Critical PGP and S/MIME bugs can reveal encrypted e-mails. Uninstall now

The Internet’s two most widely used methods for encrypting e-mail–PGP and S/Mime–are vulnerable to hacks that can reveal the plaintext of encrypted messages, a researcher warned late Sunday night. He went on to say there are no reliable fixes and to advise anyone who uses either encryption standard for sensitive communications to remove them immediately […]

AMD promises firmware fixes for security processor bugs

Enlarge / AMD’s Ryzen die. Threadripper has two of these in a multi-chip module. Epyc has four of them. (credit: AMD) AMD has responded to the reports last week of a range of security flaws affecting its Platform Security Processor (PSP) and chipset. The company acknowledges the bugs and says that, in coming weeks, it […]

Planting GMOs kills so many bugs that it helps non-GMO crops

(credit: St. Louis County, MN) One of the great purported boons of GMOs is that they allow farmers to use fewer pesticides, some of which are known to be harmful to humans or other species. Bt corn, cotton, and soybeans have been engineered to express insect-killing proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, and they have indeed been […]

Stink bugs freeze Japanese car imports to New Zealand

There’s more to the stink bug than the fact it smells pretty terrible. Especially if you’re shipping cars to New Zealand from Japan, and a stink bug infestation throws a spanner in the works. New Zealand authorities are doing their best to keep invasive foreign species out of the island nation’s eccentric eco system, and […]

uTorrent bugs let websites control your computer and steal your downloads

Enlarge / A screenshot of one of the uTorrent PoC exploits in action. (credit: Google Project Zero) Two versions of uTorrent, one of the Internet’s most widely used BitTorrent apps, are vulnerable to a host of easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities that allow attackers to execute code, access downloaded files, and snoop on download histories, a Google Project […]

Apple’s iOS 12 strategy: Take more time to squash the bugs

Enlarge / The new 10.5-inch iPad Pro. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) Apple has new features planned for its big, new iOS update—but not as many as you may expect. According to a Bloomberg report, the next sweeping iOS update, codenamed “Peace” and likely to be called iOS 12, will include a number of app redesigns, the […]

British Airways passenger bitten '150 times' by bed bugs in business class plane seat

The British Airways passenger was flying business class to Cape Town, and woke up to find blood spots on his pillow. Mike Gregory, 35, didn’t realise what had happened until the next day on New Year’s Eve, when he began itching. He said he was soon covered up to 150 itchy bites: ‘I had an […]