The Host Unknown Podcast

The usual malarkey of catching up on the boys, this week in infosec, rant of the week, billy big balls, industry news, and tweet of the week. All the goodness in one package. It's the host unknown podcast!  Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

19th February 1999: The movie "Office Space" was released. With a budget of $10 million, it grossed a measly $13 million worldwide, but became a cult classic with its homage to Superman III's salami slicing and Jennifer Aniston's rant against 37 pieces of flair. Now where's my stapler? It's a masterclass in a fraud , a segregation of duties failure, or a monitoring gap — but back in 1999, it was just a comedy plot. Leaked Email Suggests Ring Plans to Expand ‘Search Party’ Surveillance Beyond Dogs Ring’s controversial, AI-powered “Search Party” feature isn’t intended to always be limited only to dogs, the company’s founder, Jamie Siminoff, told Ring employees in an internal email obtained by 404 Media Just found out we’re being audited by our cyber insurance provider  Industry news  Tweet of the weekhttps://x.com/whoaish/status/2024344477465456936   Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in Infosec reminds us of the real reason we click on linksRant of the week is going to put a lot of Parisien street artists out of workBilly Big Balls proves that on the internet nobody knows you are a dogIndustry News brings us the latest and greatest security news stories from around the worldAndTweet of the Week makes Thom wonder when Fat Thursdays are coming to the UK Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

Same format. Banter, lame jokes, inside jokes, lame inside jokes. This week in infosec A weak rant.A billy big balls Industry newsSome tweet of the week.And closing thoughts Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

5th November 1993: Bugtraq was created by Scott Chasin as a full disclosure vulnerability reporting mailing list at the dawn of the World Wide Web. Bugtraq had an enormous influence on how orgs responded to vuln disclosure and paved the way for a shift which led to bug bounty programs.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1986164925039841770  24th October 2002: The worm-like Friendgreet propagated by emailing all Outlook contacts from each computer where it was installed. But THERE WAS A TWIST!The software presented a EULA stating it would do that!They gave fair warning, right!?(EULA = End User License Agreement)https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1981885412374114601 CyberSlop — meet the new threat actor, MIT and Safe SecurityCybersecurity vendors peddling nonsense isn’t new, but lately we have a new dimension — Generative AI. This has allowed vendors — and educators — to peddle cyberslop for profit.Earlier this year, MIT released a working paper and made a webpage around 80% of ransomware attacks using Generative AILaw passed for scammers, mules to be caned after victims in Singapore lose almost $4b since 2020SINGAPORE – Scammers will get at least six strokes of the cane, with the punishment going up to 24 strokes depending on the severity of the offence.Those to be caned will include syndicate members and recruiters, and those who help them, such as money mules who provide their bank accounts, SIM cards or Singpass credentials.These mules will face discretionary caning of up to 12 strokes.Tweet of the week: https://x.com/phl43/status/1985841184141689196  Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec is a Mitnick/Android double acthttps://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/september/27/#hacker-mitnick-indicted-on-chargeshttps://thisdayintechhistory.com/09/23/the-first-android-introduced/ Rant of the Week is the future of the UK, the future I tell you…New digital ID will be mandatory for workers in the UKBilly Big Balls gives the best reason ever to go full speed ahead with AISilicon Valley’s latest argument against regulating AI: that would literally be the Antichrist Industry News is the latest and greatest security news stories from around the worldTweet of the Week is valuable fitness advice from infosechttps://bsky.app/profile/secure-ics-ot.bsky.social/post/3lzpgdl7dts2u  Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

18th September 2014: Home Depot disclosed that its data breach was estimated to impact 56 million unique payment cards.Home Depot disclosed that its data breach was estimated to impact 56 million unique payment cards.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/196887046940830928518th September 2001: The Nimda worm was released. Utilizing 5 different infection vectors, it became the most widespread virus/worm ever after only 22 minutes.Why "Nimda"?$ echo "admin" | revnimdahttps://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1968721441836134825 Rant of the week Google stuffs Chrome full of AI features whether you like it or not Billy big balls Former Facebook policy lead Niamh Sweeney appointed DPC commissioner  Tweet of the week https://bsky.app/profile/jwgoerlich.bsky.social/post/3lz4qt5a64k2p  Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

The notes go here. I really can't go and look for them right now.  This week in InfoSec is a sticky pickleRant of the Week will have you guessing at who it could possibly be, again…Billy Big Balls is why british men need to take their passport to the bathroom these daysIndustry News is the latest and greatest security news stories from around the worldAndTweet of the Week is well... Thom got it wrong.   Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

8th July 2008: Several DNS vendors released patches to mitigate an attack method discovered by Dan Kaminsky which could be used to cause DNS cache poisoning. Kaminsky had discovered the vulnerability 6 months prior and reported it to vendors privately so they could address it. RIP, Dan.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/194269569127019321110th July 1999: Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) member DilDog debuted the program Back Orifice 2000 (BO2k) at DEF CON 7. It was the successor to Back Orifice, released by cDc a year prior. DilDog proclaimed it "a remote administration tool for corporate America". https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1943440335608385876Outsourced Trust: How Coinbase's $400M Problem Started in an Indian Call CenterThe GPS Leak No One Talked About: Uffizio’s Silent ExposureHundreds of Malicious Domains Registered Ahead of Prime DayM&S Chair Details Ransomware Attack, Declines to Confirm if Payment Was MadeChinese State-Sponsored Hacker Charged Over COVID-19 Research TheftQantas Confirms 5.7 Million Customers Hit by Data BreachTribunal Ruling Brings ICO’s £12.7m TikTok Fine CloserFour Arrested in Connection with April UK Retail AttacksTikTok's Handling of EU User Data in China Comes Under Scrutiny AgainLLMs Fall Short in Vulnerability Discovery and ExploitationMPs Warn of “Significant” Iranian Cyber-Threat to UK  https://x.com/krezae/status/1943463109173338558 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

27th June 2007: Live Free or Die Hard was released. Cop John McClane partners with hacker Matt Farrell to stop cyberterrorists trying to take down the US's infrastructure. Traceroute (1337!) is used to find the ringleader's location, then McClane kills him by shooting HIS OWN shoulder.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1938731279937057144     1st July 2003: California's data breach notification law went into effect. California became the first US state to require disclosure of breaches of personal information.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1940220561080332760 Meta calls €200M EU fine over pay-or-consent ad model 'unlawful' Meet Soham Parekh, the engineer burning through tech by working at three to four startups simultaneously https://x.com/nickvangilder/status/1940110830085054891 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

17th June 1995: Spyglass goes publicWorld Wide Web software producer Spyglass Inc. went public, the year after it had begun distributing its Spyglass Mosaic software, an early browser for navigating the Web. With previous year's earnings at $7 million, Spyglass was founded by students at the Illinois Supercomputing Center, which also inspired Netscape Communications Corp.https://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/june/27/#spyglass-goes-public  26th June 1989: Robert Tappan Morris (who released the Morris worm in 1988) became the first person to be indicted under the US's Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), enacted by Congress 3 years earlier. He was later sentenced to three years of probation and fined $10,050https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1938292354965770278Visiting students can't hide social media accounts from Uncle Sam anymore Meta’s AI training on copyrighted content is ‘fair use’, US judge sayshttps://x.com/filip_dragovic/status/1937932750415086010 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

11th June 1986: Ferris Bueller's Day Off was released. https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/193283823510271631713th June 1994: A Russian hacker group led by Vladimir Levin stole $10.7 million from Citibank via X.25, in what was the first international bank robbery over a network to be made public. Levin was caught in London in 1995 and sentenced in the US to 3 years in prison in 1998. https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1933504310643773697  “Localhost tracking” explained. It could cost Meta 32 billion. Wanted: Junior cybersecurity staff with 10 years' experience and a PhD Industry News#Infosec2025: Top Six Cyber Trends CISOs Need to KnowHalf of Mobile Users Now Face Daily ScamsResearcher Finds Five Zero-Days and 20+ Misconfigurations in Salesforce CloudHands-On Skills Now Key to Landing Your First Cyber RolePhishing Alert as Erie Insurance Reveals Cyber “Event”Europol Says Criminal Demand for Data is “Skyrocketing”NIST Publishes New Zero Trust Implementation GuidanceMicrosoft 365 Copilot: New Zero-Click AI Vulnerability Allows Corporate Data TheftEuropean Journalists Targeted by Paragon Spyware, Citizen Lab ConfirmsTweet of the weekhttps://bsky.app/profile/brianhonan.bsky.social/post/3lrilyd7rpk2m   Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

26th May 1995: Realizing his company had missed the boat in estimating the impact and popularity of the Internet, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates issues a memo titled, “The Internet Tidal Wave,” which signaled the company’s focus on the global network. In the memo, Gates declared that the Internet was the “most important single development” since the IBM personal computer — a development that he was assigning “the highest level of importance.” Still, it is curious why it took someone who was regarded as a technology “innovator” so long to realize this.https://thisdayintechhistory.com/05/26/bill-gates-internet-tidal-wave/30th May 1996: AT&T Announces Video Phone Call System.  AT&T held a meeting to announce a system that would allow personal computers to make and receive video phone calls over standard telephone lines. In years of efforts by AT&T and others to find success in the technology, the AT&T system made use of Intel's Pentium processors and compression software to allow both video and audio information to share a phone line rather than a high-capacity ISDN, T-1, or T-3 line.https://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/may/30/#att-announces-video-phone-call-systemSecurity outfit SentinelOne's services back online after lengthy outageOpenAI model modifies shutdown script in apparent sabotage efforthttps://bsky.app/profile/robmesure.bsky.social/post/3lqcn6kq5oc26  Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

 Irish privacy watchdog OKs Meta to train AI on EU folks' postsJudge allows Delta's lawsuit against CrowdStrike to proceed with millions in damages on the linehttps://x.com/fesshole/status/1925815219655233765?s=46&t=1-Sjo1Vy8SG7OdizJ3wVbgAnd of course... can't NOT mention: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002d2lh/inside-the-high-street-cyberattacks  Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

