One day at the dawn of the 1980s, an FBI agent in his 30s named Rick Smith walked into the Balboa Café, an ornate, historic watering hole in San Francisco’s leafy Cow Hollow neighborhood. Smith, who was single at the time, lived nearby and regularly frequented the spot.
As he approached the oak wood bar to order a drink he suddenly spotted a familiar face — someone Smith had met about a year before, after the man had walked into the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco. He was Austrian by birth, but a denizen of Silicon Valley, an entrepreneur who operated as a middleman between American tech companies and European countries hungry for the latest hi-tech goods.
A massive Magniber ransomware campaign is underway, encrypting home users' devices worldwide and demanding thousand-dollar ransoms to receive a decryptor.
Magniber launched in 2017 as a successor to the Cerber ransomware operation when it was spotted being distributed by the Magnitude exploit kit.
Since then, the ransomware operation has seen bursts of activity over the years, with the threat actors utilizing various methods to distribute Magniber and encrypt devices. These tactics include using Windows zero-days, fake Windows and browser updates, and trojanized software cracks and key generators.
The Toronto Police Service is making the public aware of 10 arrests made and 108 charges laid in a major SIM swap fraud investigation dubbed Project Disrupt.
On Thursday, August 1, 2024, Detective David Coffey, from the Financial Crimes Unit, and Detective Constable Michael Gow, from the Coordinated Cyber Center (C3), held a news conference about Project Disrupt.
To attract users across the Global Majority, many technology companies have introduced “lite” versions of their products: Applications that are designed for lower-bandwidth contexts. TikTok is no exception, with TikTok Lite estimated to have more than 1 billion users.
Mozilla and AI Forensics research reveals that TikTok Lite doesn’t just reduce required bandwidth, however. In our opinion, it also reduces trust and safety. In comparing TikTok Lite with the classic TikTok app, we found several discrepancies between trust and safety features that could have potentially dangerous consequences in the context of elections and public health.
Our research revealed TikTok Lite lacks basic protections that are afforded to other TikTok users, including content labels for graphic, AI-generated, misinformation, and dangerous acts videos. TikTok Lite users also encounter arbitrarily shortened video descriptions that can easily eliminate crucial context.
Further, TikTok Lite users have fewer proactive controls at their disposal. Unlike traditional TikTok users, they cannot filter offensive keywords or implement screen management practices.
Our findings are concerning, and reinforce patterns of double-standard. Technology platforms have a history of neglecting users outside of the US and EU, where there is markedly less potential for constraining regulation and enforcement. As part of our research, we discuss the implications of this pattern and also offer concrete recommendations for TikTok Lite to improve.
Cybersecurity and data protection technology company Acronis last week warned that threat actors are exploiting a critical-severity vulnerability patched nine months ago.
Tracked as CVE-2023-45249 (CVSS score of 9.8), the security defect impacts Acronis Cyber Infrastructure (ACI) and allows threat actors to execute arbitrary code remotely due to the use of default passwords.
Apple on Monday announced a hefty round of security updates that address dozens of vulnerabilities impacting both newer and older iOS and macOS devices.
iOS 17.6 and iPadOS 17.6 were released for the latest generation iPhone and iPad devices with fixes for 35 security defects that could lead to authentication and policy bypasses, unexpected application termination or system shutdown, information disclosure, denial-of-service (DoS), and memory leaks.
In mid-2022, Mandiant's Managed Defense detected multiple intrusions involving QAKBOT, leading to the deployment of BEACON coupled with other pre-ransomware indicators. This marked Mandiant's initial identification of UNC4393, the primary user of BASTA ransomware. Mandiant has responded to over 40 separate UNC4393 intrusions across 20 different industry verticals. While healthcare organizations have not traditionally been a focus for UNC4393, several breaches in the industry this year indicate a possible expansion of their interests. However, this represents only a fraction of the cluster's victims, with the Black Basta data leak site purporting over 500 victims since inception.
Over the course of this blog post, Mandiant will detail the evolution of UNC4393's operational tactics and malware usage throughout its active lifespan, with a focus on the period following the QAKBOT botnet takedown. We will highlight the cluster's transition from readily available tools to custom malware development as well as its evolving reliance on access brokers and diversification of initial access techniques.
The US government is suing TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance over “widespread” privacy violations that it illegally collects data on kids 13 and under.
More than a million domain names -- including many registered by Fortune 100 firms and brand protection companies -- are vulnerable to takeover by cybercriminals thanks to authentication weaknesses at a number of large web hosting providers and domain registrars,…