Believe it or not no, GameStop shares weren’t the only story in the world this week. The last few days have also been tumultuous for cybersecurity, especially after the revelation that North Korean hackers targeted security professionals with a compelling DM campaign. Many people shared screenshots of how he dodged the bullet, but it’s still unclear how many more fell for the article.
Speaking of falling, an international team of police agencies this week withdrew the famous Emotet botnet, arresting two alleged gang members behind it and confiscating servers in the process. Ransomware operators and other malicious actors who used Emotet to spread their goods will likely switch to other distribution media, but at least the “most dangerous malware in the world,” as Europol called it, has become extinct by now.
These things tend to persist, after all. Take Flash, the software that released a thousand vulnerabilities. Although Adobe killed her last week (really this time), it will continue to persist and cause problems in some systems for years to come. Another possible cause of problems: Telegram, the messaging application that has become popular as users have fled WhatsApp for privacy reasons and Parler for its current state of non-existence. Although Telegram offers end-to-end encryption, it is not enabled by default and is not available for group chats, which may cause some users to be exposed more than they might think.
Plans for an encrypted federal gun registry also challenged the allegations this week, offering a potential way to balance accountability with the privacy of a great cooking issue. And we took a look at how Facebook allows advertisers to target military categories, which could have troubling consequences.
Finally, be sure to read the first installment of the serialized novel we are running on WIRED this month and next. It follows a conflict with China in 2034 that is pure fiction, but feels too close to reality.
And there is more! Every week we gather all the news that we don’t cover in depth. Click on the headlines to read the full news. And stay safe.
Most iOS updates contain some sort of security fix. But it is a rarer occasion for the vulnerable who suffer to be actively exploited by hackers. This is the case with iOS 14.4, released earlier this week, which deals with not just one but three bugs that attackers can use in the wild, according to the security update that accompanies Apple. These are no minor problems either; the flaws in question, present in WebKit and the iOS kernel, would have allowed the arbitrary execution of remote code and the escalation of privileges, respectively, which could give a hacker a lot of access to your device and its data . Does that mean you’ve been hacked? Probably not! But it makes no sense to take a risk when you can already protect yourself by installing the dang update.
Not all data leaks are the same. In this case, ZDNet 2.28 million users of the MeetMindful dating app had information such as their real names, dating preferences, geolocation, Facebook user IDs and authentication tabs and “body details” shared as a free download in a hacking forum. According to ZNet, the forum thread that contained the download had been viewed more than 1,500 times as of Sunday. Dating profile information is useful not only for identity theft, but also for the most aggressive extortion schemes.
Ransomware has exploded lately and hackers have successfully targeted everything from hospitals to cities to international companies. This week the Justice Department took action against one of the many groups responsible for this scourge, arresting a Canadian man who alleges he used Netwalker ransomware to shake victims for a total of $ 27.6 million. Unfortunately, Netwalker is a ransomware service; the feds arrested an alleged affiliate instead of a central member of the group behind it. Still, progress is progress.
Okay, well, it’s been a long week and it’s an interview with a guy who had to use screw cutters to get rid of a chastity belt that a hacker had remotely locked. You deserve it.
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