaw, VP and GM of Cloud for Red Hat, who told CNET that infrastructure as important as virtualization needs an open alternative. And Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) has emerged as a strategic initiative at many large companies, including Intel and HP. KVM is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware that provides for multiple virtual … Read more

Researcher battles insulin pump maker over security flaw

A security researcher who has proven he can remotely disable the insulin pump he relies on to keep his diabetes in check says the device maker is refusing to acknowledge the problem and misleading the public.

However, Medtronic, the maker of the insulin pump in question and one of the largest medical device manufacturers in the world, insists that the risk is very low.

Other insulin pumps allow for software updates, but to plug any holes in the software of the Medtronic pump would require a recall of all the devices now in use by patients--a costly endeavor and potentially … Read more

U.S. lawmakers alarmed over risks of insulin pump hacks

Two members of the U.S. Congress are asking government auditors to investigate the security risks of wireless medical devices, after they learned of a security researcher who found he could remotely control his own insulin pump and blood-sugar monitor.

Representatives Anna G. Eshoo, a California Democrat, and Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, senior members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office earlier this week asking the GAO to examine whether the Federal Communications Commission is ensuring that new medical devices and implants that use wireless technology can't be tampered … Read more

QNX powers the BlackBerry Colt

Apple releases a tool to automatically create recovery disks for Mac OS X Lion, researchers at the Black Hat hackers conference say that you should change all of your passwords if your laptop gets stolen, and the BlackBerry Colt will be the first QNX-powered smartphone from Research in Motion in early 2012.

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

QNX-powered BlackBerry Colt in Q1 of 2012 Apple Lion Recovery Disk Assistant Barnes and Noble Nook e-book deal Skype 5.3 on Mac Lion and HD video Stolen laptop: change ALL of your passwords Man starts waiting in line for iPhone 5 … Read more

Black Hat, Defcon: All about hacking (roundup)

The conferences will dig into issues ranging from mobile malware and hacking to vulnerabilities posed by linking critical infrastructure systems to the Internet and corporate networks. There are bound to be some hijinks as well.

Hacker launches volunteer program for security professionals Hackers for Charity founder Johnny Long hopes computer and security skills can break the cycle of poverty and keep Uganda from becoming another Nigeria. (Posted in InSecurity Complex by Elinor Mills) August 8, 2011 4:32 p.m. PT

Lose your laptop? Change all passwords, pronto Stanford University researcher shows how to bypass Windows' built-in encryption that Web … Read more

Reporters' Roundtable: Everything can be hacked

Welcome to the paranoia episode! Security and privacy are in the news this week as two security conferences hit Las Vegas: BlackHat and DefCon. Our security and policy reporters are there to fill us in on the latest in security, privacy, and all the good reasons to unplug everything and hide under our beds.

Joining us today are frequent Roundtable guests, CNET News reporters Declan McCullagh and Elinor Mills.

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Stories we discussed this week:… Read more

Security insider discusses Vista's level of security

LAS VEGAS--It's easy now to look back at Microsoft's Windows Vista and berate the company for the operating system's shortcomings, but the truth is far more complex, according to one security researcher. At the second day of the annual Black Hat conference here, Chris Paget, chief hacker at the security company Recursion Ventures, discussed her independent contracting work for Microsoft on Vista prior to its release for the first time. Before Recursion took on the contract, all members of the team that worked on Vista were made to sign non-disclosure agreements that took five years to expire. … Read more

Researchers find avenues for fraud in Square

LAS VEGAS--Researchers at the Black Hat security conference today revealed two ways the Square payment system, which turns any iPhone, iPad or Android into a point-of-sale credit card processor, could be used for fraud.

Adam Laurie and Zac Franken, directors of Aperture Labs, discovered that they can transfer money from a stolen card into their bank account associated with Square without having to swipe a card through the Square dongle card reader. To do this, they used code written by Laurie that lets them feed magnetic stripe data from a stolen card into a microphone and convert it into a … Read more