Catalin Cimpanu reports: The US government has sanctioned today four companies that develop and sell spyware and other hacking tools, the US Department of Commerce announced today. The four companies include Israel’s NSO Group and Candiru, Russian security firm Positive Technologies, and Singapore-based Computer Security Initiative Consultancy. Read more on The Record.
Author: Dissent
Conservatives call for investigation into government data breaches that may have put Afghans in danger
CBC reports: The Conservatives have written to Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien to complain about a pattern of data breaches at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), CBC News has learned. The complaint is in response to a string of misdirected emails last month that may have exposed hundreds of vulnerable Afghans to danger. Read more on Yahoo!…
Reward Offers for Information to Bring DarkSide Ransomware Variant Co-Conspirators to Justice
PRESS STATEMENT NED PRICE, DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON NOVEMBER 4, 2021 The U.S. Department of State announces a reward offer of up to $10,000,000 for information leading to the identification or location of any individual(s) who hold(s) a key leadership position in the DarkSide ransomware variant transnational organized crime group. In addition, the Department is also offering…
UK: Are monetary penalties really a deterrent to data protection violations if few companies actually pay up?
I received an email today that made me think. It promised not to bother me about cottage cheese (see the Footer for context), and indeed, it offered me something of substance with no money exchanging hands at all. It seems TheSMSWorks had followed up on monetary penalties levied by the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office and…
Alleged Twitter hacker charged with theft of $784K in crypto via SIM swaps
Lawrence Abrams reports that in an unsealed indictment in the Southern District of New York, the Department of Justice claimed that Joseph O’Connor, a/k/a “PlugwalkJoe,” and co-conspirators used SIM swaps to gain access to accounts for a Manhattan-based cryptocurrency company. Using this access, the alleged hackers stole $784,000 Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin from…
Jukin Media hacked and data dumped; company claims a password reset is required due to a “security upgrade”
On Wednesday, Jukin Media posted a notice on its site requiring users to reset their passwords. They said the reset was due to a “security upgrade.” By now, whenever I see announcements about what seems to be an unplanned or unscheduled reset, I suspect a breach, so I reached out to Jukin Media’s Twitter team…