• Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin

A powerful surveillance program that police used for tracking racially charged protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, relied on special feeds of user data provided by social networks.

• Cecilia D'Anastasio

Two members of hacking groups Lizard Squad and PoodleCorp were charged last week with 'conspiring to cause damage to protected computers'.

• Andrea Peterson

Yahoo developed specific software that secretly scanned the incoming emails of its hundreds of millions of users on request from US intelligence.

• Hayley Tsukayama

Yahoo has confirmed that at least 500 million user accounts had been affected by a massive breach. Here are some answers to basic questions that you may have about the breach.

Yahoo has announced that the account information of at least 500 million users was stolen by hackers two years ago.

• Andrew Colley

Byron Bay inventor is aiming to revolutionise security in online commerce and possibly other internet transactions with a new one-click payment system.

• Dustin Volz

A Romanian hacker nicknamed "Guccifer" who helped expose the existence of Hillary Clinton's private email server has been jailed.

• Marie Mawad and Stefan Nicola

Your fridge is getting so smart, security-software experts think you probably shouldn't trust it.

• Joanne McCarthy

Some time in the future – and I don't know when – I will withdraw from the world.

• Tim Biggs

As the AFL and NRL finals seasons approach, Ticketmaster warns of an increase in counterfeiters taking barcodes from social media and selling duplicate tickets online.

• Jordan Robertson

Dropbox has confirmed that a data breach discovered and disclosed in 2012 was bigger than previously known, and according to one report could involve almost 69 million accounts.

• Rae Johnston

Government wants a way to make sure people are who they say they are while using online services, but the Australian Privacy Foundation says trust has to go both ways.

• Nicole Perlroth

Apple rushes out an iPhone software upgrade after three apparent flaws may have allowed eavesdropping on conversations.

Joint investigation by the Australian and Canadian privacy commissioners finds infidelity website fabricated security qualifications, was storing passwords in plain text.

• Brian Krebs

A little-known feature of many modern smartphones is their ability to duplicate video on the device's screen so that it also shows up on a much larger display — like a TV. However, new research shows that this feature may quietly expose users to a simple and cheap form of spying.

• Inga Ting

The absurdity of teaching people to use passwords that are hard for humans to use but easy for computers to guess was beautifully captured in the much-loved web comic by Randall Munroe of Xkcd.

• Jim Finkle

Apple plans to offer rewards of up to $261,280 to researchers who find critical security bugs in its products, joining dozens of firms that already offer payments for help uncovering flaws.

• Adam Turner

Hackers are still defeating Apple's security safeguards to remotely wipe their victim's devices — deleting family photos and other precious files — despite iCloud's two-factor security upgrade.

• Andrea Peterson

Millions of people count on password managers to safeguard their accounts, but the systems can still be vulnerable.