Month: November 2017

Enlarge / *For various interpretations of "Up to date." (credit: Ron Amadeo)

In October, security researchers discovered a major vulnerability in a Wi-Fi's WPA2 security called "KRACK." This "Key Reinstallation Attack" can disrupt the initial encryption handshake that happens when an access point and a device first connect, allowing an attacker to read information assumed to be securely encrypted. It's possible to totally defeat WPA2 encryption using KRACK, allowing a third party to sniff all the Wi-Fi packets you're sending out. Any device that uses Wi-Fi and WPA2 is most likely vulnerable to the bug, which at this point is basically every wireless gadget on Earth.

Google and the rest of the OEMs are working to clean up Android's KRACK epidemic, and on Monday, Google addressed the bug in the November Android Security Bulletin. A patch was posted this week to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository, and at the same time, Google started rolling out a November security update to Google Pixel and Nexus devices. But if you read the bulletin closely, you'll see the November security patch for Google devices does not contain the KRACK fix.

Google's Android security bulletin is not the clearest thing on Earth. The company posted three different general Android security bulletins for November on Monday, labeled "2017-11-01," "2017-11-05," and "2017-11-06." The Pixel/Nexus specific security page mentions that Google is pushing out only the "11-05" update to devices, leaving OEMs to deal with the rest. However, Google also had language saying the "11-05" release "addresses all issues in the November 2017 Android Security Bulletin," which would suggest a KRACK fix.

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There weren't many downsides to last year's HP Spectre 13. HP made a competent and uniquely stylish notebook that provided a lot of power, connectivity, and battery life in a thin-and-light shell. But HP had bigger plans for the Spectre line, and, after a bit more self-editing, the company has developed the 2017 Spectre 13 notebook.

On the surface, this seems like a relatively minor spec update with 8th-generation Intel Kaby Lake processors inside, in place of the 7th-generation CPUs in the previous model. However, the new Spectre 13 offers more than just a spec jump: HP figured out how to shrink the device's footprint while adding more power and features, without removing anything crucial from original's blueprint.

Enlarge / A car preparing to cross from Estonia into Russia approaches the border control point on March 23, 2017 in Narva, Estonia. Estonia is a member of the European Union and shares its eastern border with Russia. (credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images))

Estonian authorities announced this week that they had recently arrested a Russian man, suspected of being an agent of the Federal Security Service (FSB) who was allegedly preparing "computer-related crime."

The 20-year-old man, whose identity was not made public, was arrested last weekend in the city of Narva, on Estonia’s eastern border, as he was trying to return to Russia.

On Thursday, Patrik Maldre, an Estonian analyst at FireEye, gave a brief translation of an account of the man’s arrest in the Estonian newspaper, Postimees.