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Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityPentagon Is Surveilling Americans Without a Warrant, Senator Says
The Pentagon recently signaled to a U.S. senator that it could not publicly reveal if or how it was buying access to Americans’ car, phone, and online metadata, only that, whatever it was doing, it was not violating the 4th amendment and also definitely didn’t need a warrant to do it. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityColonial Pipeline Reportedly Paid Hackers $5 Million for Decryption Key That Wasn’t Very Useful
About a week ago, Colonial Pipeline paid the ransomware group DarkSide approximately $5 million in exchange for a data decryption key that didn’t really decrypt that much data. An investigation from Bloomberg found that, despite earlier reports suggesting the company had no intention of paying the cybercriminals, Colonial actually did just that “within hours of the … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecuritySenate Cyber Hawk Calls for ‘Criminal Penalties’ for Negligent CEOs After U.S. Pipeline Hack
Sen. Ron Wyden, historically a leading proponent of heightened cybersecurity governance in both public and private spheres, called for congressional action Wednesday around all private firms operating in critical infrastructure sectors, saying the recent network breach at one of the largest U.S. pipelines paints a dismal picture of the nation’s susceptibility to attack. The cyber … Continued
By Dell Cameron -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityGas Is Back: Colonial Opens Up the Corpse Juice Hoses Just as Much of East Coast Runs Out
Large swathes of the East Coast are running out of the precious refined corpse juice used to fuel most of the nation’s vehicles, five days after ransomware knocked out most of the 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline system—the biggest gasoline pipeline in the country, connecting Gulf Coast refineries to cities as far north as New York. Due … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityWanted: Colonial Pipeline Cybersecurity Manager (No, Really)
Sometime before the disastrous ransomware attack on its network and the East Coast gas shortage that followed, Colonial Pipeline was apparently looking for someone to help run its cybersecurity team. The energy company, which manages America’s largest oil pipeline, is currently working feverishly to restore full service after being targeted by the ransomware gang DarkSide. … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityA Hacker Gang Has Been Trying to Extort D.C. Police for $4 Million
A ransomware gang, Babuk Locker, has been attempting to extort the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington D.C. for $4 million, but negotiations between the cops and the criminals recently collapsed, leaked documents appear to show. Several weeks ago, the cybercriminal group announced that it had stolen the MPD’s data—some 250GB that included thousands of pages … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityThis Guy Designed an Android App That Deletes All Your Phone’s Data When Police Try to Crack It
These days, if you’re arrested and charged with a crime, the first thing cops will likely try to do is look at the contents of your phone. Digital forensics is increasingly a favorite way to secure a conviction, or at least gain a broader understanding of a suspect. However, the tools used to crack into … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityHackers Threatening East Coast’s Fuel Supply Claim They’re Not Trying to Cause Anybody Trouble
Over the weekend, a cyberattack by the Russia-based ransomware gang DarkSide managed to hamstring America’s largest oil pipeline, Colonial, threatening to choke off significant energy flows to the East Coast. Per Bloomberg News, the gang pilfered approximately 100GB of data from the company’s IT network in just two hours on Thursday. The attack was part … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityLeaked Apple Documents Inadvertently Helped the Right-to-Repair Movement
Cyberattacks are rarely useful to anybody except cyber-attackers, but a recent ransomware incident has had some unexpected upsides for those in the right-to-repair community, new coverage from Motherboard suggests. In April, the ransomware gang REvil announced that it had stolen blueprints for some of Apple’s newest products. The documents were allegedly obtained via a cyberattack … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityJustice Department Quietly Seized Washington Post Reporters’ Phone Records During Trump Era
The Department of Justice quietly seized phone records and tried to obtain email records for three Washington Post reporters, ostensibly over their coverage of then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election, according to officials and government letters reviewed by the Post. Justice Department regulations typically mandate that news organizations … Continued
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Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityNew Report Shows Phone Cracking Tech is Being Used to Target Journalists in Botswana
The willingness of digital forensics firms to sell to pretty much any paying law enforcement agency, regardless of the country’s human rights record, has stirred up no minor amount of controversy. These tools, critics say, allow bad governments expansive, invasive powers, and may be used in the course of investigations that illegitimately target activists or … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityIf You Use Twitter’s New Tip Jar Feature, Make Sure You Don’t Accidentally Send People Your Address
If you decide you’re game enough to use Twitter’s new feature to send strangers on the internet money, do your best not to accidentally send them your residential address, too. To explain, you may have heard something about “Tip Jar,” which the company soft launched Thursday, heralding it as a way “for people to send … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityQualcomm Chip Flaw Could Leave 30 Percent of the World’s Phones Vulnerable to Hackers
A recently discovered vulnerability inside Qualcomm-produced phone chips could be exploited to gain access to data on affected devices, allowing an intruder to snoop on phone calls and text messages. The bug, which was discovered and disclosed by security firm Check Point Research, may be exploitable on a whopping 30 percent of the world’s phones. … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityScammers Score $2 Million from the WallStreetBets Crowd With Fictional Crypto Launch
A cryptocurrency scam recently pilfered at least $2 million from WallStreetBets enthusiasts, convincing them that they were buying into a new crypto coin connected to the popular memestock, according to a report from Bloomberg News. For weeks, moderators of the notorious Reddit forum have warned users to avoid fraudulent scams based around the good WSB … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityPeloton API Exposed User Data, Even for Private Accounts
Peloton’s had a rough go in the news cycle lately, and not helping matters is the fact that its leaky API allowed any hacker to obtain any user’s account data—even if that user had set their profile to private. The vulnerability, which was discovered by security research firm Pen Test Partners, allowed requests go through … Continued
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Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityYou Should Definitely Update Your Dell Computer Right Now
A public service announcement for anyone who, like me, is using a years-old Dell computer as their primary machine: Dell has released a security patch for a security vulnerability affecting close to 400 different computer models manufactured between 2009 and right now. That’s, uh, a lot of laptops. The vulnerability was discovered by security research … Continued
By Florence Ion -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityStop the Steal: ‘Hacker’ Homecoming Queen Charged as Adult in Vote-Changing Scandal
Authorities appear to have uncovered a vast, nefarious conspiracy to electronically rig an American election in favor of an illegitimate victor. Neither Deep State supercomputers nor Russian intelligence agencies are alleged to have been involved in this one, however. Instead, the election in question is the 2020 race for Homecoming Queen at Tate High School … Continued
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecuritySignal Tries to Run the Most Honest Facebook Ad Campaign Ever, Immediately Gets Banned [Updated]
A series of Instagram ads run by the privacy-positive platform Signal got the messaging app booted from the former’s ad platform, according to a blog post Signal published on Tuesday. The ads were meant to show users the bevy of data that Instagram and its parent company Facebook collects on users, by… targeting those users … Continued
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Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityUpdate to iOS 14.5.1 Right Now or Your iPhone Is a Sitting Duck for Hackers
Apple has rushed out fixes to two major vulnerabilities in iOS and iPadOS 14.5, last month’s update that implemented its App Tracking Transparency feature. Both bugs could have allowed malicious parties to remotely execute code, possibly leading to the takeover of an affected device. That means you need to update your devices as soon as … Continued
By Tom McKay
