In its latest blog post (to go live at blog.malwarebytes.org soon), security research firm Malwarebytes details the programs and websites that promise software emulators, but deliver big trouble for users.

Chris Boyd, malware intelligence analyst at Malwarebytes Labs, chronicles just some of the programs and websites he found waiting for unsuspecting victims to wander in and make the mistake of downloading one of the many loaded programs masquerading as emulators.

Earlier this month we reported that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) would be hosting a roundtable on government spying this week called "The Impact of Mass Surveillance on the Digital Economy," with leading executives from the tech sector.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is shining a spotlight this week on a new Australian bill that would make it so that Internet service providers in the country would have to collect and store personal user data and give law enforcement agencies access to it for up to two years. The unnamed bill, currently being referred to as the "mandatory data retention bill," will be introduced to the Australian federal parliament during the week of October 27.

Anti-virus company and security research firm Malwarebytes Labs sent us a note on a report they are currently working on about Twitch bombing tools. In case you've never heard of this questionable practice before, Twitch bombing is when one goes to an active stream to promote another stream - and in the process stealing away viewers. The practice is a violation of Twitch's terms of service and is generally frowned upon amongst streamers.

The Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center held a special event called "The Future of Unknown Conflict" featuring Dave Anthony, the writer and director of the popular military-themed computer game series Call of Duty on Oct. 1. The 1 hour, 26 minute presentation is now available in its entirety here or to your left.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) will host a "Chairman's Roundtable" on Oct. 8 to discuss the impact of mass surveillance by the government (through agencies like the NSA) on the digital economy.

Joining Sen. Wyden will be the Executive Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt; Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Microsoft, Brad Smith; Facebook General Counsel, Colin Stretch ; Dropbox General Counsel, Ramsey Homsany; and Lead Partner at Greylock Partners, John Lilly.

According to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and discussed at length in a new post on the ACLU's official blog by Alex Abdo (a staff attorney in the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project), most of the National Security Agency's (NSA) authority to collect data and spy on both international and domestic targets is derived from Executive Orde

Dave Anthony, who has writing and director credits on Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and Call of the Dead, will be taking part in the Atlantic Council's "Art of Future War" event at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security in Washington D.C. October 1. Anthony recently joined the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security as a Nonresident Fellow. Here's more on his presentation from the Atlantic Council:

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been honored with a Swedish human rights award for leaking classified documents that revealed the NSA vast intelligence gathering operations throughout the world. Snowden will receive the Right Livelihood Award -- often referred to as the "alternative Nobel" -- alongside Alan Rusbridger, editor of British newspaper The Guardian who published a series of articles based on the cache of documents leaked by Snowden to media outlets around the world.

According to FierceGovernmentIT, the chances of a cybersecurity bill being passed by lawmakers this year are somewhere between slim and none. This is according to what Former National Security Agency Director and retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden -- now a principal at Chertoff Group -- said while addressing a gathering at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit on Sept 16.

Yahoo announced this week that it wants to release 1,500 pages of documents related to a protracted court battle with the National Security Agency over its participation in the PRISM program. The NSA surveillance program was revealed last summer as part of the Edward Snowden leaks. During that time a leaked slide about PRISM showed that Yahoo was one of the program's first participants, and began contributing to the database in March of 2008.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been approved by the Russian government for another three years, according to Politico, Snowden could return to the United States if he's willing to face charges for leaking thousands of classified documents to the media, but the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none.

Reuters and the South China Morning Post (by way of GIGA OM) are reporting that at least four of Microsoft's offices in China have been raided by the Chinese government.

John Napier Tye, a former State Department section chief for Internet freedom, is calling on the government to answer questions related to a recent op-ed published by the Washington Post.

Recently SteamDB published an open letter to Valve from members of Steam’s developer community concerned with some of the company’s security practices. The letter signed by 16 individuals from the Steam developer community complained that Valve does not offer rewards or bounties to security researchers who discover exploits.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and 35 other rights groups and organizations, companies, and security experts have banded together to roundly denounce the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA).

The groups sent a letter on Monday asking U.S. president Barack Obama to veto S. 2588 of 2014. The group's letter says that this new reincarnation of the failed CISPA bill from last year fails to offer a comprehensive solution to cybersecurity threats and "contains inadequate protections for privacy and civil liberties."

