The United Nations top human rights body agreed to appoint a special investigator to probe digital spying and violations of online privacy. Brazil and Germany spearheaded the resolution, which voiced deep concern over electronic surveillance and the interception of digital communications, as well as data collection by governments and private companies.
In a five-to-zero vote, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that a website operated by Napster co-founder John Fanning had misled consumers. The site presented users with personal profiles of themselves labeled “Jerk” or “Not a Jerk,” purportedly posted by other users. In fact, information in the profiles was harvested from Facebook and the “jerk” labels were added by site personnel.
Patent holding company Intellectual Ventures' second crack at holding Motorola Mobility liable for using its technology without permission partially succeeded after a U.S. jury in Delaware found Motorola infringed a patent on multimedia text messaging. The jury, which deliberated for about a day and a half, cleared Motorola on a second patent related to wireless bandwidth, which it said was invalid.
Tennessee is suing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over its attempt to block a state law limiting the growth of government-run Internet providers. The state filed a petition with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals claiming that the agency’s action violates the Constitution and the federalist approach to governance.
China's Internet regulator issued new guidelines prohibiting sexual and vulgar content on Tencent Holdings Ltd's popular messaging app, the latest step in the agency's perennial campaign to clean up China's Internet. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said sexually explicit pictures and text, including nude photos and erotic animation, and stories of "one-night stands, wife-swapping, sexual abuse and other harmful information" will be subject to punishment.
As the federal government was wrapping up its antitrust investigation of Google Inc., company executives had a flurry of meetings with top officials at the White House and Federal Trade Commission, the agency running the probe. Since Mr. Obama took office, employees of the Mountain View, Calif., company have visited the White House for meetings with senior officials about 230 times, or an average of roughly once a week, according to the visitor logs reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Top lawmakers on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence introduced legislation that would prod companies to share information about cyberthreats with each other and the federal government, the latest move by policy makers to craft a response to the growing number of data breaches. The panel’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), and its ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff of California, said the bill tries to balance privacy concerns with the need for more cooperation to prevent large-scale cyberattacks that have recently hit major American companies.
The European Court of Justice -- the European Union’s top court -- heard arguments in the biggest threat yet to a legal mechanism that allows Facebook Inc. and thousands of other firms to transfer European personal data to U.S.-based servers. Following revelations of widespread surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency, plaintiff Max Schrems, an Austrian law student, made the case that the EU-U.S. agreement, called Safe Harbor, no longer guarantees the privacy of European residents.
Trend Micro, the cybersecurity firm based in Irving, Tex., said criminals have developed advanced mobile applications and tools that siphon their victims’ online passwords and contacts to increase the chance that they will pay blackmail after tricking people into performing embarrassing sexual acts on the Internet. In a report provided to The New York Times, Trend Micro’s researchers detailed a new Android app that criminals are using to pressure their victims into paying blackmail fees.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has formed a team dedicated to cybersecurity threats, according to the bank’s top regulator. “We have elevated our efforts in recent months and have formed a dedicated team focused on further strengthening our overall supervisory approach to cybersecurity,” Sarah Dahlgren, the New York Fed’s head of supervision, said in prepared remarks delivered to a conference in New York today.
E-commerce power Amazon.com blasted federal regulators for being slow to approve commercial drone testing, saying the United States is falling behind other countries in the potentially lucrative area of unmanned aviation technology. Less than a week after the Federal Aviation Administration gave Amazon.com the green light to test a delivery drone outdoors, the company told U.S. lawmakers that the prototype had already become obsolete while the company waited more than six months for the agency's permission.
Two lawsuits were filed against the Federal Communication Commission’s new rules for broadband Internet service, the beginning of what is expected to be a flurry of legal challenges to the new regulations. The United States Telecom Association, a trade group that represents some of the nation’s largest Internet providers, filed suit in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On the same day, Alamo Broadband, a small broadband provider based in Texas, sued in federal court in New Orleans.
Amazon’s Twitch unit said its website for streaming videogame play was likely hacked, though in disclosing the possible compromise the company raised more questions than it answered. Twitch said in emails to those potentially affected that their password, email address, user name, home address, phone number and date of birth may have been accessed.
A growing number of U.S. companies, including MillerCoors and AIG, are stepping up the battle against online ad fraud by demanding proof that their ads have been seen by real people instead of computers hijacked by cybercriminals. Spurred by a warning in December by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) that businesses are losing $6.3 billion a year to so-called "click fraud," these companies now stipulate in advertising contracts that they will only pay for online ads when given proof that humans clicked on them.
Data about more than 120 million people has been compromised in more than 1,100 separate breaches at organizations handling protected health data since 2009, according to Department of Health and Human Services data reviewed by The Washington Post. Hacking-related incidents disclosed this year have dramatically driven up the number of people exposed by breaches in this sector.
European Union regulators should consider new evidence that the U.S. antitrust case against Google Inc. was stronger than previously thought as they weigh whether to sue the U.S. search giant for violating competition rules, an EU lawmaker, who has previously called for a possible breakup of the company, said. The Wall Street Journal reported a day earlier that officials at the Federal Trade Commission had concluded in 2012 that Google used anticompetitive tactics and abused its monopoly power in ways that harmed Internet users and rivals, a far harsher analysis of Google’s business than was previously known.
Rapid7, LogRhythm and Mimecast are joining a growing list of cybersecurity firms planning to go public in 2015 to capitalize on investor interest following a spate of hacker attacks, according to people familiar with the matter. Shares of publicly traded cybersecurity firms have outperformed the market in recent months, as high-profile data breaches at Sony Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Anthem Inc prompt businesses to spend more to secure their computer networks.
China's Defense Ministry denied that it had anything to do with a cyber attack on Register.com, a unit of Web.com, following a report in the Financial Times that the FBI was looking into the Chinese military's involvement. According to the Financial Times, hackers apparently have had access to Register.com's network for about a year, but the attack did not disrupt or result in theft of client data.
France has blocked five websites accused of condoning terrorism, in the first use of new government powers that came into force in February, the interior ministry said. One of the sites -- al-Hayat Media Center -- is accused of links to the Islamic State group, the ministry said.
The rising popularity of wearable devices -- and workers bringing them into the office -- could pose a major security threat to businesses this year, cybersecurity experts have warned. "As people get increasingly interested in wearables... these devices end up indirectly connected to corporate networks via BYOD (bring your own device) devices," Bogdan Botezatu, senior e-threat analyst at antivirus company Bitdefender, told CNBC by email.
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