As always we will bring you today in infosec, a rant, admire a billy big ball move, talk about industry news, and bring you a tweet or alternatively suitable social media post of the week.Hey, it's hard enough Thom being off that I have to edit and publish this, I need to find an AI to write the notes for me. Love you all, Javvad... now go an subscribe!  Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

Episode 219 of the Host Unknown Podcast covers a wide range of humorous and insightful discussions relating to both technology and personal anecdotes. Key segments include a nostalgic look back at significant moments in InfoSec history, as well as a critique of a poorly-constructed analogy between casino strategies and cybersecurity. The hosts also discuss the misadventures of an AI app that wasn't really AI, cyber insurance claims, the fines against TikTok and NSO Group, and the importance of Cyber Essentials certification. The episode is peppered with casual banter about everyday life and observations, making for an entertaining yet informative listen. 00:00 Introduction and Initial Banter 00:57 Podcast Introduction and Missing Guest 01:29 Wrestling Anecdotes and Technical Difficulties 03:04 Travel Plans and Airport Preferences 05:12 Manchester Trip and Quiet Carriage Etiquette 08:58 InfoSec History: Banned from the Internet 11:00 InfoSec History: The Love Letter Virus 14:17 Rant of the Week: Casino Mindset in Security 18:19 Understanding the Author's Perspective 19:19 AI Shopping App Scandal 24:30 Industry News Highlights 26:00 TikTok's Data Transfer Fine 29:08 Meta vs. NSO Group 31:40 Cyber Essentials Certification 35:58 Tweet of the Week 38:23 Conclusion and Farewell Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (10:26)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield1st April 1998: Hackers changed the MIT home page to read "Disney to Acquire MIT for $6.9 Billion".https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1907094503552336134     1st April 2004: The now ubiquitous Gmail service is launched as an invitation-only beta service. At first met with skepticism due to it being launched on April Fool’s Day, the ease of use and speed that Gmail offered for a web-based e-mail service quickly won converts. The fact that Gmail was invitiation-only for a long time helped fueled a mystique that those who had a Gmail address were hip and uber-cool. Those of us who are actually hip and uber-cool didn’t mind, of course, as those types of things don’t bother hip and uber-cool people. https://thisdayintechhistory.com/04/01/gmail-launched/   Rant of the Week (14:07)Kink and LGBT dating apps exposed 1.5m private user images onlinehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05m5m5v327oResearchers have discovered nearly 1.5 million pictures from specialist dating apps – many of which are explicit – being stored online without password protection, leaving them vulnerable to hackers and extortionists.Anyone with the link was able to view the private photos from five platforms developed by M.A.D Mobile: kink sites BDSM People and Chica, and LGBT apps Pink, Brish and Translove.These services are used by an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 people.M.A.D Mobile was first warned about the security flaw on 20 January but didn't take action until the BBC emailed on Friday.They have since fixed it but not said how it happened or why they failed to protect the sensitive images. Billy Big Balls of the Week (24:00)Oracle's masterclass in breach comms: Deny, deflect, repeatThere have been some disclosure stinkers in the past. Back in 2016, The Reg discovered that Yahoo! had taken a few years to disclose security snafus that occured in 2013 and 2014, for example. These days we often see organizations simply choose not to publicly address their issues. A quick self-referral to the regulators and some letters sent directly to those affected pass as the bare minimum, and while these organizations won't get any Brownie points for transparency, the approach doesn't tend to invite too much in the way of long-lasting criticism either.When Oracle issued its flat-out denial of the first breach allegations that surfaced from cybercrime forums, it seemed like it was yet another wannabe big-time scriptkiddie making false claims for clout.To make matters worse, Oracle seemingly tried to swerve any flak with some careful semantics. Its original denial stated: "There has been no breach of Oracle Cloud. The published credentials are not for the Oracle Cloud. No Oracle Cloud customers experienced a breach or lost any data."Infosec experts Kevin Beaumont and Jake Williams later both claimed that Oracle appears to have used the Internet Wayback Machine's archive exclusion process to remove evidence about the intrusion. Industry News (33:25)Google to Switch on E2EE for All Gmail UsersICO Apologizes After Data Protection Response SnafuNorth Korea's Fake IT Worker Scheme Sets Sights on EuropeRoyal Mail Investigates Data Breach Affecting SupplierStripe API Skimming Campaign Unveils New Techniques for TheftOver Half of Attacks on Electricity and Water Firms Are DestructiveAmateur Hacker Leverages Russian Bulletproof Hosting Server to Spread MalwareCrushFTP Vulnerability Exploited Following Disclosure IssuesMajor Online Platform for Child Exploitation Dismantled Tweet of the Week (41:25)https://x.com/MalwareJake/status/1907416667052786110 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (11:22)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield27th February 2002: Timothy Allen Lloyd was sentenced to 41 months in prison for activating a logic bomb at Omega Engineering, 20 days after being fired as a network administrator.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1895255588881474024    18th February 2013: Burger King's Twitter account was compromised, had its name changed to McDonalds, and shared offensive tweets. The incident was a...well...Whopper! https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1891999132866183322 Rant of the Week (17:34)Army soldier suspected of AT&T heist Googled ‘can hacking be treason,’ ‘defecting to Russia’The US Army soldier suspected of compromising AT&T and bragging about getting his hands on President Trump's call logs allegedly tried to sell stolen information to a foreign intel agent.The military man even Google searched for "can hacking be treason," and "US military personnel defecting to Russia," according to prosecutors who argue he poses a serious flight risk and should be detained.Cameron John Wagenius, 21, was arrested in Texas in December, and last week told a federal court judge he intends to plead guilty to unlawfully posting and transferring confidential phone records. Prosecutors have also linked Wagenius to two other men accused of stealing data from more than 150 Snowflake cloud accounts in April 2024, and then demanding payment to keep a lid on that info.After admitting his crimes in court, and showing a willingness to enter a guilty plea, "Wagenius should be detained as both a danger to the community — given his ability to access sensitive datasets — and a serious risk of flight," Uncle Sam's attorneys argued."While engaged in these criminal activities, Wagenius conducted online searches about how to defect to countries that do not extradite to the United States and that he previously attempted to sell hacked information to at least one foreign intelligence service," the documents allege.  Billy Big Balls of the Week (24:32)100-plus spies fired after NSA internal chat board used for kinky sex talkMore than 100 US spies have been fired, and their security clearance revoked, after an internal NSA messaging system was used by staff to chat about their sex lives.After the NSA – the National Security Agency, that is, not the other meaning – confirmed on state media it was "aware of posts that appear to show inappropriate discussions" by intelligence community employees and that "investigations to address this misuse of government systems are ongoing," Trump's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced more than 100 people had since been terminated.The messaging app in question is the NSA's Intelink, a secure intranet service used by various American military and intelligence teams to share information, including top secret and classified threat intel.Federal workers said to have been involved in the NSFW Intelink chatter included personnel at the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and US Naval Intelligence."There are over 100 people from across the intelligence community that contributed to and participated in … what is really just an egregious violation of trust," Gabbard told Fox News commentator Jesse Watters Tuesday. "What to speak of, like basic rules and standards around professionalism." Industry News (32:54)Chinese-Backed Silver Fox Plants Backdoors in Healthcare NetworksRansomware Gang Publishes Stolen Genea IVF Patient DataHaveIBeenPwned Adds 244 Million Passwords Stolen By InfostealersSignal May Exit Sweden If Government Imposes Encryption BackdoorDISA Global Solutions Confirms Data Breach Affecting 3.3M PeopleFBI Confirms North Korea’s Lazarus Group as Bybit Crypto HackersOpenSSF Publishes Security Framework for Open Source SoftwareSoftware Vulnerabilities Take Almost Nine Months to PatchDragonForce Ransomware Hits Saudi Firm, 6TB Data Stolen Tweet of the Week (42:59)https://x.com/roytait/status/1895224942565970354 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (11:10)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield4th December 2013: Troy Hunt launched the free-to-search site "Have I Been Pwned? (HIBP)". At launch, passwords from the Adobe, Stratfor, Gawker, Yahoo! Voices, and Sony Pictures breaches were indexed. Today? Billions of  compromised records from hundreds of breaches.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1864299155583127739     5th December 1996: Julian Assange pleaded guilty to 25 of 31 hacking charges and related charges and was ordered to repay $2,100 to Australian National University. He had been arrested in 1994 for hacking crimes committed in 1991. The court case details weren't released until 2011.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1864664694243434977 Rant of the Week (17:21)Severity of the risk facing the UK is widely underestimated, NCSC annual review warnsThe number of security threats in the UK that hit the country's National Cyber Security Centre's (NCSC) maximum severity threshold has tripled compared to the previous 12 months.Published Tuesday 3rd December, GCHQ's tech offshoot's 2024 review reveals that 12 incidents topped the NCSC's severity classification system out of a total 430 cases that required support from its Incident Management (IM) team between September 2023 and August 2024. The finding represents a 16 percent increase year-over-year.The number of nationally significant incidents also rose from 62 last year to 89 in the latest data, six of which were caused by exploiting two Palo Alto and Cisco zero-days. This number includes the 12 deemed maximally severe and an undetermined number of attacks on the UK's central government. Billy Big Balls of the Week (25:50)Badass Russian techie outsmarts FSB, flees Putinland all while being tracked with spywareA Russian programmer defied the Federal Security Service (FSB) by publicizing the fact his phone was infected with spyware after being confiscated by authorities.Kirill Parubets was detained in Russia for 15 days after being accused of sending money to Ukraine, during which time the man was beaten and subjected to aggressive efforts to recruit him as an FSB informant on his contacts in Ukraine.According to his account of the story, published with his consent by Toronto University's Citizen Lab and First Department legal organization, he says he was threatened with life imprisonment if he failed to comply with the recruitment drive.In order to secure release, he agreed but before he was indoctrinated he and his wife fled the country. Always keep a second passport, if possible.  