“What kind of journalist are you? Do you write the truth? Or are you one of those fake journalists?” Because if you’re an honest journalist, that’s ok. But…” Moments earlier, I’d been having a lovely bar conversation with this man about beer at a brew pub while he pet Rusty. [Keep reading]
Not long ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop on Connecticut Avenue in Washington D.C. when I saw an alarming number of police and secret service cars zip by, lights blazing. It didn’t take long before we heard what was happening; a few blocks away, a crazy man was [Keep reading]
It was an email from a stranger that David Cotie couldn’t just ignore: “I’m going to cut to the chase. I’m aware (XXXX) is your password. Most importantly, I am aware about your secret and I’ve proof of it.” The password (which I’ve seen, but omitted here) was accurate. Whoever [Keep reading]
Any time a market becomes hyper-competitive, scammers gain a huge advantage. When items are scarce, buyers feel pressure to make quick decisions and jump through whatever hoops sellers set. Scammers know this — think concert tickets — and jump into the chaos. All this makes apartment hunters an easy mark. [Keep reading]
“Skip the lines! No wait times!” yelled the “Clear” salespeople swarming beleaguered fliers at Sea-Tac airport on Thursday. The standard passenger security screening line wound far down the usual hallway. Travelers who approached slumped their shoulders when it came in view. But all around this frustrated and captive audience were [Keep reading]
Not long ago, I was approached by someone to help write a book about the race to cure cancer. It was an intriguing idea, and it sent me down a rabbit whole of research so I’d be able to understand what I’d be getting into. What I found was one [Keep reading]
A young Canadian hacker hired by Russian FSB agents to help with the biggest hack in history will spend five years for his role in the crime, a U.S. federal just ruled today. Karim Baratov, one of the key figures in my podcast about the Yahoo hack, Breach, was spared [Keep reading]
I’ve been asked to write some pieces about consumer and security issues at IBM’s SecurityIntelligence site. The first one was released today. There’s a quick abstract below, but you can read the whole piece on IBM’s page. Even I was surprised by two things working on this story: First, few [Keep reading]
There’s still a lot of interest in stories of fraud at Zelle, the banks’ Venmo-like instant money-moving app. To review, sending money with Zelle isn’t much different from sending someone cash — there’s no buyer’s protection, and it’s essentially not possible to get your money back if something goes wrong. [Keep reading]
By now you’ve heard that Twitter has suggested to all users that they change their passwords. I’m here to tell you you can do more to make yourself much safer with very little effort. Now is a good time to turn on two-factor authentication at Twitter — and at Facebook, [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan