On December 15, Ars Technica ran a story by veteran security reporter Dan Goodin in which Goodin reported on a disclosure by Google researcher Tavis Ormandy, who had discovered that Keeper Security's password manager, bundled with Windows 10, was vulnerable to a password stealing bug that was very similar to a bug that had been published more than a year before.
Ormandy had reported the bug to Keeper Security in advance of publication and waited until the company had issued a patch to disclose it.
Keeper Security has filed a lawsuit in Illinois (where it is based) against Goodin and Ars Technica, alleging that the factual report of the defects in its products "made false and misleading statements about the Keeper software application suggesting that it had a 16-month old bug that allowed sites to steal user passwords."
Keeper Security previously threatened to sue Fox IT, a security research firm, over publication of another defect in its products.
Illinois has good anti-SLAPP laws, which protect critical speech from legal attacks that try to outspend critics, which bodes well for Ars and Goodin. In the meantime, the lawsuit has attracted critical attention to Keeper Security, as security journalists and researchers speak out against "ridiculous" actions that are tantamount to "bullying."
Keeper Security Inc v Goodin et Al
Security firm Keeper sues news reporter over vulnerability story [Zack Whittaker/Zdnet]
Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) on Friday ordered two New York state agencies to investigate reports that Facebook could have access to a lot more of your personal data, if you’re a smartphone user, than anyone realized before.
In his first U.S. TV interview, Ren Zhengfei describes Huawei as “a tomato” crushed between two superpowers.
MG has built a proof-of-concept malicious USB cable with a tiny wifi radio hidden inside of it, able to wirelessly exfilatrate stolen data; he calls it the O. MG, and while the prototype cost him $4k and took 300 hours, he's working with a team on a small production run for other security researchers to […]
Use a single password for every website, and you’re compromising your security. Use a different one each time, and you’re bound to lose track of them. The solution? RoboForm Everywhere, a catch-all tool that will not only manage the passwords on every site you visit but generate better ones. As a simple password database, it’s […]
Just a reminder: Print isn’t dead. And now that printers are becoming as portable as cell phones, it might be around for quite some time. Enter the MEMOBIRD Mobile Thermal Printer, a mini-printer that is versatile, portable – and most importantly, never needs a refill on ink or toner. Measuring just a few inches around, […]
What do Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google all have in common? Somewhere in their framework, they all use MySQL, that most versatile (and free!) of database management systems. And they’re not alone. If your company or the one you’d like to work for wrangles data (and who doesn’t?), they’re going to need someone with a […]
