National security

Photo: MUHAMMAD FAROOQ/AFP (Getty Images)After attacking a major healthcare provider in Australia earlier this year, cybercriminals dumped a large selection of data to the internet this week, including customers’ personal health information. The leak reportedly includes sensitive documents related to some patients’ medical procedures, including pregnancies and abortions. 07:33The Dead Friends Society Audiobook ClipToday 3:38PMThe victim, health insurance giant Medibank, was compromised by ransomware hackers earlier this…

Photo: ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP (Getty Images)After continually deflecting accusations that it surveilled droves of politicians and journalists using invasive phone-tapping software, Greece’s government has decided to ban sales of spyware within the country’s borders altogether. But the government also wants everybody to know that this is in no way an admission of guilt and that it definitely didn’t do anything wrong, thank you very much.“We won’t allow any shadow to remain on issues that poison Greek society,” a government…

Graphic: Anelo (Shutterstock)A new report from The Intercept reveals details about the Iranian government’s far-reaching digital surveillance tools, uncovering how officials partner with mobile carriers to track cell phone users, and monitor, alter, and disrupt their communications. Ongoing protests have rocked Iran and the international stage over the past two months, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who was allegedly killed in the custody of Iran’s religious morality police in September. The…

TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance, is used by over 1 billion people worldwide every month.Artur Widak | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesTikTok on Friday denied that it used specific location data to track certain U.S. individuals, pushing back against a Forbes report that alleged the Chinese-owned video app was planning on carrying out such monitoring.On Thursday, Forbes published an article alleging TikTok, which is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, planned to use its app "to monitor the personal…

Photo: mariakray (Shutterstock)It doesn’t make Comparitech’s list, but the Big Apple is clearly another one of the most surveilled American cities, because duh. Before a few weeks ago, New York was already a dystopian mess held together by an army of cops, a broad network of municipal security cameras (at least 15,000, according to reports), and a weirdly unaccountable private surveillance fund. Now, in an effort to curb spiking crime rates, the city has decided to turn its subway system into a giant spyingapparatus: in…

Photo: Thongsuk7824 (Shutterstock)There’s great news if you’re a fan of gambling and flying, spying robots.Times Square, fifth circle of hell and home of the world’s dumbest ads, could be the site of New York City’s next casino. Caesars Entertainment has teamed up with developer SL Green Realty Corporation in a bid for a casino license, and they’re trying to sweeten the pot with a proposal that is going to drive you wild if you hate privacy. According to a document obtained by the New York Times:In their letter seeking…

Medibank signage sits on top of the Medibank building on October 1, 2014 in Melbourne, Australia.Photo: Scott Barbour (Getty Images)Hackers say they’ve obtained data from an Australian health insurance company and have threatened to release the private medical information of high-profile Australians if a ransom isn’t paid, according to a new report from the Sydney Morning Herald. The unknown hackers claim to have 200 gigabytes of data from Medibank, a private health insurer in Australia that has roughly 3.9 million…

The war in Ukraine and rising tensions over Taiwan have caused demand for high-tech, American-made weapons to surge. And with the ongoing supply chain crunch and inflation continuing to rise, military industry watchers question whether the U.S. defense sector can keep up."We can't rely on China to build components for our weapons, which is to some extent, potentially what we have done — whether knowingly or not," said Elbridge Colby, co-founder and principal of The Marathon Initiative.Even with the largest defense budget…

Booz Allen is a government contractor that provides management and technology consulting services. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Sipa/Associated Press…

Photo: David McNew (Getty Images)A rash of cyberattacks targeted over a dozen major U.S. air travel websites on Monday, including those of several largeairports. Security experts believe that the incident, which downed multiple sites but failed to meddle in any operational capacity with air travel, is the work of a pro-Russian hacker group charmingly known as “Killnet.”Denial-of-service attacks—a kind of basic cyberattack that overwhelms and crashes a site using inflated web traffic—were carried out against at least 13…