Information freedom for open source users.

Stealthy, targeted attacks aren’t just for defense agencies and high-tech giants like Google, according to researchers from managed security services firm TrustWave’s Spider Labs research grou

China’s rapid emergence as a hotspot for criminal hacking activities is enabled by the open and unfettered availability of sophisticated hacking tools, according to security researchers attending the Black Hat conference here this week.

Many of the hacking tools are inexpensive, highly customizable, and easy to use.

AT&T says it won’t interfere with a highly anticipated talk on intercepting cell phone calls at the Black Hat conference this week, even though rumors are circulating that it will do just that.

Trying to predict the big news at this week’s Black Hat and Defcon conferences is extremely tricky, if not impossible. Usually the most interesting stories pop up at the very last minute — hackers tend to hold off on disclosing the really big talks because they don’t want jittery lawyers to shut them down.

A talk on China’s military cyber-attack capabilities has been pulled from the Black Hat security conference schedule following pressure from Taiwanese and Chinese agencies.

At next week’s Black Hat Conference in Washington, D.C., security specialists plan to show how fragile the construct of software and hardware can be as they poke holes in the sometimes delicate weave of the Web.