White House urges adoption of memory-safe programming languages

The White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) has released a new report today urging the technology industry to take steps to reduce vulnerabilities in software that leave digital systems open to cyberattacks.

The report, titled "Back to the Building Blocks: A Path Toward Secure and Measurable Software," emphasises the importance of technology manufacturers adopting memory-safe programming languages to prevent entire classes of vulnerabilities from entering the...

27 February 2024 | Hacking & Security

Russia claims Apple has paid $13.4M antitrust fine

Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) claims that Apple has paid a $13.4 million fine relating to anti-competitive practices.

According to Russian news agency TASS, the fine – originally levied at 1.2 billion rubles (then worth $17.4 million) in September 2022 – was confirmed as received by Russian authorities.

"On January 19, 2024, Apple paid the fine. The money was received by the government of the Russian Federation," said the FAS.

The fine stems...

23 January 2024 | App Stores

Google wants to increase government collaboration to secure open-source

Google says that it wants to increase government collaboration to help secure open-source after participating in a White House summit.

On Thursday, Google participated in the White House Open Source Software Security Summit with the aim of building on its “work with the Administration to strengthen America’s collective cybersecurity through critical areas like open-source software.”

The past year has been particularly bad for open-source security problems, with...

14 January 2022 | Hacking & Security

GitHub is restored in Iran after US gov permits sanctions exemption

GitHub is fully-restored in Iran after the US government granted the Microsoft-owned firm an exception to sanctions.

“All developers should be free to use GitHub, no matter where they live,” wrote GitHub in a blog post.

“At the same time, GitHub respects and abides by US law, which means government sanctions have limited our ability to provide developers in some countries the full range of GitHub services.”

GitHub ceased most operations in North Korea,...

8 January 2021 | Git

Congress wants Apple and Google to clamp down on foreign apps

Congress is calling on Apple and Google to clamp down on apps that weren’t born in the USA (cue Springsteen).

Trump’s administration is currently mulling a complete ban of any Chinese software but, while that debate is ongoing, Congress wants the two largest mobile platform holders to begin clamping down on foreign apps in less radical ways.

The Congressional Committee on Oversight and Reform has sent two letters to the CEOs of Apple and Google to request they probe...

15 July 2020 | Android

Apple stops updating games without a government license in China

Apple has suspended game updates in China from developers without a license from the government.

The policy, draconian as it is, has been in place for some time – but rarely enforced.

Apple has faced increasing pressure from Beijing in recent weeks to start enforcing the rule that developers must show proof of a license issued by the government.

Google’s Play Store is not available (officially) in China, meaning Android users in the country typically use...

2 July 2020 | App Stores