when you run For a major app, it only takes one bug to put countless people at risk. This was the case with Diksha, a public education app run by India’s Ministry of Education, which exposed the personal information of some one million teachers and millions of students across the country. The data, which includes things like full names, email addresses and phone numbers, has been publicly accessible for at least a year or more, potentially exposing those affected by phishing attacks and other scams.
Speaking of cybercrime, the LockBit ransomware gang has long kept a low profile due to its professional operations and targeting. But a series of missteps and drama over the past year has thrust it into the spotlight, potentially threatening its ability to continue operating with impunity.
However, encrypting everything on a computer isn’t just the domain of criminals. This week, we explain how to protect your files with Digital Lock and Key on macOS and Windows. Do you know what a criminal’s domain is? A Chainalysis report this week said money laundering was largely facilitated by five cryptocurrency exchanges, four of which helped lawbreakers cash out $1.1 billion in 2022.
A billionaire like Elon Musk may have reason to celebrate. Flight tracking platform ADS-B Exchange, which provided data for the @ElonJet account tracking Tesla and the Twitter CEO’s private jet, is sold out. The company is now owned by private equity-owned aviation intelligence firm Jetnet. Fans of ADS-B, including the creator of @ElonJet, are now jumping ship because they think the new owner is more likely to bow to scrutiny demands from Musk, the Saudi royal family, and more.
But that’s not all. Each week we round up stories that we haven’t covered in depth ourselves. Click on a title to read the full story. And stay safe there.
As Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine unfolded over the past year, the Kremlin has also stepped up its crackdown on domestic and Russian-language media to quell antiwar dissent. By some measures, the latest casualty of the crackdown is Russia’s top independent news site: Meduza. On Thursday, the Russian government added Meduza to its list of “undesirable organisations,” effectively banning any collaboration or promotion with the news outlet. The country’s attorney general even wrote in a statement that Medusa “poses a threat to the foundations of the constitutional system and the security of the Russian Federation.”
While Meduza has long been stationed in Latvia to protect it from Russian media restrictions and reprisals, the new measures make it illegal for anyone in Russia to work for a news outlet, talk to its reporters, post links to its website, or even “like” its social networks. One of the media posts. Under Russian law, a first-time violation of these restrictions is a misdemeanor defense, punishable by a fine, but repeated violations are a felony and can be punished by years in prison.
While a jail sentence is unlikely for anyone not actively involved with a news organization — and so far most offenses carry a fine — Meduza warns Russians and anyone traveling to Russia to Be careful about deleting posts on social media in which they link or promote their content. Regardless of how the law is enforced, the chilling effect will undoubtedly be enormous, and the draconian ban on Meduza represents another small step in Russia’s long, slow slide toward totalitarianism.
The FBI announced this week that it had thwarted the operations of Hive, one of the world’s most prolific and destructive ransomware groups, shutting down its dark web site and recovering the decryption keys to unlock victims facing $130 million Total system ransom demanded. “We hit hackers,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told reporters at a news conference. During the extortion-fueled cybercrime spree of previous years, Hive victimized more than 80 networks and collected more than $100 million in ransom, according to the FBI. But the FBI, working with numerous law enforcement agencies, including the German and Dutch Federal Police, sneaked into the group’s systems, spied on it and eventually disrupted it. Despite the victory, there was no mention of arrests in the high-profile announcement, suggesting — as is often the case in ransomware cases — that Hive’s hackers may be based in non-extradition countries that are out of reach of Western law enforcement.
The FBI is officially targeting a common suspect in the ongoing massive data breaches and thefts in the cryptocurrency world: North Korea. In investigating the theft of $100 million in cryptocurrency last year, the bureau charged two hacking groups long thought to be linked to Kim Jong Un’s regime, APT38 or Lazarus — the latter sometimes used as part of a wider network of multiple North Korean hackers The general name of the unit. The hackers targeted the Horizon “bridge,” a system used to allow transfers from one cryptocurrency to another, owned by US cryptocurrency firm Harmony. Bridges have become increasingly lucrative targets for thieves, who have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars worth of digital currency from bridges in recent years. In addition to its denunciation statement, the FBI also said that some of the stolen currency was confiscated when the hackers attempted to launder the money, and the agency noted that approximately $40 million in stolen loot was still stored in encrypted addresses.
If Madison Square Garden doesn’t want a legal scandal over its experiment using facial recognition technology to spot people it tries to ban from its grounds, maybe it shouldn’t start by banning lawyers. New York Attorney General Letitia James sent a letter to MSG’s owners after it emerged that MSG used facial recognition to prevent lawyers from various companies involved in litigation at the venue from attending its events and then used controversial facial recognition technology to enforce that ban, Ask for more information on its surveillance practices. The letter, which suggested the ban on lawyers was intended to deter people from filing lawsuits against MSG, asked about the reliability of the facial recognition technology MSG used and whether it had safeguards against bias. “Anyone with tickets to the event need not worry that they may be wrongfully denied admission due to their appearance, and we urge MSG Entertainment to rescind this policy,” James wrote in a statement.
