Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan will take his fight over Apple Inc.’s record 13 billion-euro ($14.4 billion) tax bill to a European Union court, potentially triggering years of litigation. The nation will file its appeal against the European Commission’s decision to force Ireland to claw back alleged tax subsidies, in a case that will test the EU’s powers to use state aid law in what governments argue are national affairs.
Law enforcement officials, government workers and cyber-security professionals are preparing to swoop in, track and hopefully block anyone attempting a cyberattack aimed at destabilizing the U.S. presidential election. The possibility is slight, with risks lessened by the fractured, mostly non-digital nature of the national voting apparatus. Still, fears that hackers — perhaps from Russia — could instill doubts about the voting process via attacks on the Internet infrastructure have put the cyber-security community on guard.
Britain's privacy watchdog said that Facebook has agreed to suspend using data from UK users of its WhatsApp messaging app after the watchdog said consumers weren't properly protected. The watchdog said the social media giant faces action if it uses such data without valid consent.
Tesco Bank's chief executive has blamed "a systematic, sophisticated attack" for the money taken from 20,000 of its customer accounts. Benny Higgins said the bank knew "exactly" what the attack was, but could not say more because it was part of a criminal investigation.
Hundreds of fake retail and product apps have popped up in Apple’s App Store in recent weeks — just in time to deceive holiday shoppers. The counterfeiters have masqueraded as retail chains like Dollar Tree and Foot Locker, big department stores like Dillard’s and Nordstrom, online product bazaars like Zappos.com and Polyvore, and luxury-goods makers like Jimmy Choo, Christian Dior and Salvatore Ferragamo.
The Cyber Security Law was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, and will take effect in June, government officials said. Among other things, it requires internet operators to cooperate with investigations involving crime and national security, and imposes mandatory testing and certification of computer equipment. Companies must also give government investigators full access to their data if wrong-doing is suspected.
The co-founder of the company that originally attributed the hacking of Democratic outlets to Russia is standing by his work despite Julian Assange's statement that WikiLeaks did not receive the stolen emails from Moscow. The Russian government-run news station RT promoted an upcoming interview with Assange by quoting the WikiLeaks head’s first outright denial of the widely accepted explanation that the Hillary Clinton-related documents came straight from President Vladimir Putin's administration.
German prosecutors are investigating Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives, a spokesman for the Munich prosecutor's office said, following a complaint alleging the company broke national laws against hate speech and sedition by failing to remove racist postings. The spokesman declined to provide further details. German attorney Chan-jo Jun had filed a complaint with prosecutors in the Bavarian city in September and demanded that Facebook executives be compelled to comply with anti-hate speech laws by deleting racist or violent postings from its site.
U.S. military hackers have penetrated Russia's electric grid, telecommunications networks and the Kremlin's command systems, making them vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons should the U.S. deem it necessary, according to a senior intelligence official and top-secret documents reviewed by NBC News. American officials have long said publicly that Russia, China and other nations have probed and left hidden malware on parts of U.S critical infrastructure, "preparing the battlefield," in military parlance, for cyber attacks that could turn out the lights or turn off the internet across major cities.
The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies are examining faked documents aimed at discrediting the Hillary Clinton campaign as part of a broader investigation into what U.S. officials believe has been an attempt by Russia to disrupt the presidential election, people with knowledge of the matter said. U.S. Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has referred one of the documents to the FBI for investigation on the grounds that his name and stationery were forged to appear authentic, some of the sources who had knowledge of that discussion said.
Access to social media sites Twitter and Whatsapp was blocked in Turkey, an internet monitoring group said, following the detentions of 11 pro-Kurdish lawmakers in the mainly Kurdish southeast overnight.
Federal and state authorities are beefing up cyber defenses against potential electronic attacks on voting systems ahead of U.S. elections on Nov. 8, but taking few new steps to guard against possible civil unrest or violence. The threat of computer hacking and the potential for violent clashes is darkening an already rancorous presidential race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, amid fears that Russia or other actors could spread political misinformation online or perhaps tamper with voting.
Less than two weeks after a massive botnet attack powered largely by insecure web-connected home devices brought much of the internet to a temporary standstill, researchers are detailing an apparent security flaw with Philips Hue smart bulbs, and potentially other devices that communicate using ZigBee transmissions, too. The report, titled "IoT Goes Nuclear," explains how researchers from Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, were able to remotely hack Philips Hue bulbs from either a car or a drone at a distance of 229 feet (about 70 meters).
Google poured scorn on European Union allegations it skewed shopping search results to favor its own services and said regulators have failed to see that the search-engine giant is competing head on with e-commerce giants Amazon.com Inc. and EBay Inc. Google said that the EU’s allegations lack evidence and would ultimately harm users in favor “of a small number of websites,” in a blog posting detailing its response to European Commission antitrust objections over its comparison-shopping and AdSense services.
A controversial crime-reporting app called Vigilante has been kicked out of the App Store for an app that encouraged, well – vigilantism – and led to the potential for violent responses and racial profiling. The app had only been live for a week in New York before getting the boot, after promising a tool that opened up the 911 system, bringing near real-time reports of criminal activity to its digital display.
A new EU-U.S. pact governing the transfer of personal data faces a second legal challenge, putting the details of the deal which underpins billions of dollars of transatlantic trade in digital services under further scrutiny. French privacy advocacy group La Quadrature du Net, non-profit Internet service provider French Data Network and its Federation FDN industry association have now challenged the adoption of the Privacy Shield pact by the European Commission at the Luxembourg-based General Court, following in the steps of Irish group Digital Rights Ireland.
Hulk Hogan and the remnants of Gawker Media have struck a confidential settlement agreement, rewarding the wrestler with millions of dollars. The deal ends ongoing litigation between the wrestler and the media company, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after Hogan won a $140 million judgment from a Florida jury.
The FTC authorized changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that will allow Americans to do hack their own electronic devices. Researchers can lawfully reverse engineer products and consumers can repair their vehicle's electronics, but the FTC is only allowing the exemptions for a two-year trial run.
Microsoft Corp said that a hacking group previously linked to the Russian government is behind recent cyber attacks that exploit a newly discovered flaw in its Windows operating system. Microsoft said a patch to defend Windows users against this sort of attack will be released on Nov. 8.
Google’s YouTube struck a deal with German royalty-collection group Gema to pay licensing fees and unblock thousands of music videos in Europe’s biggest economy after seven years of legal battles. The agreement means that about 70,000 musicians and songwriters represented by Gema will get paid if their content is watched on YouTube, Gema said in a statement.
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