Industry News (32:21)Crypto.com Launches Massive $2m Bug Bounty ProgramGerman Police Shutter Country’s Largest Dark Web MarketENISA Launches First State of EU Cybersecurity ReportWirral Hospital Recovery Continues One Week After Cyber IncidentFBI Warns GenAI is Boosting Financial FraudEuropol Dismantles Major Online Fraud Platform in Major Blow to FraudstersDeloitte Denies Breach, Claims Cyber-Attack Targeted Single ClientRomania Exposes TikTok Propaganda Campaign Supporting Pro-Russian CandidateFCC Proposes Stricter Cybersecurity Rules for US Telecoms Tweet of the Week  (43:43) https://twitter.com/McGrewSecurity/status/1865050788369772974 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield24th November 2014: The Washington Post published an article which included a photo of TSA master keys. A short time later functional keys were 3-d printed using the key patterns in the photo. Oops.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1860803840620044356   22nd November 2010: Matt Blaze published the PowerPoint slides he was contractually required to submit for his 2011 RSA Security Conference presentation. Matt hates PowerPoint. Take a moment to admire the slides he submitted.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1860027850369519669 Rant of the Week (12:47)https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/26/third_major_cyber_incident_declared/A UK hospital is declaring a "major incident," cancelling all outpatient appointments due to "cybersecurity reasons."The Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, located in North West England, said the so-called "incident" affects the whole Trust, which oversees Wirral Women and Children's Hospital, Clatterbridge Hospital, and Arrowe Park Hospital.Although the tech problems began on Monday, officials confirmed to The Register it is still dealing with the fallout as of Tuesday morning. All outpatient appointments were canceled on Monday and the same decision was made today, according to Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge's social media posting. All patients whose appointments were canceled will be contacted to rearrange them. Billy Big Balls of the Week (20:48)Put your usernames and passwords in your will, advises Japan's governmentJapan's National Consumer Affairs Center on Wednesday suggested citizens start "digital end of life planning" and offered tips on how to do it.The Center's somewhat maudlin advice is motivated by recent incidents in which citizens struggled to cancel subscriptions their loved ones signed up for before their demise, because they didn't know their usernames or passwords. The resulting "digital legacy" can be unpleasant to resolve, the agency warns, so suggested four steps to simplify ensure our digital legacies aren't complicated:Ensuring family members can unlock your smartphone or computer in case of emergency;Maintain a list of your subscriptions, user IDs and passwords;Consider putting those details in a document intended to be made available when your life ends;Use a service that allows you to designate someone to have access to your smartphone and other accounts once your time on Earth ends.The Center suggests now is the time for it to make this suggestion because it is aware of struggles to discover and resolve ongoing expenses after death. With smartphones ubiquitous, the org fears more people will find themselves unable to resolve their loved ones' digital affairs – and powerless to stop their credit cards being charged for services the departed cannot consume.Some entrepreneurs have already identified end of life services as an opportunity. "Dead Man's Switch" apps can be set to contact whomever you choose if you do not sign in to certain accounts after a period you select as a likely indicator of your departure from this world.Meta also offers the chance to nominate a "legacy contact" who can manage your account.Such services aren't just opportunistic: grieving people have a lot on their plate, and executing wills is not always straightforward.  Industry News (31:08)ICO Urges More Data Sharing to Tackle Fraud EpidemicOver a Third of Firms Struggling With Shadow AIDarknet Services Fuel Holiday Scams and E-Commerce ExploitsNHS Trust Declares Major Incident for “Cybersecurity Reasons”Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Opens Sellafield Cyber CenterNew EU Commission to Unveil Healthcare Cybersecurity Plan in First 100 DaysT-Mobile Claims Salt Typhoon Did Not Access Customer DataAlbanian Drug Smugglers Busted After Cops Decrypt CommsUK Justice System Failing Cybercrime Victims, Cyber Helpline Finds Tweet of the Week (39:43)https://bsky.app/profile/mattpotteruk.bsky.social/post/3lbyu4dy3b22f Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (08:24)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield12th November 2012: John McAfee went into hiding because his neighbour, Gregory Faull, was found dead from a gunshot. Belize police wanted him to come in for questioning, but he fled to Guatemala where he was then arrested. He was never charged, though he lost a $25 million wrongful death suit.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1856538748361515355   12th November 2000: Bill Gates demonstrates a functional prototype of a Tablet PC. Microsoft claims “the Tablet PC will represent the next major evolution in PC design and functionality.” However, the Tablet PC initiative never really took off and it wasn't until Apple introduced the iPad in 2010 that tablet computing was widely adopted.Microsoft Declares Tablets Are the Future Rant of the Week (15:41)Amazon MOVEit Leaker Claims to Be Ethical HackerA threat actor who posted 2.8 million lines of Amazon employee data last week has taken to the dark web to claim they are doing so to raise awareness of poor security practice.The individual, who goes by the online moniker “Nam3L3ss,” claimed in a series of posts to have obtained data from 25 organisations whose data was compromised via last year’s MOVEit exploit. Billy Big Balls of the Week (24:12)O2's AI granny knits tall tales to waste scam callers' timeWatch out, scammers. O2 has created a new weapon in the fight against fraud: an AI granny that will keep you talking until you get bored and give up.O2, the mobile operator arm of Brit telecoms giant Virgin Media, says it has built the human-like AI to answer calls from fraudsters in real time, keeping them busy on the phone and wasting their time by pretending to be a potential vulnerable target."Daisy" is claimed to be indistinguishable from a real person, fooling scammers into thinking they've found perfect prey thanks to its ability to engage in "human-like" rambling chat, the biz claims.For several weeks in the run-up to International Fraud Awareness Week (November 17–23), the AI has already frustrated scam callers with meandering stories about her family and talked at length about her passion for knitting, according to O2. Industry News (28:20)Amazon MOVEit Leaker Claims to Be Ethical HackerBank of England U-turns on Vulnerability Disclosure RulesMassive Telecom Hack Exposes US Officials to Chinese EspionageMicrosoft Power Pages Misconfiguration Leads to Data ExposureSitting Ducks DNS Attacks Put Global Domains at RiskO2’s AI Granny Outsmarts Scam Callers with Knitting TalesRansomware Groups Use Cloud Services For Data ExfiltrationBitfinex Hacker Jailed for Five Years Over Billion Dollar Crypto HeistPalo Alto Networks Confirms New Zero-Day Being Exploited by Threat Actors Tweet of the Week (36:05)https://x.com/J4vv4D/status/1856981250306687143 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec (13:28)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield5th November 1993: Bugtraq was created by Scott Chasin as a full disclosure vulnerability reporting mailing list at the dawn of the World Wide Web. Bugtraq had an enormous influence on how orgs responded to vuln disclosure and paved the way for a shift which led to bug bounty programs.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1853799779626578186   5th November 2007: Google introduces the Android platform, its mobile operating system for cell phones based on a modified version of the Linux operating system. The first Android-based phone would ship in September of 2008.https://thisdayintechhistory.com/11/05/android-introduced/ Rant of the Week (18:54)  Voted in America? This Site Doxed YouIf you voted in the U.S. presidential election yesterday in which Donald Trump won comfortably, or a previous election, a website powered by a right-wing group is probably doxing you. VoteRef makes it trivial for anyone to search the name, physical address, age, party affiliation, and whether someone voted that year for people living in most states instantly and for free. This can include ordinary citizens, celebrities, domestic abuse survivors, and many other people.Voting rolls are public records, and ways to more readily access them are not new. But during a time of intense division, political violence, or even the broader threat of data being used to dox or harass anyone, sites like VoteRef turn a vital part of the democratic process—simply voting—into a security and privacy threat. Billy Big Balls of the Week (27:09)Schneider Electric ransomware crew demands $125k paid in baguetteshttps://www.theregister.com/2024/11/05/schneider_electric_cybersecurity_incident/Schneider Electric confirmed that it is investigating a breach as a ransomware group Hellcat claims to have stolen more than 40 GB of compressed data — and demanded the French multinational energy management company pay $125,000 in baguettes or else see its sensitive customer and operational information leaked.And yes, you read that right: payment in baguettes. As in bread.Schneider Electric declined to answer The Register's specific questions about the intrusion, including if the attackers really want $125,000 in baguettes or if they would settle for cryptocurrency. A spokesperson, however, emailed us the following statement:"Schneider Electric is investigating a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorised access to one of our internal project execution tracking platforms which is hosted within an isolated environment. Our Global Incident Response team has been immediately mobilised to respond to the incident. Schneider Electric's products and services remain unaffected." Industry News (33:18)Google Cloud to Mandate Multifactor Authentication by 2025IRISSCON: Organizations Still Falling Victim to Predictable Cyber-AttacksDefenders Outpace Attackers in AI AdoptionUK Cybersecurity Wages Soar Above Inflation as Stress Levels RiseNCSC Publishes Tips to Tackle Malvertising ThreatCanada Orders Shutdown of Local TikTok Branch Over Security ConcernsUK Regulator Urges Stronger Data Protection in AI Recruitment ToolsInterlock Ransomware Targets US Healthcare, IT and Government SectorsMajor Oilfield Supplier Hit by Ransomware Attack Tweet of the Week (41:01)https://twitter.com/fesshole/status/1854832499714576399 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

