© Brendan McDermid/REUTERS A woman talks on her phone as she walks past T-mobile and Sprint wireless stores in New York in this July 30, 2009 photo. BERLIN — Security flaws in a system used by cellphone carriers around the world could open the door to wide-ranging surveillance of mobile phone traffic, according to a German researcher who discovered the problem. The issue affects a telecommunications standard called Signaling System 7, or SS7, which is used by carriers to manage connection...

A group of sophisticated Chinese hackers known for its high-stakes corporate espionage has a history of stealing medical-device blueprints, prescription-drug formulas and other valuable intellectual property from large health-care companies. So why would it steal 4.5 million health records, which is typically the domain of identity thieves? It’s a question confounding some security experts after Community Health Systems, a Franklin, Tennessee-based hospital chain,disclosed an extensive breach ...

Opinion: Where is Europe’s outrage? Surveillance of European citizens. Now that new documents show most EU countries are in cahoots with the NSA, the public remains mostly mum. When news broke last year that the National Security Agency (NSA), the secretive US intelligence service, monitored the phone calls and Internet communications of millions of European citizens including top leaders, a storm of political outrage blew across the continent. Political anger In a highly unusual move amo...