Beautiful video shot off the California coast. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here. Powered by WPeMatico
Month: April 2022
A Russian cyberweapon, similar to the one used in 2016, was detected and removed before it could be used. Key points: ESET researchers collaborated with CERT-UA to analyze the attack against the Ukrainian energy company The destructive actions were scheduled for 2022-04-08 but artifacts suggest that the attack had been planned for at least two … Read More “Russian Cyberattack against Ukrainian Power Grid Prevented” »
John Oliver has an excellent segment on data brokers and surveillance capitalism. Powered by WPeMatico
Andy Greenberg wrote a long article — an excerpt from his new book — on how law enforcement de-anonymized bitcoin transactions to take down a global child porn ring. Within a few years of Bitcoin’s arrival, academic security researchers — and then companies like Chainalysis — began to tear gaping holes in the masks separating … Read More “De-anonymizing Bitcoin” »
Scientists are now debating whether octopuses, squid, and crabs have emotions. Short answer: we don’t know, but can’t rule it out. There may be a point when humans can no longer assume that crayfish, shrimp, and other invertebrates don’t feel pain and other emotions. “If they can no longer be considered immune to felt pain, … Read More “Friday Squid Blogging: Do Squid Have Emotions?” »
Ever since Apple introduced AirTags, security people have warned that they could be used for stalking. But while there have been a bunch of anecdotal stories, this is the first vaguely scientific survey: Motherboard requested records mentioning AirTags in a recent eight month period from dozens of the country’s largest police departments. We obtained records … Read More “AirTags Are Used for Stalking Far More than Previously Reported” »
The Justice Department announced the disruption of a Russian GRU-controlled botnet: The Justice Department today announced a court-authorized operation, conducted in March 2022, to disrupt a two-tiered global botnet of thousands of infected network hardware devices under the control of a threat actor known to security researchers as Sandworm, which the U.S. government has previously … Read More “US Disrupts Russian Botnet” »
FinFisher has shut down operations. This is the spyware company whose products were used, among other things, to spy on Turkish and Bahraini political opposition. Powered by WPeMatico
Brian Krebs has a detailed post about hackers using fake police data requests to trick companies into handing over data. Virtually all major technology companies serving large numbers of users online have departments that routinely review and process such requests, which are typically granted as long as the proper documents are provided and the request … Read More “Hackers Using Fake Police Data Requests against Tech Companies” »
Wyze ignored a vulnerability in its home security cameras for three years. Bitdefender, who discovered the vulnerability, let the company get away with it. In case you’re wondering, no, that is not normal in the security community. While experts tell me that the concept of a “responsible disclosure timeline” is a little outdated and heavily … Read More “Wyze Camera Vulnerability” »