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Ever since taking an interest Linux, with the specific aim of better understanding and enhancing my personal digital security, I have been fascinated by hacker conferences. As soon as I learned of their existence, I made a point of keeping tabs on the major conferences so I could browse through the ...

A technician hurriedly slings his backpack over his shoulders, straps on his M9 pistol, and bolts out of the transport with his squad of commandos in a hail of gunfire. As soon as his team reaches the compound, he whips out a laptop and starts deploying a rootkit to the target server, bullets whizzi...

Black Duck Software has released its 2017 Open Source Security and Risk Analysis, detailing significant cross-industry risks related to open source vulnerabilities and license compliance challenges. Black Duck conducted audits of more than 1,071 open source applications for the study last year. Ther...

There are more than three dozen previously unknown flaws that pose a potential threat to consumers using some Samsung TVs, watches and phones, a security researcher has reported. Hackers could exploit the vulnerabilities found in Samsung's Tizen OS to gain remote access and control of a variety of t...

Malware has been discovered preinstalled on 36 Android phones belonging to two companies, security software maker Check Point reported. "In all instances, the malware was not downloaded to the device as a result of the users' use -- it arrived with it," noted Oren Koriat, a member of Check Point's ...

Cybersecurity startup Capsule8 this week announced that it has raised $2.5 million to launch the industry's first container-aware, real-time threat protection platform designed to protect legacy and next-generation Linux infrastructures from existing and potential attacks. CEO John Viega, CTO Dino D...

The latest ransomware intrusion that targets Linux servers, dubbed "FairWare," may be a classic server hack designed to bilk money from victims with no intent to return stolen files after payment in bitcoins is made. The attack reportedly targets a Linux server, deletes the Web folder, and then dema...

A team at Google is working on a new operating system called "Fuchsia," but details are sparse. Fuchsia "is a new open source project that is not at all related to Android or Chrome OS," said Google spokesperson Joshua Cruz. He declined to provide further details about Fuchsia, saying only that "we ...

Linux-operated botnet Distributed Denial of Service attacks surged in this year's second quarter, due to growing interest in targeting Chinese servers, according to a Kaspersky Lab report released this week. South Korea kept its top ranking for having the most command-and-control servers. Brazil, It...

Consumers' understanding of what encryption does apparently doesn't determine whether they use the technology, with iPhone owners much more likely to use encryption than Android users.

A report released Tuesday on the DROWN vulnerability raises concerns about possible attacks that could expose encrypted communications. DROWN is a serious vulnerability that affects HTTPS and other services using SSL version 2, according to the team of security researchers who compiled the report. T...

Popularity is becoming a two-edged sword for Linux. The open source operating system has become a key component of the Internet's infrastructure, and it's also the foundation for the world's largest mobile OS, Google's Android. Widespread use of the OS, though, has attracted the attention of hackers...

Security researchers at Dr.Web on Tuesday revealed details of the Trojan Linux.Ekoms.1, which takes screen shots and records audio to acquire sensitive and personal information, mostly from Linux servers. Malware for Linux is becoming more diverse and includes spyware programs, ransomware and Trojan...

Qualys on Thursday reported a flaw in the OpenSSH client that could let a hacker steal the client's private crypto keys. The bug is the result of an undocumented feature called "roaming" that exists in version 5.4, released March 8, 2010, and above. It's one of two vulnerabilities that a malicious S...

Hacking team fail0verflow last week demonstrated a hack of Sony's PlayStation 4 game console that allows anyone running the modification to run the Linux OS on the appliance. The demo was part of a lightning talk session at the 32nd Chaos Communication Congress. The hackers used exploits in FreeBSD,...

Canonical last week announced plans to launch the Internet of Toys, an open source initiative calling on toy makers, hackers, Internet of Things fans and innovators to build the next generation of Web-accessing toys. Participants will build the next generation of toys around open source tools such a...

The Linux Foundation's recently published security checklist may draw more attention to best practices for protecting Linux workstations, even if IT pros do not embrace all of its recommendations. Konstantin Ryabitsev, the foundation's director of collaborative IT services, developed the list for th...

Mozilla on Friday released security updates to fix a zero-day flaw in the Firefox browser. An exploit that searches for sensitive files and uploads them to a server -- possibly somewhere in Ukraine -- has surfaced in an ad on a Russian news site, Mozilla reported last week. The exploit impacts Windo...

Internet security researchers at Eset on Tuesday published a security research paper on Linux/Moose, a major threat to social networks that turns routers into conduits for grabbing users' log-in credentials, employing them for network fraud and to further spread malware to client devices that connec...

C.H.I.P., a Linux-based mini-PC priced at just $9, is receiving an overwhelming response on Kickstarter. Launched last Thursday with a funding goal of $50,000, it has chalked up more than 16,000 backers who have shelled out upwards of $815,000. The project still has 25 days to go. The tiny open sour...