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.
Cross-platform efforts denigrated France's handling of the games and fomented fear of a potential terrorist attack
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.
Cloudflare's TryCloudflare is being exploited by cybercriminals for malware delivery via phishing emails, reports say.
Learn more about how four malware, XWorm, AsyncRAT, VenomRAT, and PureLogs Stealer, are leveraging TryCloudflare and get security recommendations from our…
The Black Basta ransomware gang has shown resilience and an ability to adapt to a constantly shifting space, using new custom tools and tactics to evade detection and spread throughout a network.
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.
Russian and Moldovan companies targeted by XDSpy phishing campaign, deploying DSDownloader malware, amid escalating cyber conflicts.
A scathing rebuke by the U.K. data protection watchdog reveals what led to the compromise of tens of millions of U.K. voters' information.
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.
We uncovered a malvertising campaign where the threat actor hijacks social media pages, renames them to mimic popular AI photo editors, then posts malicious links to fake websites.
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,…
Compliance failures and unsatisfactory responses mount from the long-time certificate authority
A senior official previously condemned the platform for ‘censoring’ Hamas-related content.
Supreme Court ruling that Greek state agencies were not involved in the use of illegal spy software shocks opposition leader who says confidence in the justice system had been 'seriously shaken'.
Both men committed major financial crimes—and had powerful friends.
EU Member States, with the support of the European Commission and ENISA, the EU Agency for Cybersecurity, published the first report on the cybersecurity and resilience of Europe’s telecommunications and electricity sectors.
DigiCert will be revoking certificates that did not have proper Domain Control Verification (DCV). Before issuing a certificate to a customer, DigiCert validates the customer’s control or ownership over the domain name for which they are requesting a certificate using one of several methods approved by the CA/Browser Forum (CABF). One of these methods relies on the customer adding a DNS CNAME record which includes a random value provided to them by DigiCert. DigiCert then does a DNS lookup for the domain and verifies the same random value, thereby proving domain control by the customer..
A major company made a staggering $75 million ransomware payment to hackers earlier this year, according to cybersecurity vendor Zscaler.
Zscaler made the claim in a Tuesday report examining the latest trends in ransomware attacks, which continue to ensnare companies, hospitals, and schools across the country.
Cette nuit, de nouveaux actes de vandalisme viennent perturber l’accès à Internet cette fois-ci. Selon nos informations, des fibres « longhaul » (longues distances, généralement plusieurs centaines de kilomètres) sont coupées à plusieurs endroits, provoquant des perturbations au niveau national. Les fibres relient des grandes villes – Paris, Lille, Strasbourg, Marseille, Lyon… – et servent d’artères pour Internet.
The stock exchange was forced to halt equity trading for several hours on Wednesday due to persistent technical snags.
CrowdStrike (CRWD.O), opens new tab has been sued by shareholders who said the cybersecurity company defrauded them by concealing how its inadequate software testing could cause the July 19 global outage that crashed more than 8 million computers.
In a proposed class action filed on Tuesday night in the Austin, Texas federal court, shareholders said they learned that CrowdStrike's assurances about its technology were materially false and misleading when a flawed software update disrupted airlines, banks, hospitals and emergency lines around the world.
o you have problems configuring Microsoft's Defender? You might not be alone: Microsoft admitted that whatever it's using for its defensive implementation exacerbated yesterday's Azure instability.
No one has blamed the actual product named "Windows Defender," we must note.
According to Microsoft, the initial trigger event for yesterday's outage, which took out great swathes of the web, was a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. Such attacks are hardly unheard of, and an industry has sprung up around warding them off.
Businesses that fall victim to a data breach can expect a financial hit of nearly $5 million on average — a 10% increase compared to last year — according to IBM’s annual report on cybersecurity incidents.
A cyberattack has hit a blood-donation nonprofit that serves hundreds of hospitals in the southeastern US.
The hack, which was first reported by CNN, has raised concerns about potential impacts on OneBlood’s service to some hospitals, multiple sources familiar with the matter said, and the incident is being investigated as a potential ransomware attack.
Microsoft confirmed today that a nine-hour outage on Tuesday, which took down and disrupted multiple Microsoft 365 and Azure services worldwide, was triggered by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
Google has fallen victim to its own ad platform, allowing threat actors to create fake Google Authenticator ads that push the DeerStealer information-stealing malware.
Les transactions à la Bourse suisse ont été suspendues ce mercredi après une panne technique empêchant la diffusion
Mandrake spyware threat actors resume attacks with new functionality targeting Android devices while being publicly available on Google Play.
The attack comes a few days after a coordinated arson assault on the French rail network.
A Disney employee downloaded what they thought was a safe add-on for video game BeamNG.drive, but it was anything but.
“Sorry, Benedetto, but I need to identify you,” the executive said.
