Apple on Tuesday announced more large retailers will accept Apple Pay: Target, Taco Bell, Hy-Vee supermarkets in the Midwest, Speedway convenience stores, and the Jack in the Box fast food chain. With those additions, 74 of the top 100 merchants in the United States, and 65 percent of all retail locations across the country, now support Apple Pay, the company said.

Authorities can't force people to unlock their biometrically secured phones or other devices, ruled a federal judge in California. "The Government may not compel or otherwise utilize fingers, thumbs, facial recognition, optical/iris, or any other biometric feature to unlock electronic devices," Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore wrote. Passcodes already are protected by the Fifth Amendment.

A new year means a fresh start, but it doesn't mean that old threats will go away. In fact, in the world of cybersecurity things could get far worse before they get better. Cybercrime continues to increase, as it allows nefarious actors to operate at a safe distance from victims -- and more importantly, law enforcement. Cybercrime often doesn't get the same attention as other types of crimes.

BlackBerry this week introduced its new Security Credential Management System. SCMS -- a free service for the public and private sectors -- could encourage efforts to develop autonomous and connected vehicle pilot programs. BlackBerry undertook development of this technology to provide the critical infrastructure for vehicles and traffic lights to exchange information securely.

The personal data of some 100 million people who have used Quora, a popular question and answer website, has been compromised, the company disclosed. "We recently discovered that some user data was compromised as a result of unauthorized access to one of our systems by a malicious third party," wrote Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo in an online post. "We are working rapidly to investigate the situation."

With the holidays fast approaching, are you looking to buy presents online? The holiday season has become synonymous with online shopping. This isn't really surprising as physical stores usually attract crowds of deal hunters. This often conjures up images of throngs of people waiting in line outside the store, some even camping out. This activity is tolerable for some and even fun for others.

I'm a longtime Jaguar fan. I've owned a ton of them over the years, and I've had both good and bad experiences with the cars. Currently I own two -- a 1970 XKE and a 2014 F-Type -- and they are about to get a sibling. I've ordered a new Jaguar I-Pace, which is the first legitimate challenger to Tesla, which surprised the automotive industry much like Apple surprised the mobile phone industry.

The Mozilla Foundation is expanding a campaign begun last year to help consumers buy safe, secure connected toys and mobile gadgets this holiday season. Mozilla's 2018 edition Privacy Not Included buyers' guide offers an assessment of the privacy and security qualities of 70 products, ranging from connected teddy bears and smart speakers to game consoles and smart home gadgets.

Hackers planted malware on StatCounter to steal bitcoin revenue from Gate.io account holders, according to Eset researcher Matthieu Faou, who discovered the breach. The malicious code was added to StatCounter's site-tracking script last weekend, he reported. The malicious code hijacks any bitcoin transactions made through the Web interface of the Gate.io cryptocurrency exchange.

Do you take your online privacy seriously? Most people don't. They have an ideal scenario of just how private their online activities should be, but they rarely do anything to actually achieve it. The problem is that bad actors know and rely on this fact, and that's why there's been a steady rise in identity theft cases from 2013 to 2017, often resulting in loss of reputation or financial woes.

We rely on our phones to process and store reams of personal digital data. Our digital activities -- from checking bank balances to paying for a product with a tap of the screen, to sending friends and family messages over social media, to accessing work emails remotely -- have turned our phones into a goldmine of personal information. How secure is your mobile device?

Tomorrow a minority of those who are eligible will take time off, drive through traffic, and wait in lines to take part in one of the most artificially annoying obligations of United States citizenship: voting. Many who make that inconvenient trek will treat the process like a multiple choice test they haven't studied for, either voting the party line or guessing at the right answers.

There is a well-known joke among security professionals: Q: "What does IoT stand for?" A: "Internet of Threats." Sadly, this joke is our reality. An estimated 20.4 billion Internet of Things devices will be deployed by 2020, according to Gartner, in what some have dubbed "the fourth industrial revolution." These connected devices are being manufactured to streamline everything we do.

Widespread use of unpatched open source code in the most popular Android apps distributed by Google Play has caused significant security vulnerabilities, suggests an American Consumer Institute report. Thirty-two percent -- or 105 apps out of 330 of the most popular apps in 16 categories sampled -- averaged 19 vulnerabilities per app, according to the report. Researchers found critical vulnerabilities in many common applications.

An increasing number of healthcare professionals have become alert to the need for well-rounded medical device security in recent years, and players throughout the industry have started putting more effort into raising the bar. Developers have become aware of the most glaring holes, and more information security researchers have been brought into the fold.