No notes this week - Andy had ONE job... Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

How does Thom also do the episode notes? This week in infosec  was about a EULARant of the weekhttps://securityaffairs.com/170125/laws-and-regulations/sec-fined-4-companies-misleading-disclosures-impact-solarwinds-attack.htmlBilly Big Ballshttps://www.theregister.com/2024/10/24/anthropic_claude_model_can_use_computers/Some news articles from infosecurity-magazine.com Tweet of the week https://x.com/thomas_violence/status/1849627627474293148  Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (08:29)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield10th October 1995: Netscape introduced the "Netscape Bugs Bounty", a program rewarding users who report "bugs" in the beta versions of its recently announced Netscape Navigator 2.0 web browser.Navigator was the dominant browser from 1995-1998, when it was overtaken by Internet Explorer.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/18444662777185566838th October 2008: University student David Kernell was arraigned. He compromised the Yahoo! email account of US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, using public info to reset her password, posting her emails to 4chan. He was later found guilty and died from MS complications in 2018.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1843619068302983592 Rant of the Week (20:24) Cards Against Humanity campaigns to encourage voting, expose personal data abuseUp to $100 for planning to vote and a public smear – how is this not illegal?The troublemakers behind the party game Cards Against Humanity have launched a campaign demonstrating how easy it is to buy sensitive personal data about American voters, while simultaneously encouraging those Americans to plan how to cast a vote in the upcoming presidential election.The "Cards Against Humanity Pays You to Give a Shit" campaign uses US citizens' personal data obtained from a broker to identify whether individuals voted in the 2020 US presidential election and how they lean politically. Those who didn't vote are asked to put info into the website, promise to vote in the upcoming election, make a voting plan, "and publicly post 'Donald Trump is a human toilet'" in exchange for up to $100. Billy Big Balls of the Week (28:42)FBI created a cryptocurrency so it could watch it being abusedThe FBI created its own cryptocurrency so it could watch suspected fraudsters use it – an idea that worked so well it produced arrests in three countriesNews of the Feds' currency, an Ethereum-based instrument named NexFundAI, appeared in a Wednesday Department of Justice announcement that eighteen individuals have been charged "for widespread fraud and manipulation in the cryptocurrency markets."The Feds allege some of the fraud involved "wash trades" – transactions conducted solely to increase the volume of trades in a security or other asset. Rising volumes of trades are often seen as an indicator that a stock is of increasing interest as it has good growth prospects – a signal that can see prices rise. But wash trades are often conducted by related entities, or even the same entity, to create a false market signal – an arrangement also known as "pump and dump." Industry News (34:36) New EU Body to Centralize Complaints Against Facebook, TikTok, YouTubeNew Generation of Malicious QR Codes Uncovered by ResearchersApple’s iPhone Mirroring Flaw Exposes Employee Privacy RisksFormer RAC Employees Get Suspended Sentence for Data TheftInternet Archive Breached, 31 Million Records ExposedMarriott Agrees $52m Settlement for Massive Data BreachEU Adopts Cyber Resilience Act for Connected DevicesOver 10m Conversations Exposed in AI Call Center HackDisinformation Campaign Targets Moldova Ahead of EU Referendum Tweet of the Week (45:07)https://twitter.com/JackRhysider/status/1844502566799085769 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (10:01)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield27th September 2001: Jan de Wit was sentenced to 150 hours of community service in the Netherlands for creating and spreading the Anna Kournikova virus. It was one of the first of the major viruses created from a virus toolkit - the dawn of cybercrime toolkits.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/18397091452822776143rd October 2017: A week after he retired as the result of Equifax's data breach, former CEO Richard F. Smith told members of Congress that one person in the IT department was at fault.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1841893372035838342 Rant of the Week (14:52)It's true, social media moderators do go after conservativesBecause they're most likely to share crappy misinformation onlineSince Elon Musk bought Twitter nearly two years ago – a $44 billion acquisition he tried to pull out of – the mogul has driven a narrative that moderation of the microblogging website disproportionately targeted conservatives, libertarians, and Trump supporters.A scientific paper published in the journal Nature this week confirms that was the case, with justification. The groups more likely to be subjected to moderation were also more likely to share misinformation from low-quality news sites. Billy Big Balls of the Week (21:49)Use this link to read the story: https://www.404media.co/email/e7ecda94-675a-4538-901f-b2ccb35fe916/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter - the other link below for the show notes (the one above is tied to my account)Someone Put Facial Recognition Tech onto Meta's Smart Glasses to Instantly Dox StrangersA pair of students at Harvard have built what big tech companies refused to release publicly due to the overwhelming risks and danger involved: smart glasses with facial recognition technology that automatically looks up someone’s face and identifies them. The students have gone a step further too. Their customized glasses also pull other information about their subject from around the web, including their home address, phone number, and family members. Industry News (32:05)PwC Urges Boards to Give CISOs a Seat at the TableCyber-Attacks Hit Over a Third of English SchoolsISACA: European Security Teams Are Understaffed and UnderfundedT-Mobile to Pay $15.75m Penalty for Multiple Data BreachesBritish Hacker Charged in the US For $3.75m Insider Trading SchemeMeta Teams Up with Banks to Target FraudstersFIN7 Gang Hides Malware in AI “Deepnude” SitesNorthern Ireland Police Data Leak Sees Service Fined by ICOMicrosoft and US Government Disrupt Russian Star Blizzard Operations Tweet of the Week (38:52)https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/1842097858196979989 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (10:44)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield18th September 2001: The Nimda worm was released. Utilising 5 different infection vectors, it became the most widespread virus/worm after only 22 minutes.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1836495262409175187  17th September 2014: Apple announced that the iOS 8 operating system (used on iPhone and iPad) would be architected to prevent it from being technically feasible for the company to extract data from customer devices. A day later Google made a similar announcement pertaining to Android.With iOS 8 Update, Apple Will No Longer Provide User Data to Policehttps://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1836071319030374437 Rant of the Week  (17:50)No way? Big Tech's 'lucrative surveillance' of everyone is terrible for privacy, freedomBuried beneath the endless feeds and attention-grabbing videos of the modern internet is a network of data harvesting and sale that's perhaps far more vast than most people realise, and it desperately needs regulation. That's the conclusion the FTC made after spending nearly four years poring over internal data from nine major social media and video streaming corporations in the US.These internet behemoths are collecting vast amounts of data, both on and off their services, and the handling of such data is "woefully inadequate," particularly around data belonging to children and teenagers, the FTC said.  Billy Big Balls of the Week (28:06)LinkedIn started harvesting people's posts for training AI without asking for opt-inLinkedIn started harvesting user-generated content to train its AI without asking for permission, angering netizens.Microsoft’s self-help network on Wednesday published a "trust and safety" update in which senior veep and general counsel Blake Lawit revealed LinkedIn's use of people's posts and other data for both training and using its generative AI features.In doing so, he said the site's privacy policy had been updated. We note this policy links to an FAQ that was updated sometime last week also confirming the automatic collecting of posts for training – meaning it appears LinkedIn started gathering up content for its AI models, and opting in users, well before Lawit’s post and the updated privacy policy advised of the changes today. Industry News (35:07)  Over Half of Breached UK Firms Pay RansomICO Acts Against Sky Betting and Gaming Over CookiesAT&T Agrees $13m FCC Settlement Over Cloud Data BreachEuropol Taskforce Disrupts Global Criminal Network Through Supply Chain AttackGoogle Street View Images Used For Extortion Scams8000 Claimants Sue Outsourcing Giant Capita Over 2023 Data BreachWestern Agencies Warn Risk from Chinese-Controlled BotnetGoing for Gold: HSBC Approves Quantum-Safe Technology for Tokenized BullionsCybersecurity Skills Gap Leaves Cloud Environments Vulnerable Tweet of the Week  (42:39)https://twitter.com/ProfWoodward/status/1837084678836171089 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (11:25)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield12th September 2014: Stephane Chazelas contacted Bash maintainer Chet Ramey about a vulnerability he dubbed "Bashdoor", which later becoming known as Shellshock. It was publicly disclosed 12 days later.Shellshock was kind of a big deal - and the vuln had been in Bash for 25 years!https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1834293229472416242  9th September 2001: Mark Curphey started OWASP (the Open Web Application Security Project). In 2023 it was renamed the Open Worldwide Application Security Project.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1833191889790480500   Rant of the Week (16:33)WhatsApp's 'View Once' could be 'View Whenever' due to a flawA popular privacy feature in WhatsApp is "completely broken and can be trivially bypassed," according to developers at cryptowallet startup Zengo.According to cofounder Tal Be'ery, his team was building a web interface when they discovered a flaw in WhatsApp's View Once. While the feature was supposed to be limited to platforms where the necessary controls could be enforced, such as mobile clients, the WhatsApp API server didn't properly enforce it.The server would still send these messages to other platforms, but they couldn't be viewed - unless someone fiddled with the code."The View [O]nce media messages are technically the same as regular media messages, only with the “view once” flag set," the technical explanation states."Which means it’s the virtual equivalent of putting a note on the picture that says 'don’t look.' All that is required for attackers to circumvent it, is merely to set this flag to false and the media become regular and can be downloaded, forwarded and shared." Billy Big Balls of the Week (27:10)Australia’s government spent the week boxing Big TechThe fun started on Monday when prime minister Anthony Albanese announced his intention to introduce a minimum age for social media, with a preference for the services to be off limits until kids turn 16."I want kids to have a childhood," the PM urged. "I want them off their devices … I want them to have real experiences with real people."Albanese promised legislation to enact the rule will be tabled before Australia's next election, due by 2025. Opposition leader Peter Dutton broadly supported the proposal, which is pitched at parents who are tired of having to protect their kids online. Industry news (34:34)DoJ Distributes $18.5m to Western Union Fraud VictimsPoland's Supreme Court Blocks Pegasus Spyware ProbeUK Recognizes Data Centers as Critical National InfrastructureMastercard Acquires Global Threat Intelligence Firm Recorded Future for $2.65bnTfL Confirms Customer Data Breach, 17-Year-Old Suspect ArrestedIrish Data Protection Regulator to Investigate Google AIMicrosoft Vows to Prevent Future CrowdStrike-Like OutagesRecord $65m Settlement for Hacked Patient PhotosMalicious Actors Spreading False US Voter Registration Breach Claims Tweet of the Week (41:57)https://x.com/MikeTalonNYC/status/1834311262563377553 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (13:08)  With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield3rd September 2014: Twitter launched its bug bounty program via the HackerOne platform, stating it would award at least $140 for vulnerabilities found in http://x.com/ or its Android or iOS apps.