encryption

With computing devices not only becoming smaller and more portable but also holding a lot more data, the security of that data is more of a concern. While in the past a lost floppy disk might have held a few important files, some people keep their entire home directories and other large collections of data on small portable hard drives, thumbdrives, and even online disks.

The use of various forms of storage media is not a problem, but if you lose your drive or decide to erase confidential data, in some situations your data may not be fully secured. As … Read more

In response to complaints that a recent announcement of secure connections doesn't go far enough, Facebook said today that it's planning to roll out additional changes that would shield mobile devices and all apps from eavesdropping.

Last month, Facebook began offering the ability for users to turn on HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to encrypt all communications with the site. However, F-Secure and others have noticed that some apps require users to switch to a regular HTTP connection to use the app, but don't warn users that the switch then becomes permanent.

Asked for comment, a Facebook … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--When agents at the Drug Enforcement Administration learned a suspect was using PGP to encrypt documents, they persuaded a judge to let them sneak into an office complex and install a keystroke logger that recorded the passphrase as it was typed in.

A decade ago, when the search warrant was granted, that kind of black bag job was a rarity. Today, however, law enforcement agents are encountering well-designed encryption products more and more frequently, forcing them to invent better ways to bypass or circumvent the technology.

"Every new agent who goes to the Secret Service academy goes through … Read more

The FBI said today that it's not calling for restrictions on encryption without back doors for law enforcement.

FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni told a congressional committee that the bureau's push for expanded Internet wiretapping authority doesn't mean giving law enforcement a master key to encrypted communications, an apparent retreat from her position last fall.

"No one's suggesting that Congress should re-enter the encryption battles of the late 1990s," Caproni said. There's no need to "talk about encryption keys, escrowed keys, and the like--that's not what this is all about." … Read more

The rollout of Facebook's new Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure encryption is about complete. (Elinor Mills described the feature in a post on her InSecurity Complex blog last week.) While encryption is a welcome addition to the social network, it is far from a Facebook security panacea.

To enable encryption in Facebook, click Account in the top-right corner and choose Account Settings. Select Change next to Account Security to view your current settings. Check the option under Security Browsing (https). You may also want to check "Send me an email" under "When a new computer or mobile … Read more

If you tend to fall for Facebook posts like "Lose 18 pounds now!" or "WTF I can't believe this picture of you is online!" I can't help you. But if you'd like to secure your Facebook sessions from hackers and spies, you're in luck.

Facebook is now rolling out a new security feature that enables HTTPS encryption throughout your Facebook session. This long-awaited feature, which encrypts data transferred during Facebook sessions, is designed to prevent attackers from compromising users' accounts.

Here's how to enable it:

Until now, the only way to … Read more

Facebook announced today that it is now offering users the ability to use encryption to protect their accounts from being compromised when they are interacting with the site, something security experts have been seeking for a while.

The site currently uses HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) when users log in with their passwords, but now everything a user does on the site will be encrypted if he turns the feature on, the company said in a blog post.

Enabling full-session HTTPS eliminates the ability for attackers to use tools like the Firefox plug-in called Firesheep to snoop on communications between … Read more

There's a new reason to take note of a Russian programmer who rose to modest fame with his detainment in the United States in 2001: his work to help crack encryption used in Canon cameras.

The programmer and encryption expert is Dmitry Sklyarov, and his company, Elcomsoft, has found a vulnerability in Canon's OSK-E3 system for ensuring that photos such as those used in police evidence-gathering haven't been tampered with.

The result is that the company can create doctored photos that the technology thinks are authentic. To illustrate its point, it released a few doctored photos that it says passes the Canon integrity checks.

"The vulnerability discovered by ElcomSoft questions the authenticity of all Canon signed photographic evidence and published photos and effectively proves the entire Canon Original Data Security system useless," the company said in a statement. Sklyarov presented the findings at the Confidence 2.0 conference last week.

Canon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. … Read more

There are many times when people may have items they would like to keep secured, which can include banking account numbers, software license information, or a secret Coca-Cola recipe. One way to keep these items secure is to save them to an encrypted disk image, but another option available is to use the OS X keychain's Secure Notes feature.

If you open the Keychain Access utility, you will see a Secure Notes section for each keychain; here you can add any bit of text, and it will be securely saved to the keychain. Here are the steps to do … Read more