American consumers' attitudes toward Facebook appear to be cooling, based on the results of a Pew Research Center survey. Forty-two percent of the roughly 4,600 people who responded to the May poll said they had taken a break of several weeks from checking the platform. "Facebook's probably losing subscribers for a number of reasons," said Frost & Sullivan's Michael Jude.

Strong encryption can be a threat to law enforcement and national security, the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand said in a statement issued Sunday. "The increasing use and sophistication of certain encryption designs present challenges for nations in combating serious crimes and threats to national and global security," maintained the countries.

The healthcare cloud has been growing incredibly, becoming an ever-more-important element of health information technology, or HIT. There are many reasons why the HIT cloud has been becoming more prominent, such as research and development and collaboration. Since the cloud has been expanding so rapidly, this may be a good time to reconsider security.

Worldwide spending on blockchain will hit $1.5 billion this year -- twice as much as in 2017 -- and it will total nearly $12 billion in 2022, according to IDC. The technology is expected to have a five-year compound annual growth rate of 73.2 percent. Cross-business collaboration and interoperability have emerged as key aspects in the technology's growth.

DHS has announced the National Risk Management Center, part of a new effort to combat cyberthreats to the U.S. The new agency's mission will be to defend the critical infrastructure through greater cooperation between the public and private sectors. The center will bring together government experts and industry partners to work out ways that the government can support the partners.

The Internet of Things may be in its infancy, but the U.S. government has been gearing up to determine what the proper federal role should be, both for encouraging and for regulating the use of IoT technology. Two recent developments have underscored the government's interest in IoT. On the regulatory front, the CPSC has launched an initiative to determine a framework for regulation.

A new feature in iOS 11.4.1, which Apple released earlier this week, is designed to protect against unwanted intrusions through the iPhone's Lightning Port. However, the protection may be weak at best. The feature, called "USB Restricted Mode," disables data transfer through the Lightning Port after an hour of inactivity. In some cases, the phone might not charge, according to Apple.

A popular fitness app provided a convenient map for anyone interested in shadowing government personnel who exercised in secret locations, including intelligence agencies, military bases and airfields, nuclear weapons storage sites, and embassies around the world. The fitness app, Polar Flow, publicized more data about its users in a more accessible way than comparable apps, investigators found.

Retailers' biggest worry is increasing e-commerce fraud -- including data breaches, targeted attacks and card-not-present fraud -- according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Online fraud is one of the biggest challenges facing retailers, with CNP fraud being one of their top worries. CNP fraud will hit $71 billion over the next five years, Juniper Research has forecast.

Network devices with better security will be hitting the market this year, thanks to Wi-Fi Certified WPA3, which the Wi-Fi Alliance launched Tuesday. The announcement paves the way for the proliferation of devices that support the new, more secure protocol for WiFi communication, which is designed to replace the 14-year-old WPA2. The new protocol adds features to simplify WiFi security.

The healthcare industry has been moving toward medical equipment connectivity to speed up data entry and recording, as well as improve data accuracy. At the same time, there has been a shift toward incorporating consumer mobile devices, including wearables. "The demand for connected devices has increased rapidly in recent years," noted Leon Lerman, CEO of Cynerio.

Worldwide IoT spending will total nearly $773 billion this year, IDC has predicted. The IoT will sustain a compound annual growth rate of 14.4 percent, and spending will hit $1.1 trillion by 2021, according to the firm's forecast. Consumer IoT spending will total $62 billion this year, making it the fourth largest industry segment, after manufacturing, transportation and utilities.

Apple plans to equip iOS 12 with USB Restricted Mode, which requires users to unlock their iPhone with their passcode before USB accessories can connect if the phone last was unlocked more than an hour earlier. The company included this feature in the developer versions of iOS 11.4.1 and iOS 12. Apple will release USB Restricted Mode publicly in a future software update, it confirmed this week.

The expanding world of Internet commerce likely will generate a corresponding expansion of data breaches, resulting in more e-commerce businesses becoming the targets of consumer class action lawsuits. Breach litigation has become more prevalent as a result of a perceptible legal trend favoring consumers. Courts have tended to allow lawsuits based on a lower threshold for establishing injury.

Apple on Monday gave the world a peek at macOS Mojave, the next version of its operating system for Macintosh laptop and desktop computers. The preview took place at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference held at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. Mojave has a mix of new features that add to its good looks and utility as a productivity tool.