$140? 140 was the max tweet length. $1.6 million has been paid out since inception.https://twitter.com/XSecurity/status/507220774336225280https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/183140868660414060230th August 2014: A user of the message board 4chan posted leaked nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, and other celebrities. Several years later 4 people were sentenced for crimes related to the hacking of Apple iCloud accounts of dozens of targeted individuals.Apple knew of iCloud API weakness months before celeb photo leak brokehttps://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1830016468328575386 Rant of the Week (19:09)'Error' causes Alexa to endorse Kamala Harris, refuse to discuss TrumpIt would be perfectly reasonable to expect Amazon's digital assistant Alexa to decline to state opinions about the 2024 presidential race, but up until recently, that assumption would have been incorrect.When asked to give reasons to vote for former President Donald Trump, Alexa demurred, according to a video from Fox Business. "I cannot provide responses that endorse any political party or its leader," Alexa responded. When asked the same about Vice President Kamala Harris, the Amazon AI was more than willing to endorse the Democratic candidate. "There are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris," Alexa said. Among the reasons given was that Harris has a "comprehensive plan to address racial injustice," that she promises a "tough on crime approach," and that her record on criminal justice and immigration reform make her a "compelling candidate."  Billy Big Balls of the Week (26:45)Examples of Google Employees Trying to Avoid Creating Evidence in Antitrust CaseIn its antitrust case against Google, the Federal Government filed a list of chats it had obtained that show Google employees explicitly asking each other to turn off a chat history feature to discuss sensitive subjects, showing repeatedly that Google workers understood they should try to avoid creating a paper trail of some of their activities. The filing came following a hearing in which judge Leonie Brinkema ripped Google for “destroyed” evidence while considering a filing from the Department of Justice asking the court to find “adverse interference” against Google, which would allow the court to assume it purposefully destroyed evidence. Previous filings, including in the Epic Games v Google lawsuit and this current antitrust case, have also shown Google employees purposefully turning history off.The chats show 22 instances in which one Google employee told another Google employee to turn chat history off. In total, the court has dozens of specific employees who have told others to turn history off in DMs or broader group chats and channels. The document includes exchanges like this (each exchange includes different employees)ANDMusician charged with $10M streaming royalties fraud using AI and botsNorth Carolina musician Michael Smith was indicted for collecting over $10 million in royalty payments from Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and YouTube Music using AI-generated songs streamed by thousands of bots in a massive streaming fraud scheme.According to court documents, Smith fraudulently inflated music streams on digital platforms between 2017 and 2024 with the assistance of an unnamed music promoter and the Chief Executive Officer of an AI music company.He acquired hundreds of thousands of songs generated through artificial intelligence (AI) from a coconspirator and uploaded them to these streaming platforms. He then used automated bots to stream the AI-generated tracks billions of times. Industry News (36:21)South Korea Police Investigates Telegram Over Deepfake PornIrish Wildlife Park Warns Customers to Cancel Credit Cards Following BreachTfL Claims Cyber-Incident is Not Impacting ServicesThree Plead Guilty to Running MFA Bypass SiteCivil Rights Groups Call For Spyware ControlsClearview AI Fined €30.5m by Dutch Watchdog Over Illegal Data CollectionRussian Blamed For Mass Disinformation Campaign Ahead of US ElectionOnlyFans Hackers Targeted With Infostealer MalwareUK Signs Council of Europe AI Convention Tweet of the Week (42:50)https://twitter.com/0xdade/status/1831387831677415923 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (07:42)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield29th August 1990: The UK's Computer Misuse Act 1990 went into effect, introducing 3 criminal offences related to unauthorised access and modification of "computer material".https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1829252932178719161  27th August 1999: One of the first companies to offer a dedicated web application firewall (WAF) was Perfecto Technologies with its AppShield product. But it didn't use the terminology "WAF", instead describing it as "a plug and play" Internet application security solution."https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1828483993001492969 Rant of the Week (13:25) Watchdog warns FBI is sloppy on secure data storage and destructionThe FBI has made serious slip-ups in how it processes and destroys electronic storage media seized as part of investigations, according to an audit by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General.Drives containing national security data, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act information and documents classified as Secret were routinely unlabeled, opening the potential for it to be either lost or stolen, the report [PDF] addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray states.Ironically, this lack of identification might be considered a benefit, given the lax security at the FBI's facility used to destroy such media after they have been finished with.The OIG report notes that it found boxes of hard drives and removable storage sitting open and unattended for "days or even weeks" because they were only sealed once the boxes were full. This potentially allows any of the 395 staff and contractors with access to the facility to have a rummage around. Billy Big Balls of the Week (22:01)Deadbeat dad faked his own death by hacking government databasesA US man has been sentenced to 81 months in jail for faking his own death by hacking government systems and officially marking himself as deceased.The US Department of Justice on Tuesday detailed the case of Jesse Kipf, 39, who was sent down for computer fraud and aggravated identity theft.In January 2023, Kipf used the credentials of a physician to access Hawaii's Death Registry System and create a "case" that recorded his own death."Kipf then completed a State of Hawaii Death Certificate Worksheet, assigned himself as the medical certifier for the case and certified his death, using the digital signature of the doctor," the DoJ wrote. The paperwork was all correct, so many government databases listed Kipf as deceased.But he was very much alive and enjoying the fact that his "death" meant he didn't have to make child support payments or catch up on those he'd already missed. Evidence presented in court included internet search histories recorded on a laptop, with Kipf looking up terms including "Remove California child support for deceased." Industry News (28:13)Uber Hit With €290m GDPR FineFBI Flawed Data Handling Raises Security ConcernsMicrosoft 365 Copilot Vulnerability Exposes User Data RisksMoney Laundering Dominates UK Fraud CasesRansomware Attacks Exposed 6.7 Million Records in US SchoolsIT Engineer Charged For Attempting to Extort Former EmployerSurge in New Scams as Pig Butchering DominatesUnpatched CCTV Cameras Exploited to Spread Mirai VariantNorth Korean Hackers Launch New Wave of npm Package Attacks Tweet of the Week (36:20)https://x.com/fesshole/status/1828921760147767400 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (06:43)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield18th August 2004: Text messages sent to promote the video game "Resident Evil: Outbreak" stated "Outbreak: I'm infecting you with t-virus". This scared recipients, who were only about 7% less technologically savvy than mobile phone users today.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1825257955878641888    20th August 2003: Philippe Oechslin shared his technique he called "rainbow tables" during a talk at the 23rd annual crypto conference, Crypto 2003.It became a popular approach for cracking password hashes. Today it's less widely used due to adoption of practices that reduce its efficacy.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1825865870716870802 Rant of the Week  (10:59)This uni thought it would be a good idea to do a phishing test with a fake Ebola scareUniversity of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) students may be relieved to hear that an emailed warning about a staff member infected with the Ebola virus was just a phishing exercise.The message, titled "Emergency Notification: Ebola Virus Case on Campus," went out to the university community on Sunday, August 18. It began, "We regret to inform you that a member of our staff, who recently returned from South Africa, has tested positive for the Ebola virus."The message went on to say that the university has initiated a contact tracing protocol and asks message recipients to "Please Log In to the Access Information Page for more details" – the very activity phishing messages attempt to encourage in order to capture login credentials.The simulated attack was similar to an actual phishing message sent on August 1, 2024, as shown on the UCSC Phish Bowl, a collection of real and test phishing attempts.But the one sent on Sunday was intended to raise awareness of phishing rather than to actually steal information.In that, it succeeded. The message prompted the UCSC Student Health Center to publish a notice about a "Phishing email with misleading health information."On Monday, Brian Hall, chief information security officer for UCSC, sent out an apology to the university community. Billy Big Balls of the Week (18:20)Russia tells citizens to switch off home surveillance because the Ukrainians are comingRussia's Ministry of Internal Affairs is warning residents of under-siege regions to switch off home surveillance systems and dating apps to stop Ukraine from using them for intel-gathering purposes.Residents of the Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod regions were issued with the warnings amid what seems like Russia being thoroughly rattled by Ukraine's incursion into the country's southwest."The enemy is massively identifying IP ranges in our territories and connecting to unprotected video surveillance cameras remotely, viewing everything from private yards to roads and highways of strategic importance," said the ministry, according to Russian newswire Interfax. "In this regard, if there is no urgent need, it is better not to use video surveillance cameras."It is highly discouraged to use online dating services. The enemy actively uses such resources for the covert collection of information."These warnings were just two of many included in a public memo aimed at protecting the identities of high-value Russian individuals, including military personnel, law enforcement agents, and nuclear energy workers. Industry News (24:51)Iran Behind Trump Campaign Hack, US Government ConfirmsNew DNS-Based Backdoor Threat Discovered at Taiwanese UniversityMost Ransomware Attacks Now Happen at NightCISA to Get New Headquarters as $524M Contract AwardedAustralia Calls Off Clearview AI Investigation Despite Lack of ComplianceBackdoor in Mifare Smart Cards Could Open Doors Around the WorldSecurity Flaws in UK Political Party Donation Platforms