In addition to blocking Cherkasov from getting an ICC position and sending him back to Brazil, Dutch intelligence has published a lengthy and detailed cover story on him. The four-page story, often referred to as the secret intelligence officer’s “saga,” details the background to “Ferrera’s” identity. “The threat posed by this intelligence officer is considered potentially very high,” AVID said in a statement.
More clues about his undercover life have surfaced since starring in “Ferrera.” Investigations unit Bellingcat found social media profiles belonging to “Ferreira,” as well as blogs and online resumes. He also studied at Trinity College Dublin and Johns Hopkins University. Eugene Finkel, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University who said he taught “Ferrera,” tweeted: “I wrote him a letter. In fact, a powerful one. It was me. I Wrote a letter of recommendation for a GRU officer. I can never get over the fact. I hate GRU, him, everything about this story. I’m glad he was exposed.”
For years, it was impossible to move backups of WhatsApp chats between Android and iOS and vice versa. Last August, WhatsApp announced it was starting to roll out features that let people move data between iPhones and Android devices. Now, this week, the Meta-owned company said that backups are also going in the other direction — from Android to iOS.
Processors from Intel and AMD are vulnerable to a new type of side-channel attack called Hertzbleed. As reported by BleepingComputer and DarkReading, the attack could allow the theft of encryption keys and data. Hertzbleed works by exploiting a common power-saving feature in chips — called Dynamic Frequency Scaling (DVFS) — that could allow attackers to steal data. Intel said in a blog post that the frequency changes of DVFS may be related to the information the chip is processing. Still, neither Intel nor AMD seem to have plans to address this issue. However, the risk to end users currently appears to be low. The team of researchers who discovered Hertzbleed said the average user probably shouldn’t be concerned.
Since the spread of Covid-19 in early 2020, technological systems have been developed to try to control its spread. In China, a mandatory health code system was established to monitor people’s health status – those with red codes must self-isolate, while those with green codes can move freely. These health codes are associated with people’s mobile phones. Now, according to multiple reports, people in China’s Henan province claim that their protest plans have been blocked because their health codes have been dyed red. Some of those affected claimed they were not with anyone who was positive about Covid-19 and that the change was an abuse of power by officials.
Mozilla’s web browser may have struggled in recent years, but it’s still one of the most privacy-friendly browsers around. This week, the company said that Firefox will turn on its Total Cookie Protection feature by default for everyone using the browser. Mozilla explained in a blog post that any cookies saved to your computer will only be available to the website that placed them. “Instead of allowing trackers to tie your actions across multiple sites, they simply look at actions on individual sites,” the company said, adding that this is “Firefox’s strongest privacy protection yet.”
In November 2021, the US sanctioned the notorious Israeli spyware company NSO Group. The company’s Pegasus hacking tool has been used around the world to spy on journalists and activists.This week, U.S. defense firm L3Harris is interested in buying the technology behind Pegasus because Financial Times Report. Any purchase of the technology by U.S. companies could put it in conflict with the Biden administration, which has blacklisted NSO. The potential deal, said to be in its early stages, has drawn criticism from the White House. “We are deeply concerned,” a senior official told Washington post. They said the deal could create security and counterintelligence problems for the United States.
