THREATS
Crypto wars redux. U.S. Attorney General William Barr is pressing Facebook not to proceed with its plan to implement end-to-end encryption across its apps in an open letter signed alongside his counterparts in the UK and Australia. He has asked for Facebook to delay the technology's rollout until the company can figure out how to provide governments with access to their services for purposes of investigations. Security experts warn that "backdoors" are bad ideas .
Foreign meddling. Microsoft has been tracking a hacking campaign, believed to originate in Iran, that is targeting a 2020 U.S. presidential candidate. The attacks, which happened between August and September, managed to compromise four people's accounts, but none were associated with the election campaign. TechCrunch notes that the campaigns of President Donald Trump and rival Mark Sanford both use Microsoft products.
The Masked Avengers. In an effort to get months of protests under control, the government of Hong Kong invoked an emergency ordinance to ban the wearing of face masks. Defiant protestors took to the streets in opposition, despite threats of $3,000 in fines and year-long prison sentences. Anonymity is seen as essential to the movement's survival.
Leaving on a jet plane. The Department of Homeland Security wants to start testing airplanes for potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities, the Wall Street Journal reports. Few details have been released about the new program, which will be managed in conjunction with the Pentagon and the Transportation Department. Meanwhile, French planemaker Airbus has been fending off months of (suspected Chinese) cyber attacks.
Pay up or the computer gets it. A number of hospitals reported being hit with ransomware infections in the past week, forcing them to close. Three were in Alabama and seven were in Australia. Meanwhile, a Danish hearing aide manufacturer told investors that it expects to lose $95 million to a recent "cyber-crime" incident, believed to involve ransomware. Hundreds of ransomware attacks have targeted local governments, healthcare providers, and school districts this year.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
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ACCESS GRANTED
What bubble? We write a lot about the business of cybersecurity in this weekend newsletter. In recent columns, I have covered instances of market consolidation and the emergence of business winners and losers. If you read those takes as just a bunch of glum doom-saying, then consider the following contribution by Oren Yunger, an investor at the venture capital firm GGV, as a counterpoint. Yunger writes for TechCrunch that he remains highly optimistic that the cybersecurity bubble won't be popping anytime soon.
It is true that the security market is highly fragmented, some companies are overvalued and not every new security tool will be a big success. But as our world becomes more software-driven, cybercrime will inevitably intensify, leading to new matter entering the security bubble. This will propel security into a significantly larger market at an even greater rate, visible by investors, leadership teams and company boards. Instead of bursting, the cybersecurity market will only keep developing and growing.
FORTUNE RECON
Secretive Defense Tech Startup Anduril Is Building Weapons by Polina Marinova
Instagram's New Messaging App Can Use Your Phone's Sensors to Auto-Update Your Status by Danielle Abril
Google Maps Unveils a Pro-Privacy 'Incognito Mode' to Keep Users Off-the-Grid by Lisa Marie Segarra
'We'll Definitely Do It': Vladimir Putin Jokes About Upcoming Election Meddling by Chris Morris
Google's New Password Security Tool Flags Compromised Websites by Jeff John Roberts
Some 'Amazon's Choice' Security Cameras Pose 'Huge' Hacking Risk, Study Says by Alyssa Newcomb
Facebook's $5 Billion Privacy Settlement Argued Consumers Weren't Harmed. Experts Think the Damage Was Incalculable by Danielle Abril
Comcast, Mastercard, and Samsung Are Pouring Millions Into This Password-Killing Startup by Robert Hackett
From Premium Speakers to Privacy, Amazon Has a Plan to Make Alexa Sound Even Better by JP Mangalindan
ONE MORE THING
"OMG Cable." An enterprising hacker has developed a knock-off Lightning cable, the wired charger for Apple iPhones, designed to compromise computers, Vice Motherboard reports. The creator, who goes by the alias "MG," originally sold handmade versions for $200 at this year's Def Con hacker conference in Las Vegas. Hak5, the company that plans to sell the now industrially manufactured product, calls them "mischief gadgets."
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