ExposedCompany Fined $1m for Fake Joe Biden AI CallsFAA Admits Gaps in Aircraft Cybersecurity Rules: New Regulation Proposed Tweet of the Week (32:19)https://x.com/anon_opin/status/1826015107857416458?s=46&t=1-Sjo1Vy8SG7OdizJ3wVbg Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (10:28)10th July 1999 - Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) member DilDog debuted the program Back Orifice 2000 (BO2k) at DEF CON 7. It was the successor to Back Orifice, released by cDc a year prior. DilDog proclaimed it "a remote administration tool for corporate America".https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/18111336060159836809th July 1981 - The game that launched two of the most famous characters in video game history is released for sale. Donkey Kong was created by Nintendo, a Japanese playing card and toy company turned fledgling video game developer, who was trying to create a hit game for the North American market. Unable at the time to acquire a license to create a video game based on the Popeye character, Nintendo decides to create a game mirroring the characteristics and rivalry of Popeye and Bluto. Donkey Kong is named after the game’s villain, a pet gorilla gone rogue. The game’s hero is originally called Jumpman, but is retroactively renamed Mario once the game becomes popular and Nintendo decides to use the character in future games.Due to the similarity between Donkey Kong and King Kong, Universal Studios sued Nintendo claiming Donkey Kong violated their trademark. Kong, however, is common Japanese slang for gorilla. The lawsuit was ruled in favor of Nintendo. The success of Donkey Kong helped Nintendo become one of the dominant companies in the video game market. Rant of the Week (15:55)Palestinians say Microsoft unfairly closing their accountsPalestinians living abroad have accused Microsoft of closing their email accounts without warning - cutting them off from crucial online services.They say it has left them unable to access bank accounts and job offers - and stopped them using Skype, which Microsoft owns, to contact relatives in war-torn Gaza.Microsoft says they violated its terms of service - a claim they dispute. Billy Big Balls of the Week (27:39)Scalpers Work With Hackers to Liberate Ticketmaster's ‘Non-Transferable’ TicketsA lawsuit filed in California by concert giant AXS has revealed a legal and technological battle between ticket scalpers and platforms like Ticketmaster and AXS, in which scalpers have figured out how to extract “untransferable” tickets from their accounts by generating entry barcodes on parallel infrastructure that the scalpers control and which can then be sold and transferred to customers.By reverse-engineering how Ticketmaster and AXS actually make their electronic tickets, scalpers have essentially figured out how to regenerate specific, genuine tickets that they have legally purchased from scratch onto infrastructure that they control. In doing so, they are removing the anti-scalping restrictions put on the tickets by Ticketmaster and AXS. 'Gay furry hackers' breach conservative US think tank behind Project 2025A collective of self-described "gay furry hackers" have released 2GB of data lifted from the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think-tank behind Project 2025 - a set of proposals that would bring the USA closer to being an authoritarian state.The hacktivist group, known as SiegedSec, has been running a campaign it calls "OpTransRights," targeting (mostly government) websites to disrupt efforts to enact or enforce anti-trans and anti-abortion laws. Industry News (33:26)10 Billion Passwords Leaked on Hacking ForumCrypto Thefts Double to $1.4 Billion, TRM Labs FindsRussia Blocks VPN Services in Information CrackdownTicketmaster Extortion Continues, Threat Actor Claims New Ticket LeakCyber-Attack on Evolve Bank Exposed Data of 7.6 Million CustomersMost Security Pros Admit Shadow SaaS and AI UseRussian Media Uses AI-Powered Software to Spread DisinformationSmishing Triad Targets India with Fraud SurgeFraud Campaign Targets Russians with Fake Olympics Tickets Tweet of the Week (41:18)https://x.com/dennishegstad/status/1810044171765645568 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (07:40)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield3 July 1996 - a mere 28 years ago the movie Independence Day was released.  In it, Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith fly into an alien vessel in a 50-year-old space junker, then upload a computer virus in less than 5 minuteshttps://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1808464060972667170 Rant of the Week (11:07)Cancer patient forced to make terrible decision after Qilin attack on London hospitalshttps://www.theregister.com/2024/07/05/qilin_impacts_patient/EXCLUSIVE The latest figures suggest that around 1,500 medical procedures have been canceled across some of London's biggest hospitals in the four weeks since Qilin's ransomware attack hit pathology services provider Synnovis. But perhaps no single person was affected as severely as Johanna Groothuizen.Hanna – the name she goes by – is now missing her right breast after her skin-sparing mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction surgery was swapped out for a simple mastectomy at the last minute. Billy Big Balls of the Week (18:20)Ransomware scum who hit Indonesian government apologizes, hands over encryption keyhttps://www.theregister.com/2024/07/04/hackers_of_indonesian_government_apologize/ Industry News (24:28)Vinted Fined €2.3m Over Data Protection FailureEuropol Warns of Home Routing Challenges For Lawful InterceptionMeta Faces Suspension of AI Data Training in BrazilNew Ransomware Group Phones Execs to Extort PaymentUK’s NCA Leads Major Cobalt Strike TakedownCyber Extortion Soars: SMBs Hit Four Times HarderNew RUSI Report Exposes Psychological Toll of Ransomware, Urges ActionDozens of Arrests Disrupt €2.5m Vishing GangHealth Tech Execs Get Jail Time For $1bn Fraud Scheme Tweet of the Week (31:07) Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This Week in InfoSec (12:30)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield24th June 1987: The movie Spaceballs was released. With a budget of $23 million, it grossed $38 million at the box office in North America. Though 37 years have passed, the secret code scene remains a reminder of why security is hard.Watch the secret code scene from Spaceballs and weep. Or laugh. Or both. Has much changed when it comes to password security since the movie was released 37 years ago today?The 64 second scene: https:///youtu.be/a6iW-8xPw3khttps://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1805302016451002501   27th June 2011: Anonymous released its first cache from Operation AntiSec, information from a US anti-cyberterrorism program.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1806302186487345226 Rant of the Week (18:15)Korean telco allegedly infected its P2P users with malwareA South Korean media outlet has alleged that local telco KT deliberately infected some customers with malware due to their excessive use of peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading tools.The number of infected users of “web hard drives” – the South Korean term for the online storage services that allow uploading and sharing of content – has reportedly reached 600,000. Billy Big Balls of the Week (26:33)Crypto scammers circle back, pose as lawyers, steal an extra $10M in truly devious planThe FBI says in just 12 months, scumbags stole circa $10 million from victims of crypto scams after posing as helpful lawyers offering to recover their lost tokens.Between February 2023-2024, scammers were kicking US victims while they were already down, preying on their financial vulnerability to defraud them for a second time in what must be seen as a new low, even for that particular breed of dirtball.It's the latest update from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) on the ongoing issue which was first publicized in August last year.  Industry News (34:24)US Bans Kaspersky Over Alleged Kremlin LinksSellafield Pleads Guilty to Historic Cybersecurity OffensesPolish Prosecutors Step Up Probe into Pegasus Spyware OperationCredential Stuffing Attack Hits 72,000 Levi’s AccountsGoogle's Naptime Framework to Boost Vulnerability Research with AIFake Law Firms Con Victims of Crypto Scams, Warns FBIIT Leaders Split on Using GenAI For CybersecurityMajority of Critical Open Source Projects Contain Memory Unsafe CodeCISOs Reveal Firms Prioritize Savings Over Long-Term Security Tweet of the Week (43:08) https://twitter.com/StuAlanBecker/status/1806137799248359443Comments: https://twitter.com/derJamesJackson/status/1806307954586538205   Alternate TotW: https://twitter.com/susisnyder/status/1806222280382406836 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (11:16)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield5th of June  1991, a mere 33 years ago, : Philip Zimmermann sent the first release of PGP to 2 friends, Allan Hoeltje and Kelly Goen, to upload to the Internet. From the man himself, First, I sent it to Allan Hoeltje, who posted it to Peacenet, an ISP that specialized in grassroots political organizations, mainly in the peace movement. Peacenet was accessible to political activists all over the world. Then, I uploaded it to Kelly Goen, who proceeded to upload it to a Usenet newsgroup that specialized in distributing source code. At my request, he marked the Usenet posting as "US only". Kelly also uploaded it to many BBS systems around the country. I don't recall if the postings to the Internet began on June 5th or 6th.It may be surprising to some that back in 1991, I did not yet know enough about Usenet newsgroups to realize that a "US only" tag was merely an advisory tag that had little real effect on how Usenet propagated newsgroup postings. I thought it actually controlled how Usenet routed the posting. But back then, I had no clue how to post anything on a newsgroup, and didn't even have a clear idea what a newsgroup was.After releasing PGP, I immediately diverted my attention back to consulting work, to try to get caught up on my mortgage payments. I thought I could just release PGP 1.0 for MSDOS, and leave it alone for awhile, and let people play with it. I thought I could get back to it later, at my leisure. Little did I realize what a feeding frenzy PGP would set off. Apparently, there was a lot of pent-up demand for a tool like this. Volunteers from around the world were clamoring to help me port it to other platforms, add enhancements, and generally promote it. I did have to go back to work on paying gigs, but PGP continued to demand my time, pulled along by public enthusiasm.I assembled a team of volunteer engineers from around the world. They ported PGP to almost every platform (except for the Mac, which turned out to be harder). They translated PGP into foreign languages. And I started designing the PGP trust model, which I did not have time to finish in the first release. Fifteen months later, in September 1992, we released PGP 2.0, for MSDOS, several flavors of Unix, Commodore Amiga, Atari, and maybe a few other platforms, and in about ten foreign languages. PGP 2.0 had the now-famous PGP trust model, essentially in its present form.It was shortly after PGP 2.0's release that US Customs took an interest in the case. Little did they realize that they would help propel PGP's popularity, helping to ignite a controversy that would eventually lead to the demise of the US export restrictions on strong cryptography.7 June 2009. A mere 15 years ago.  Sophos launched its (utterly shit) IT vigilante marketing campaignDress up a British man (who appears to have had a nervous breakdown over a corporate data breach incident) in an orange gimp suit – that will sell security software for sure!At least, that was the plan made by Sophos’s marketing department for its “IT Vigilante” campaign.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gc6sDqofcIhttps://grahamcluley.com/top-five-worst-videos-anti-virus/Other awful videos:Happy birthday Eugene Kaspersky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnq188E5-wEugene’s “silent movie”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8UjCQl5sE&t=6s Rant of the Week (22:45)https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxee7317kgmoRussian hackers are behind the cyber attack on a number of major London hospitals, according to the former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre.Ransomware attacks on the healthcare industry as a whole have increased significantly over the past year. Whaley attributes the uptick to “lives on the line.”