Neowin News Feed for: Backdoor

Report: Court documents reveal new details in UK-Apple user data dispute

David Uzondu — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 18:26:01 +0000

Apple's fight against the UK's demand for a backdoor into all iCloud users' encrypted data now has fresh details, reportedly revealed in a new court document. Read more...

US lawmakers might have asked Nvidia to include a backdoor in its GPUs

Hamid Ganji — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 17:12:01 +0000

Former reports about the US officials requesting Nvidia to include a backdoor in its products may be accurate. Read more...

Telegram CEO says French authorities demanded a backdoor to access users' messages

Hamid Ganji — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 12:56:01 +0000

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov revealed that the French police and European Commission are advocating for a law that forces messaging apps to implement a backdoor for authorities. Read more...

The U.K. government can now access your iCloud data after forcing Apple to weaken encryption

Karthik Mudaliar — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:32:01 +0000

The UK government has forced Apple to disable its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature, weakening iCloud encryption for users in the country and creating a backdoor for itself. Read more...

The U.K. government wants to spy on you via an iCloud backdoor and is seeking Apple's help

David Uzondu — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:24:01 +0000

A report reveals that U.K. authorities want Apple to build a backdoor to access all iCloud users' encrypted data. Read more...

Microsoft employee accidentally saves global Linux meltdown from CVE-2024-3094 XZ backdoor

Sayan Sen — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 07:58:02 +0000

A curious Microsoft employee has saved the world from a potential global meltdown as several Linux distros were found vulnerable to an XZ backdoor tracked under CVE-2024-3094 (CVSS score of 10.0). Read more...

Microsoft releases detailed FAQs about XZ Utils vulnerability in Linux systems

Karthik Mudaliar — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 05:30:01 +0000

Microsoft has released a detailed set of FAQs and recommendations for users who are affected by the XZ Utils vulnerability which allows a threat actor to exploit SSH operations and get remote access. Read more...

European Court of Human Rights rules against government backdoors in end-to-end encryption

Martin Hodás — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 07:20:01 +0000

The discussion about law enforcers' access to end-to-end encrypted communication reached a key milestone in Europe. A court says, essentially, that implementing such a measure would be illegal. Read more...

Beware: New Kraken botnet easily fools Windows Defender and steals Crypto wallet data

Sayan Sen — Sun, 20 Feb 2022 06:52:01 +0000

A new crypto wallet information stealing Kraken botnet has been discovered by ZeroFox. The malware is able to easily bypass Windows Defender scans by simply adding itself as an exclusion. Read more...

"Made on Windows 11 Alpha"-themed Microsoft Word documents are actually malware in disguise

Sayan Sen — Sun, 05 Sep 2021 00:26:01 +0000

"Made on Windows 11 Alpha" themed malicious Microsoft Word documents have been discovered by the security researchers at Anomali. The maldoc implements VBA macros to deliver a JavaScript payload. Read more...

Open letter demanding Apple stop deployment of photo scanning tech gets 5,000 signatures

Usama Jawad — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 07:38:01 +0000

An open letter demanding that Apple halt the rollout of its photo scanning tech and issue a statement to reaffirm its commitment to privacy now has signatures from over 5,000 individuals and firms. Read more...

Dangerous backdoor found in about 3 million Android smartphones, BLU affected the most

Shreyas Gandhe — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 10:00:01 +0000

A new security advisory has revealed that about 3 million Android smartphones are carrying a very powerful rootkit that could allow hackers to install apps with elevated permissions. Read more...

London police chief wants to be able to stop your car remotely

Vlad Dudau — Fri, 23 Sep 2016 10:38:01 +0000

London's top cop explained he'd want a system that allowed law enforcement officers to remotely take over and stop a car if it was deemed necessary. The idea was part of a wider conversation on IT. Read more...

Hackers that found huge issue in Microsoft's Secure Boot, warn flaw might never be patched

Vlad Dudau — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 12:52:01 +0000

The hackers that discovered a security flaw in Windows which allows attackers to bypass Secure Boot, are warning that Microsoft's current fixes are untenable and that the flaw might never get patched. Read more...

Snooper's charter would see Apple include backdoors

Paul Hill — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 07:46:01 +0000

The UK's proposed Investigatory Powers Bill would make companies like Apple provide a backdoor in their products. To make things worse, the companies who do this would be subject to a gagging clause. Read more...

Mint Update now checks for TSUNAMI backdoor [Update]

Paul Hill — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 07:18:01 +0000

Linux Mint users have received an update to the mintUpdate package which will alert users if they're infected with the TSUNAMI backdoor. The backdoor can give hackers remote access to systems. Read more...

Linux Mint website hacked, malicious ISO offered on Saturday

Paul Hill — Sun, 21 Feb 2016 03:50:01 +0000

The Linux Mint founder, Clement Lefebvre, announced that a malicious ISO was hosted on the site on Saturday. Users should re-download a new ISO and reinstall their Mint installs if affected. Read more...

New Facebook tagging scam is in the wild, containing malware that can infect every device

Justin Luna — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 11:42:01 +0000

A new type of Facebook hoax is currently circulating on the website. People are tagged in an alleged video, which upon opening is a malware hosting website, that can infect a wide range of devices. Read more...

US House passes an amendment which would remove funding from the NSA's backdoor searches

Jett Goldsmith — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 05:20:35 +0000

The US House of Representatives has pushed forward an amendment that would cut funding from the NSA's controversial backdoor searches and stop the NSA from adding backdoors to encryption standards. Read more...

Samsung Galaxy backdoor discovered that enables remote read/write access

Steven Johns — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 00:32:02 +0000

A backdoor has been discovered affecting the modem of various Samsung devices, allowing remote and indiscriminate read/write/delete access to the device's storage Read more...

Judge orders the FBI to come clean on internet surveillance

Tyler Holman — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:43:13 +0000

A US District Judge has ordered the FBI to come clean on their efforts to access encrypted information and force manufacturers to build backdoors into their products, following a lawsuit from the EFF. Read more...

Did NSA Put a Secret Backdoor in New Encryption Standard?

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:08:05 +0000

Random numbers are critical for cryptography: for encryption keys, random authentication challenges, initialization vectors, nonces, key-agreement schemes, generating prime numbers and so on. Break the random-number generator, and most of the time you break the... Read more...

Microsoft: Vista Won't Get a Backdoor

Sun, 05 Mar 2006 21:58:59 +0000

Windows Vista won't have a backdoor that could be used by police forces to get into encrypted files, Microsoft has stressed. In February, a BBC News story suggested that the British government... Read more...

New backdoor program uses Sony rootkit

Daniel Fleshbourne — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 11:15:39 +0000

The media has already written extensively about how Sony BMG appliedrootkit technology to hide and protect DRM components used to prevent disks from being copied. One highly unfortunate effect of Sony's decision to use this... Read more...

Cisco products have backdoor accounts

Thu, 08 Apr 2004 20:44:14 +0000

An interesting point raised here is the trust we have in closed source providers like Cisco and Microsoft. Although i'm not suggesting that everything should be open sourced, should we introduce some kind of mandatory... Read more...