Hundreds of sites have put old Anthropic scrapers on their blocklist, while leaving a new one unblocked.
Just after midnight Eastern Time on July 19, 2024, the enterprise cybersecurity company CrowdStrike YOLOed a software update to millions of Windows machines. Or as they put it:
On July 19, 2024 at 04:09 UTC, as part of ongoing operations, CrowdStrike released a sensor configuration update to Windows systems.
That sensor configuration update caused the largest IT outage in history.
Microsoft researchers have uncovered a vulnerability in ESXi hypervisors being exploited by several ransomware operators to obtain full administrative permissions on domain-joined ESXi hypervisors. ESXi is a bare-metal hypervisor that is installed directly onto a physical server and provides direct access and control of underlying resources. ESXi hypervisors host virtual machines that may include critical servers in a network. In a ransomware attack, having full administrative permission on an ESXi hypervisor can mean that the threat actor can encrypt the file system, which may affect the ability of the hosted servers to run and function. It also allows the threat actor to access hosted VMs and possibly to exfiltrate data or move laterally within the network.
Not only is TikTok’s algorithm promoting Neo-Nazi content, extremist organizations are also using the platform to recruit new members and encourage real-world action.
#content #extremism #media #moderation #nazis #social #tiktok
LummaC2 is an Infostealer that is being actively distributed, disguised as illegal programs (e.g. cracks, keygens, and game hacking programs) available from distribution websites, YouTube, and LinkedIn using the SEO poisoning technique. Recently, it has also been distributed via search engine ads, posing as web pages of Notion, Slack, Capcut, etc.
Reference: Distribution of MSIX Malware Disguised as Notion Installer
Meta has removed 63,000 Instagram accounts from Nigeria that were involved in sextortion scams, including a coordinated network of 2,500 accounts linked to 20 individuals targeting primarily adult men in the United States.
#Computer #Facebook #InfoSec #Instagram #Media #Meta #Scam #Security #Sextortion #Social
Engineers at Southwest Research Institute have identified cybersecurity vulnerabilities with electric vehicles (EVs) using direct current fast-charging systems, the quickest, commonly used way to charge electric vehicles. The high-voltage technology relies on power line communication (PLC) technology to transmit smart-grid data between vehicles and charging equipment.
In a laboratory, the SwRI team exploited vulnerabilities in the PLC layer, gaining access to network keys and digital addresses on both the charger and the vehicle.
This report delves into Doppelgänger information operations conducted by Russian actors, focusing on their activities from early June to late-July 2024. Our investigation was motivated by the unexpected snap general election in France, prompting a closer look at Doppelgänger activities during this period.
While recent activities have been described since1,2, our first dive into the information operations topic offers a complementary threat-intelligence analysts’ perspective on the matter, brings additional knowledge on associated infrastructure, tactics and motivation in Europe and the United States.
SeleniumGreed is an active crypto-mining campaign targeting older versions of Grid services. Explore the risks, attack methods, and essential security measures.
Wiz Research has detected an ongoing threat campaign that exploits exposed Selenium Grid services for cryptomining, dubbed “SeleniumGreed”.
Selenium is among the most commonly used testing frameworks. Our data shows that the technology can be found in 30% of cloud environments, and the official selenium/hub docker image has over 100 million pulls in Docker Hub.
Unbeknownst to most users, Selenium WebDriver API enables full interaction with the machine itself, including reading and downloading files, and running remote commands.
By default, authentication is not enabled for this service. This means that many publicly accessible instances are misconfigured and can be accessed by anyone and abused for malicious purposes.
We have identified a threat actor targeting publicly exposed instances of Selenium Grid and leveraging features of Selenium WebDriver API to run Python with a reverse shell to deploy scripts that download a XMRig miner.
The threat actor is still active as of this blog post’s date of publication.
We believe this is the first documentation of this misconfiguration being exploited in the wild.
Google says it recently fixed an authentication weakness that allowed crooks to circumvent the email verification required to create a Google Workspace account, and leverage that to impersonate a domain holder at third-party services that allow logins through Google’s “Sign in with Google” feature.
In this blog post, we examine the recent CrowdStrike outage and provide a technical overview of the root cause. We also explain why security products use kernel-mode drivers today and the safety measures Windows provides for third-party solutions. In addition, we share how customers and security vendors can better leverage the integrated security capabilities of Windows for increased security and reliability. Lastly, we provide a look into how Windows will enhance extensibility for future security products.
The private member information of the BreachForums v1 hacking forum from 2022 has been leaked online, allowing threat actors and researchers to gain insight into its users.
The National Crime Agency has infiltrated a significant DDoS-for-hire service which has been responsible for tens of thousands of attacks every week across the globe.
The disruption targeting digitalstress.su, a criminal marketplace offering DDos capabilities, was made in partnership with the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
It comes after the PSNI arrested one of the site’s suspected controllers earlier this month.