“While no sector is invulnerable to these attacks… healthcare providers have proven time and time again that they’re the most willing to pay a ransom following these incidents," Whaley said.“Bad actors know this and smell blood in water,” he added. Whaley pointed out that the rise in state-sponsored cyberattacks combined “with the further digitization of the NHS paints a pretty grim picture for the defensive capabilities of the British healthcare sector… and possibly a warning sign of much larger attacks to come.” Graham's Giant Gonads of the Week (30:51)Apple refused to pay bug bounty to Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Labhttps://therecord.media/kaspersky-apple-bug-bounty-declinedhttps://securelist.com/trng-2023/Apple has snubbed Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, refusing to shell out a bug bounty for four zero-day vulnerabilities discovered in iPhone software.  Targets were infected using zero-click exploits via the iMessage platform, and the malware ran with root privileges, gaining complete control over the device and user data. The twist?The vulnerabilities were used to spy on Kaspersky employees.Kaspersky politely enquired whether it could be rewarded for finding the vulnerabilities used in the espionage campaign - known as Operation Triangulation.Kaspersky claims it was a "highly sophisticated" attack, so intricate it needed 13 bullet points to explain.Russia, not one to be outdone in the drama department, accused the U.S. and Apple of colluding to spy on Russian diplomats. Apple, of course, vehemently denied these allegations.It's like Eastenders.Amidst all this chaos, the U.S. and Russia are engaged in a geopolitical staring contest, with Apple caught in the crossfire. Apple, being an American company, has taken a stand against Russia's actions in Ukraine, suspending sales and removing apps. It's a bit like a tech giant trying to play peacemaker in a playground brawl.Kaspersky, meanwhile, has its own history with the U.S. government, having been banned from government use due to security concerns. It's a classic case of "guilty by association."So, will Kaspersky continue to report bugs to Apple despite the lack of reward? Only time will tell.Speaking to Russian-language media agency RTVI, Kaspersky’s research head Dmitry Galov said that typically cybersecurity companies like Kaspersky nominated a charity to receive the funds from the Apple Bug Bounty program instead of collecting the revenue itself. He added that although Kaspersky was confident the attacker was state-sponsored, he and his research team did not have the technical data needed to identify which state may have been behind the attack.A spokesperson for Kaspersky did not respond to whether it had nominated a charity when initially contacting Apple, nor whether the company’s refusal to issue a bounty would affect its decision to disclose vulnerabilities discovered in the future. Industry News (40:23)London Hospitals Cancel Operations Following Ransomware IncidentEmailGPT Exposed to Prompt Injection Attacks#Infosec2024: CISOs Need to Move Beyond Passwords to Keep Up With Security Threats#Infosec2024: Ransomware Ecosystem Transformed, New Groups “Changing the Rules”Security Flaws Found in Popular WooCommerce Plugin#Infosec2024: Collaboration is Key to an Effective Security Culture#Infosec2024: AI Red Teaming Provider Mindgard Named UK's Most Innovative Cyber SMEFBI Warns of Rise in Work-From-Home ScamsAccount Takeovers Outpace Ransomware as Top Security Concern Tweet of the Week (44:27)https://x.com/dakacki/status/1798882732203803070 Come on! 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This week in InfoSec  (07:29)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield28th May: 2014: LulzSec hacker Hector Monsegur, known as Sabu, was sentenced and released the same day on time served for his role in a slew of high-profile cyberattacks. He had served 7 months in prison after his arrest.https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/179522873073588665025th May 2018: The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union (EU) to strengthen and unify data protection became effective - just over 2 years after it was adopted by the EU.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1794461551534936503 Rant of the Week (18:34)Bing outage shows just how little competition Google search really hasBing, Microsoft's search engine platform, went down in the very early morning 23rd May. That meant that searches from Microsoft's Edge browsers that had yet to change their default providers didn't work. It also meant that services relying on Bing's search API—Microsoft's own Copilot, ChatGPT search, Yahoo, Ecosia, and DuckDuckGo—similarly failed.If dismay about AI's hallucinations, power draw, or pizza recipes concern you—along with perhaps broader Google issues involving privacy, tracking, news, SEO, or monopoly power—most of your other major options were brought down by a single API outage this morning. Moving past that kind of single point of vulnerability will take some work, both by the industry and by you, the person wondering if there's a real alternative. Billy Big Balls of the Week (26:56)IT worker sued over ‘vengeful’ cyber harassment of policeman who issued a jaywalking ticketIn an ongoing civil lawsuit, an IT worker is accused of launching a "destructive cyber campaign of hate and revenge" against a police officer and his family after being issued a ticket for jaywalking. Industry News (34:44)Check Point Urges VPN Configuration Review Amid Attack SpikeCourtroom Recording Software Vulnerable to Backdoor AttacksNew North Korean Hacking Group Identified by MicrosoftInternet Archive Disrupted by Sustained and “Mean” DDoS AttackAdvance Fee Fraud Targets Colleges With Free Piano OffersUS-Led Operation Takes Down World’s Largest BotnetFirst American Reveals Data Breach Impacting 44,000 IndividualsEuropol-Led Operation Endgame Hits Botnet, Ransomware NetworksBBC Pension Scheme Breached, Exposing Employee Data Tweet of the Week (47.14)https://twitter.com/DebugPrivilege/status/1795823939631067165   Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (11:36) With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield17th May 2015: CNN published their article on a statement Cybersecurity Consultant, Chris Roberts had publicly made on Twitter a month earlier.  There were lots of accusations made regarding Chris Roberts' actions hacking into computer systems while a passenger on multiple airline flights. Did he actually cause a plane to fly sideways? Maybe? But it's not like he made it fly upside down.FBI: Hacker claimed to have taken over flight’s engine controlshttps://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1791214444980080724 26th May 1995: Gates Declares Internet "Most Important Single Development"Realising his company had missed the boat in estimating the impact and popularity of the Internet, Microsoft Corp. CEO Bill Gates issued a memo titled, "The Internet Tidal Wave," which signaled the company's renewed focus on that arena. In the memo, Gates declared that the Internet was the "most important single development" since the IBM personal computer -- a development that he was assigning "the highest level of importance”.https://1995blog.com/2020/05/25/25-years-on-bill-gates-internet-tidal-wave-memo-a-seminal-document-of-the-unfolding-digital-age/ Rant of the Week (18:00)Giving Windows total recall of everything a user does is a privacy minefieldMicrosoft's Windows Recall feature is attracting controversy before even venturing out of preview.Like so many of Microsoft's AI-infused products, Windows Recall will remain in preview while Microsoft refines it based on user feedback – or simply gives up and pretends it never happened.The principle is simple. Windows takes a snapshot of a user's active screen every few seconds and dumps it to disk. The user can then scroll through the archive of snapshots to find what were doing some time back, or query an AI system to recall past screenshots by text. Billy Big Balls of the Week (28:58)Hacker Breaches Scam Call Center, Warns Victims They've Been ScammedA hacker claims to have breached a scam call center, stolen the source code for the company’s tools, and emailed the company’s scam victims.The hack is the latest in a long series of vigilante actions in which hackers take matters into their own hands and breach or otherwise disrupt scam centers. A massively popular YouTube community, with creators mocking their targets, also exists around the practice. Industry News (34:17)Authorities Arrest $100m Incognito Drugs Market SuspectAI Seoul Summit: 16 AI Companies Sign Frontier AI Safety CommitmentsUK Government in £8.5m Bid to Tackle AI Cyber-ThreatsMastercard Doubles Speed of Fraud Detection with Generative AIPSNI Faces £750,000 Data Breach Fine After Spreadsheet LeakGitHub Fixes Maximum Severity Flaw in Enterprise ServerNational Records of Scotland Data Breached in NHS Cyber-AttackNVD Leaves Exploited Vulnerabilities UncheckedMicrosoft: Gift Card Fraud Rising, Costing Businesses up to $100,000 a Day Tweet of the Week (41:59)https://twitter.com/gcluley/status/1792881296907043217Two for one:https://twitter.com/mer__edith/status/1793888092321202634 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield27th April 2012: The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the UK issued its first-ever data breach fine to an NHS (National Health Service) organisation, fining Aneurin Bevan Health Board in Wales £70,000. https://www.digitalhealth.net/2012/04/first-nhs-fine-issued-by-ico/ Rant of the WeekDropbox dropped the ball on security, haemorrhaging customer and third-party infoDropbox has revealed a major attack on its systems that saw customers' personal information accessed by unknown and unauthorized entities.The attack, detailed in a regulatory filing, impacted Dropbox Sign – a service it bills as an "eSignature solution [that] lets you send, sign, and store important documents in one seamless workflow, without ever leaving Dropbox." So basically a DocuSign clone.The filing states that management became aware of the incident last week – on April 24 – and "immediately activated our cyber security incident response process to investigate, contain, and remediate the incident."That effort led to the discovery that "the threat actor had accessed data related to all users of Dropbox Sign, such as emails and usernames, in addition to general account settings." Billy Big Balls of the WeekChinese government website security is often worryingly bad, say Chinese researchersFive Chinese researchers examined the configurations of nearly 14,000 government websites across the country and found worrying lapses that could lead to malicious attacks, according to a not-yet-peer-reviewed study released last week.The researchers concluded the investigation has uncovered "pressing security and dependency issues" that may not have a quick fix."Despite thorough analyses, practical solutions to bolster the security of these systems remain elusive," wrote the researchers. "Their susceptibility to cyber attacks, which could facilitate the spread of malicious content or malware, underscores the urgent need for real-time monitoring and malicious activity detection."The study also highlights the need for "stringent vetting and regular updates" of third-party libraries and advocates "a diversified distribution of network nodes, which could substantially augment system resilience and performance."The study will likely not go down well in Beijing, as China's government has urged improvements to government digital services and apps often issues edicts about improving cybersecurity.  