Author: Zack Whittaker

DHS wants to expand airport face recognition scans to include US citizens Homeland Security wants to expand facial recognition checks for travelers arriving and departing the U.S. to also include citizens, which had previously been exempt from the mandatory checks. In a filing, the department has proposed that all travelers, and not just foreign nationals or visitors, will have to complete a facial recognition check before they are allowed to enter the U.S., but also to leave the country. Facial recognition for departing flights has increased in recent years as…

Top Israeli VC talks cybersecurity, diversity and ‘no go’ investments It’s no secret that Israel is second only to the U.S. for its leading cybersecurity acumen, talent, startups and successful exits. Israel is a powerhouse in both offensive and defensive cyber operations, with cybersecurity giants CyberArk, Check Point, Radware, and Illusive Networks all founded in the country in recent years. For more than two decades behind the scenes and powering some of the country’s largest cybersecurity startups was Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), a major venture capital firm in the region…

Now even the FBI is warning about your smart TV’s security If you just bought a smart TV on Black Friday or plan to buy one for Cyber Monday tomorrow, the FBI wants you to know a few things. Smart TVs are like regular television sets but with an internet connection. With the advent and growth of Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services, most saw internet-connected televisions as a cord-cutter’s dream. But like anything that connects to the internet, it opens up smart TVs to security vulnerabilities and hackers. Not…

Millions of SMS messages exposed in database security lapse A massive database storing tens of millions of SMS text messages, most of which were sent by businesses to potential customers, has been found online. The database is run by TrueDialog, a business SMS provider for businesses and higher education providers, which lets companies, colleges, and universities send bulk text messages to their customers and students. The Austin, Texas-based company says one of the advantages to its service is that recipients can also text back, allowing them to have two-way conversations…

Mixcloud data breach exposes over 20 million user records A data breach at Mixcloud, a U.K.-based audio streaming platform, has left more than 20 million user accounts exposed after the data was put on sale on the dark web. The data breach happened earlier in November, according to a dark web seller who supplied a portion of the data to TechCrunch, allowing us to examine and verify the authenticity of the data. The data contained usernames, email addresses, and passwords that appear to be scrambled with the SHA-2 algorithm, making…

Anti-bot startup Kasada raises M in Series A from CIA’s venture fund In-Q-Tel Kasada, an anti-bot startup we profiled earlier this year, has raised $7 million in its Series A led by In-Q-Tel, the non-profit venture arm of the intelligence community. The Sydney and Chicago-based company helps to fight online bots using its proprietary anti-bot platform Polyform. Bots don’t just pummel websites with junk traffic to try to knock them offline, they’re used to automate fraudulent purchases and scraping content from sites like airlines and entertainers to try to undercut…

Hulu is down, and nobody’s sure why Hulu is currently down. We’re not sure why, and neither does Hulu. A stream of tweets complaining about the outage surfaced Sunday morning on the U.S. east coast, but it seems like a global outage. In response, Hulu’s Twitter support didn’t seem to know either, instead telling frustrated users that it’s looking into it. Fantastic. We’ve reached out for comment but we haven’t heard back yet. Stay tuned for more. (Or switch to another streaming service instead.) Let’s block ads! (Why?) Source: Tech…

Startups face the same phishing risks as big corporations This week, we reported on TechCrunch how thousands of remote employees with health and workplace benefits through human resources giant TriNet received emails that looked like a near-perfect phishing attempt. One recipient was so skeptical, they shared the email with TechCrunch so we could verify its authenticity. The message checked every suspicious box. In fact, when, we asked two independent security researchers to offer their assessments, each one thought it was a phishing email devised to steal usernames and passwords. The…