Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

More than 8 million people have installed extensions that eavesdrop on chatbot interactions Ad blockers and VPNs are supposed to protect your privacy, but four popular browser extensions have been doing just the opposite. According to research from Koi Security, these pernicious plug-ins have been harvesting the text of chatbot conversations from more than 8 million people and sending them back to the developers.…

Zuckercorp and Yandex used localhost loophole to tie browser data to app users, say boffins Security researchers say Meta and Yandex used native Android apps to listen on localhost ports, allowing them to link web browsing data to user identities and bypass typical privacy protections.…

You may not need to go full Juggalo for the sake of privacy Researchers at cyber-defense contractor PeopleTec have found that facial recognition algorithms' focus on specific areas of the face opens the door to subtler surveillance avoidance strategies.…

Just snapping the webcam shutter closed won't keep a user safe online New research has shown that while many Brits will snap shut a laptop camera in the name of privacy, a worrying amount will just as happily shovel all manner of personal information into an online game in order to get a result they can share with their friends.…

Researchers were able to glean data from 10,000 meetings held by top Dutch gov officials Cisco squashed some bugs this week that allowed anyone to view WebEx meeting information and join them, potentially opening up security and privacy concerns for highly sensitive meets.…

As tool emerges to probe OS feature's SQLite-based store of user activities Asked to explore the data privacy issues arising from Microsoft Recall, the Windows maker's poorly received self-surveillance tool, Jaime Teevan, chief scientist and technical fellow at Microsoft Research, brushed aside concerns.…

GDPR also slashed processing costs by over a quarter Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has led European firms to store and process less data, recent economic research suggests, because the privacy rules are making data more costly to manage.…

You're just giving manufacturers carte blanche to profit off personal data Depressingly predictable research from Which? serves as another reminder, if one was needed, that furnishing your home with internet-connected "smart" devices could be a dumb idea if you'd rather try to preserve your privacy.…

While this poses a privacy and security threat, an attacker's ability to exploit it may come down to luck Researchers at the University of California San Diego have shown for the first time that Bluetooth signals each have an individual, trackable, fingerprint.…

If Sherlock was alive today, he’d pack a Pi next to pistol and pipe Opinion Almost exactly a month ago, we noted a splendid piece of academic research into Google's data-gathering and consent practises.…

Web giant milks advertisers with data harvested from digital assistant Amazon and third-party services have been using smart speaker interaction data for ad targeting, in violation of privacy commitments, according to researchers at four US universities.…

Android messaging heist isn't the action of a well company. Let us help Opinion One of the joys of academic research is that if you do it right, you can prove the truth. In the case of computer science professor Douglas Leith, this truth is that Google has been taking detailed notes of every telephone call and SMS message made and received on the default Android apps.…