Mark Townsend reports: Facebook has dramatically agreed to settle a lawsuit seeking damages for allowing Cambridge Analytica access to the private data of tens of millions of users, four years after the Observer exposed the scandal that mired the tech giant in repeated controversy. A court filing reveals that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has in principle settled for an…
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From the “What Could Possibly Go Wrong Department” after it went wrong, Monday edition
In June, many of us first became aware that Facebook was receiving sensitive medical information from hospital websites. Of 33 hospital websites that The Markup tested, 10 of them had trackers (“Meta Pixels”) which sent information to Facebook when a patients clicked a button on the hospital’s site to schedule an a medical appointment. This…
Disrupting SEABORGIUM’s ongoing phishing operations
From Microsoft’s Blog: The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) has observed and taken actions to disrupt campaigns launched by SEABORGIUM, an actor Microsoft has tracked since 2017. SEABORGIUM is a threat actor that originates from Russia, with objectives and victimology that align closely with Russian state interests. Its campaigns involve persistent phishing and credential theft…
Signal says third-party data breach exposed 1,900 phone numbers
J. Fingas reports: Signal’s reputation for secure messaging doesn’t make it completely invulnerable to hacking incidents. The company has confirmed that a data breach at verification partner Twillio exposed the phone numbers and SMS codes of roughly 1,900 users. As TechCrunch observed, the intruder could have either used the information to either identify Signal users or re-register their numbers to other…
USAA Must Face Lawsuit Over Driver’s License Disclosures
Samantha Hawkins reports: United Services Automobile Association must face claims that it disclosed individuals’ driver’s license numbers to cybercriminals, after a federal judge in Manhattan refused to dismiss the suit. Vincent Doland and Christine Mapes sued the insurance company under the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act and New York State General Business Law, claiming that cybercriminals used…
Finland’s parliament hit with cyberattack following US move to admit the country to NATO
Ines Kagubare reports: Finland’s parliament website was temporarily down on Tuesday following a cyberattack that coincided with President Biden’s move to admit the Nordic country to NATO. The Finnish parliament said in a statement on Twitter that a denial-of-service attack hit the parliament’s external websites at around 2:30 p.m. local time. Read more at The Hill.