Online Safety

Why judges are banning AI in courtrooms — and what it means for your privacy If you use an AI notetaker during meetings or rely on a voice assistant to record your thoughts, a recent development in U.S. courtrooms might give you pause. Over the past few months, several judges have issued public orders restricting the use of artificial intelligence tools during the discovery phase of litigation. Their reasoning? Privacy risks that many users of consumer AI tools may not fully appreciate. ...

How to Use AI Without Sacrificing Your Privacy – Advice from Proton’s CEO If you’ve ever typed a sensitive question into a chatbot or copied a private document into an AI summariser, you’re not alone. AI tools have become everyday helpers. But the trade‑off between convenience and privacy is one that many users don’t realise they’re making. In a recent interview with Spiceworks, Proton’s CEO Andy Yen argued that privacy in the AI era is achievable – yet he admitted that one issue keeps him up at night. ...

How Hackers Use Signed Productivity Apps to Steal Your Data—What to Watch For You may think a digitally signed application is safe to install. After all, the signature proves the software hasn’t been tampered with and was issued by a legitimate company. But a new malware campaign called TamperedChef shows that trust can be abused. Attackers are using signed copies of popular productivity apps to deliver data-stealing malware and remote access trojans (RATs). ...

Signed but Malicious: How malware hides in trusted productivity apps (and how to spot it) If you’ve ever downloaded a free PDF editor or a file converter from a third‑party site, you probably checked whether the file came from a publisher you recognized. For most people, a valid digital signature is enough to signal “safe to install.” But a recent campaign called TamperedChef shows that even signed apps can be dangerous. ...

Courts Are Banning Public AI Tools for Privacy Reasons – Here’s What You Should Know You might think of AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Otter.ai as harmless helpers for taking notes or drafting documents. But a growing number of judges are banning their use during court discovery proceedings, citing serious privacy risks. These rulings aren’t just legal arcana—they highlight a privacy problem that affects anyone who handles sensitive data. ...

How to Spot Malware Hidden Inside Productivity Apps: The TamperedChef Threat If you’ve ever downloaded a productivity app from a site that wasn’t the developer’s official page or a trusted app store, you might have encountered something more dangerous than a buggy program. A new malware campaign called TamperedChef is using signed productivity applications to deliver information stealers and remote access trojans (RATs) to Windows and possibly macOS systems. The twist: these apps carry valid code‑signing certificates, making them look trustworthy to both users and security software. ...

How to Use AI Without Sacrificing Your Privacy, According to Proton’s CEO Artificial intelligence tools are now embedded in everything from email to photo editing, and they often ask for a lot of data to work well. Many users worry this trade-off is unavoidable. Proton’s CEO, Andy Yen, disagrees – but he also points to one risk that keeps him up at night. ...

How Malware Is Hiding in Signed Productivity Apps—and What You Can Do About It Intro When you download a productivity app—whether it’s for editing documents, managing spreadsheets, or running video calls—you probably assume it’s safe if it carries a digital signature. That trust is exactly what the attackers behind the TamperedChef campaign are counting on. Recently reported by cybersecurity sources, TamperedChef delivers information stealers and remote-access Trojans (RATs) through signed versions of popular productivity software. For everyday users, this makes a traditionally reliable safety cue (the signature) unreliable. Here’s what happened, why it matters for your privacy and security, and—most importantly—how you can spot and avoid these threats. ...

Privacy in the AI Era: What Proton’s CEO Says Really Matters for You Every time you type a question into ChatGPT, upload a document to an AI summarizer, or let an app rewrite your email, your data travels somewhere. The question is: where, and who else gets to see it? As more people adopt AI tools for work and daily life, the trade-off between convenience and privacy is becoming hard to ignore. In a recent interview with Spiceworks, Andy Yen, CEO of Proton (the company behind Proton Mail and Proton VPN), shared what keeps him up at night when it comes to AI and privacy—and offered some practical guidance for users who want both. ...

How to Spot Malware Disguised as a Signed Productivity App If you use apps like Microsoft Teams, Slack, or Notion, you probably trust them because they come from well-known companies. That trust is exactly what a new malware campaign called TamperedChef is exploiting. The malware hides inside seemingly legitimate productivity applications that have been digitally signed—sometimes with stolen certificates, sometimes with fake ones. Once installed, it delivers information stealers and remote access trojans (RATs), giving attackers control over your system. ...