This week, the United States officially backed out of the Iran nuclear deal. The geopolitical reverberations should continue to play out in a variety of fields, but make sure you count cybersecurity among them. Iran targeted the US frequently—particularly financial institutions before the deal went into place. Security experts warn that with the agreement no longer in place, the barrage could begin again[1]. So, look out for that!
We also took a look at facial recognition technology. Law enforcement around the world uses it more than ever, but picking out a single face out of a crowd of 60,000 feels downright dystopian—as does wrongly identifying several thousand people as potential criminals. It's off-putting at either extreme[2], which seems like a decent argument to slow down its deployment.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has introduced JavaScript to Excel[3], which makes security researchers as anxious as it delights hackers and phishers. Speaking of which, your Facebook and Twitter accounts are vulnerable. Here's how to lock them down once and for all[4].
And this isn't security, specifically, but if, hypothetically, Donald Trump had bought up so many properties in cash as part of an elaborate money laundering scheme? Here's how that would work[5].
And there's more! As always, we’ve rounded up all the news we didn’t break or cover in depth this week. Click on the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.
Researchers Send Secret Commands to Voice Assistants[6]
You know how dogs can hear noises you can't? Guess what! So can Alexa and Google Assistant and Siri. And while research along those lines has been fomenting for the last several years, a team from UC-Berkeley this month demonstrated that they can