A Russian hacking group claimed responsibility for a recent attack on technology news site CNET. The group claimed that it stole usernames, encrypted passwords and emails for more than one million users. CNET said a representative from the group - which calls itself 'w0rm' - informed it about the hack via a Twitter conversation.

On August 20 of last year, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the White House had no information on a story about the UK spy agency GCHQ demanding that newspaper The Guardian destroy a laptop under the government's supervision containing what was believed to be a cache of documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

"I’ve seen the published reports of those accusations, but I don’t have any information for you on that…," he said at that time. "The only thing I know about this are the public reports about this."

A new story has emerged based on more leaked documents from the cache of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden concerning how much the data the NSA collects is related to American citizens.

Anti-virus and Internet security research company Malwarebytes points out a common scam used to trick Internet users into thinking that they are visiting a legitimate site when they are in fact at a scam site just itching to steal their personal information or to infect them with some form of nefarious software. The example they use is a site that takes advantage of typosquatting.

In a not-so-shocking conclusion, the panel put together by President Barack Obama and tasked with examining the privacy and legal fallout from the massive National Security Agency spying activities revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, has concluded in a new 191-page report that the NSA activity was lawful yet "close to the line of constitutional reasonableness."

According to top-secret documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency was authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2010 to spy in one way or another on 90,000 targets in 193 countries. Any country that was not part of the "Five Eyes" group (a joint operation with spy agencies in U.S., England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) was a potential target.

Malwarebytes researchers have discovered yet another phishing scheme related to gaming. The latest is a Steam Guard phishing scam that steals users SSFN files and Steam log-in credentials, according to Malwarebytes researchers.

Previous Steam Guard scams would prompt users to upload their SSFN files to a fishing page, but this latest scam goes to great lengths to automate the process. The enticing bait for gamers is a community profile full of items ready for trading.

The National Reconnaissance Office is looking closely at technology used for video games to help it improve how it gathers and analyzes intelligence data, according to a research proposal released Monday and reported on by USA Today. The NRO specifically wants to take advantage of the video game industry's "innovative algorithms" and "enhanced visualization techniques," according to the proposal.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 293-123 to cut funding for NSA spying programs that are aimed at Americans. Late last night an amendment to a defense appropriations bill put forth by Reps. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Thomas Massie (R-KY) passed with wide support, though it still has to get the same approval in the U.S. Senate.

Security firm Malwarebytes has uncovered a phishing scheme on Instagram that may have already claimed some victims. The scam takes advantage of the World Cup going on this week, by pretending to be EA support on Twitter and lures people to an Instagram page offering new / exclusive FIFA 14 characters for free as long as you visit the link in the profile.

Security research firm and anti-virus software maker Malwarebytes is warning players of Valve's popular MOBA game DOTA 2 to beware of nasty phishing schemes. The firm says in a new blog post that there is a new phishing scam making the rounds that offers "rare in-game items in exchange for a Yahoo email address and password," according to Malware intelligence analyst Chris Boyd at Malwarebytes.

Security software maker and security research firm AVAST Software have found several soccer apps that they describe as "ad-overloaded, data-hungry apps." As fans get ready for the World Cup to get underway in Brazil, the offering of soccer-related apps on the Google Play store is big; there are at least 125 different vuvuzela apps available. But AVAST Software is warning those keen to download these apps that some of them are wolves in sheep's' clothing.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is calling on the Internet community to support the USA Freedom Act and oppose other "supposed reform bills." The rights group is calling on the Internet community to strongly oppose reform bills like the FISA Improvements Act, which pretends to fix the problems with the NSA's mass surveillance spying programs but instead gives the agency and the government more power to continue spying (like bills from lawmakers like Representatives Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger, and Senator Dianne Feinstein).

The National Security Agency's new director, Admiral Michael Rogers, admits that the agency has lost the trust of the American people in the wake of leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The NSA’s new director made this statement on Wednesday in his first public comments since taking control of the spy agency.

"I tell the [NSA] workforce out there as the new guy, let’s be honest with each other, the nation has lost a measure of trust in us," Admiral Michael Rogers said at a conference of the Women in Aerospace in Crystal City, VA.