Stories by John Brandon

Known NFC spoofing techniques probably wouldn't work with Apple Pay

Apple Pay is poised to turn how we pay for goods at a retail store on its head. The new Apple Pay system lets you make purchases with the cards in your iTunes Store account. When you bring your iPhone 6 near an NFC-equipped payment terminal, you'll see your cards in Passbook, and you can authorize a transaction with the Touch ID fingerprint reader. That's it, you're done, and none of your sensitive credit card information was ever shared directly with the merchant.

John Brandon | 20 Oct | Read more

5 steps to take when a data breach hits

The IT industry has an answer to almost every security problem. Need to lock down an app server to ward off hackers? There's likely a product available for that. Same goes for making sure a stolen Android phone uses strong authentication to keep a hacker from stealing data.

John Brandon | 08 Oct | Read more

Four rising threats from cybercriminals

Criminal hackers never sleep, it seems. Just when you think you've battened down the hatches and fully safeguarded yourself or your business from electronic security risks, along comes a new exploit to keep you up at night. It might be an SMS text message with a malevolent payload or an errant signal designed to jam GPS receivers.

John Brandon | 22 Nov | Read more

Six rising threats from cybercriminals

Hackers never sleep, it seems. Just when you think you've battened down the hatches and fully protected yourself or your business from electronic security risks, along comes a new exploit to keep you up at night. It might be an SMS text message with a malevolent payload or a stalker who dogs your every step online. Or maybe it's an emerging technology like in-car Wi-Fi that suddenly creates a whole new attack vector.

John Brandon | 20 May | Read more