Industry NewsGoogle Blocks 2.3 Million Apps From Play Store ListingDisinformation: EU Opens Probe Against Facebook and Instagram Ahead of ElectionNCSC’s New Mobile Risk Model Aimed at “High-Threat” FirmsLawsuits and Company Devaluations Await For Breached FirmsUnitedHealth CEO Confirms Breach Tied to Stolen Credentials, No MFAREvil Ransomware Affiliate Sentenced to Over 13 Years in PrisonSecurity Breach Exposes Dropbox Sign UsersIndonesia is a Spyware Haven, Amnesty International FindsNorth Korean Hackers Spoofing Journalist Emails to Spy on Policy Experts Tweet of the Week https://twitter.com/summer__heidi/status/1783829402574639187 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (07:04)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield23rd April 2005: The first video uploaded to YouTube, “Me at the zoo,” is posted on April 23, 2005 at 8:27 PM by co-founder Jawed Karim. For now being a piece of history, the video is actually pretty dumb.Note to future entrepreneurs: what you do may be for posterity. Choose wisely.22nd April 1988: 1988: The VIRUS-L email mailing list was created and moderated by Ken van Wyk while he was working at Lehigh University. It was the first electronic forum dedicated to discussing computer viruses.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1782424224348446910 Rant of the Week (13:21)Ring dinged for $5.6M after, among other claims, rogue insider spied on 'pretty girls'The FTC today announced it would be sending refunds totaling $5.6 million to Ring customers, paid from the Amazon subsidiary's coffers.The windfall stems from allegations made by the US watchdog that folks could have been, and were, spied upon by cybercriminals and rogue Ring workers via their Ring home security cameras.The regulator last year accused Ring of sloppy privacy protections that allowed the aforementioned spying to occur or potentially occur.Specifically, the FTC formally charged Ring with "compromising its customers' privacy by allowing any employee or contractor to access consumers' private videos and by failing to implement basic privacy and security protections, enabling hackers to take control of consumers' accounts, cameras, and videos." Billy Big Balls of the Week (21:41)Cops cuff man for allegedly framing colleague with AI-generated hate speech clipBaltimore police have arrested Dazhon Leslie Darien, the former athletic director of Pikesville High School (PHS), for allegedly impersonating the school's principal using AI software to make it seem as if he made racist and antisemitic remarks.Darien, of Baltimore, Maryland, was subsequently charged with witness retaliation, stalking, theft, and disrupting school operations. He was detained late at night trying to board a flight at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport. Security personnel stopped him because the declared firearm he had with him was improperly packed and an ensuing background check revealed an open warrant for his arrest.He is quoted as saying “Arse cock pussy”. 😀"On January 17, 2024, the Baltimore County Police Department became aware of a voice recording being circulated on social media," said Robert McCullough, Chief of Baltimore County Police, at a streamed press conference today. "It was alleged the voice captured on the audio file belong to Mr Eric Eiswert, the Principal at the Pikesville High School. We now have conclusive evidence that the recording was not authentic. Industry News (30:51)Quishing Attacks Jump Tenfold, Attachment Payloads HalveAlarming Decline in Cybersecurity Job Postings in the USNCSC Announces PwC’s Richard Horne as New CEONSA Launches Guidance for Secure AI DeploymentEnd-to-End Encryption Sparks Concerns Among EU Law EnforcementFifth of CISOs Admit Staff Leaked Data Via GenAIUS Congress Passes Bill to Ban TikTokOnline Banking Security Still Not Up to Par, Says Which?Ring to Pay Out $5.6m in Refunds After Customer Privacy Breach Tweet of the Week   (38:56)https://twitter.com/KimZetter/status/1783556843798671591 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (08:49)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield7th April 1969: Steve Crocker, a graduate student at UCLA and part of the team developing ARPANET, writes the first “Request for Comments“. The ARPANET, a research project of the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), was the foundation of today’s modern Internet. RFC 1 defined the design of the host software for communication between ARPANET nodes. This host software would be run on Interface Message Processors or IMPs, which were the precursor to Internet routers. The “host software” defined in RFC 1 would later be known as the Network Control Protocol or NCP, which itself was the forerunner to the modern TCP/IP protocol the Internet runs on today.https://thisdayintechhistory.com/04/07/rfc-1-defines-the-building-block-of-internet-communication/7th April 2014: The Heartbleed Bug was publicly disclosed. The buffer over-read vulnerability had been discovered by Neel Mehta and later privately reported to the OpenSSL project, which patched it the next day. The vulnerability was inadvertently introduced into OpenSSL 2 years prior.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1777136463882183076   Rant of the Week (17:09)OpenTable is adding your first name to previously anonymous reviewsRestaurant reservation platform OpenTable says that all reviews on the platform will no longer be fully anonymous starting May 22nd and will now show members' profile pictures and first names.OpenTable notified members of this new policy change today in emails to members who had previously left a review on the platform, stating the change was made to provide more transparency."At OpenTable, we strive to build a community in which diners can help other diners discover new restaurants, and reviews are a big part of that," reads the OpenTable email seen by BleepingComputer."We've heard from you, our diners, that trust and transparency are important when looking at reviews.""To build on the credibility of our review program, starting May 22, 2024, OpenTable will begin displaying diner first names and profile photos on all diner reviews. This update will also apply to past reviews. Billy Big Balls of the Week (26:36)Lloyds Bank axes risk staff after executives complain they are a ‘blocker’Lloyds Banking Group plans to cut jobs in risk management after an internal review found the function was a “blocker to our strategic transformation”.  The restructuring was outlined in a memo last month from Lloyds’ chief risk officer Stephen Shelley, who said two-thirds of executives believed risk management was blocking progress while “less than half our workforce believe intelligent risk-taking is encouraged”.  The lender was “resetting our approach to risk and controls”, Shelley said in the memo, seen by the Financial Times, adding that “the initial focus is on non-financial risks”.  Industry News (33:55)T: Famous YouTube Channels Hacked to Distribute InfostealersA: US Federal Data Privacy Law Introduced by LegislatorsJ: Foreign Interference Drives Record Surge in IP TheftT: Half of UK Businesses Hit by Cyber-Incident in Past Year, UK Government FindsA: US Claims to Have Recovered $1.4bn in COVID FraudJ: Women Experience Exclusion Twice as Often as Men in CybersecurityT: Threat Actors Game GitHub Search to Spread MalwareA: Data Breach Exposes 300k Taxi Passengers’ InformationJ: Apple Boosts Spyware Alerts For Mercenary Attacks Tweet of the Week  (52:08)https://x.com/ErrataRob/status/1778536622163984590 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (06:10)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield3rd April 2011: Email marketing and loyalty program management company Epsilon reported a data breach of names and email addresses of numerous companies' customers, totaling at least 60 million records. Dozens of companies were impacted, including Kroger, Walgreens, Verizon, and Chase.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1775598288277835996  1st April 1995: US President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin announced a pact to exchange their personal PGP keys and to make the technology available to all citizens worldwide. (April Fools' Day)https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1774994645053010184 Rant of the Week (13:06)William Wragg honey trap scandal is ‘extremely troubling’ says ministerExplosive revelations that a senior Conservative MP leaked colleagues’ phone numbers to a man he had met on the gay dating app Grindr are “very serious”, a minister has warned, amid questions over whether the MP will face sanctions.Vice chairman of the 1922 committee William Wragg admitted he sent the numbers after becoming concerned about the power the recipient had over him since he had sent intimate pictures of himself.Treasury minister Gareth Davies said the situation was “incredibly troubling and very serious” but maintained that Mr Wragg would keep the party whip while the incident is being investigated. Billy Big Balls of the Week (24:09)Amazon Ditches 'Just Walk Out' Checkouts at Its Grocery StoresAmazon Fresh is moving away from a feature of its grocery stores where customers could skip checkout altogether.Amazon is phasing out its checkout-less grocery stores with “Just Walk Out” technology, first reported by The Information Tuesday. The company’s senior vice president of grocery stores says they’re moving away from Just Walk Out, which relied on cameras and sensors to track what people were leaving the store with.Just over half of Amazon Fresh stores are equipped with Just Walk Out. The technology allows customers to skip checkout altogether by scanning a QR code when they enter the store. Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped.On Wednesday, GeekWire reported that Amazon Web Services is cutting a few hundred jobs in its Physical Stores Technology team, according to internal emails. The layoffs will allegedly impact portions of Amazon’s identity and checkout teams. Industry News (29:46)Dataset of 73 Million AT&T Customers Linked to Dark Web Data BreachFirms Must Work Harder to Guard Children’s Privacy, Says UK ICOThreat Actor Claims Classified Five Eyes Data TheftLeicester Council Confirms Confidential Documents Leaked in Ransomware AttackJackson County IT Systems Hit By Ransomware AttackLockBit Scrambles After Takedown, Repopulates Leak Site with Old BreachesChina Using AI-Generated Content to Sow Division in US, Microsoft FindsWiz Discovers Flaws in GenAI Models Enabling Customer Data TheftChinese Threat Actors Deploy New TTPs to Exploit Ivanti Vulnerabilities Tweet of the Week (35:58)https://twitter.com/belldotbz/status/1776187040813441272 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec   (07:32)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield20th March 2007: Dragos Ruiu announced the first Pwn2Own contest, which was held that April in Vancouver, Canada. The contest is still being held today - and in fact Pwn2Own Vancouver 2024 started today.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/177059269525524903816th March 1971: The first computer virus, Creeper, infected computers on the ARPANET, displaying "I'M THE CREEPER : CATCH ME IF YOU CAN." It was named after the Creeper - a villain from a 1970 episode of the TV series "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!"https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1768973007555375317 Rant of the Week (14:29)Majority of Americans now use ad blockersMore than half of Americans are using ad blocking software, and among advertising, programming, and security professionals that fraction is more like two-thirds to three-quarters.According to a survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by research firm Censuswide, on behalf of Ghostery, a maker of software to block ads and online tracking, 52 percent of Americans now use an ad blocker, up from 34 percent according to 2022 Statista data. Billy Big Balls of the Week (23:01)Execs in Japan busted for winning dev bids then outsourcing to North KoreansTwo executives were issued arrest warrants in Japan on Wednesday, reportedly for charges related to establishing a business that outsourced work to North Korean IT engineers.At least one of the individuals – a 53 year old named Pak Hyon-il – is a South Korean national. His alleged accomplice, 42-year old Toshiron Minomo, is Japanese and once worked for Hyon-il, according to local media.Pak served as president of Fuchu-based IT firm ITZ, while Minomo was the head of Fukuyama-based Robast. Industry News (29:09)UK Blames China for 2021 Hack Targeting Millions of Voters' DataFake Ozempic Deals on the Rise as Experts Warn of Phishing ScamsPortugal Forces Sam Altman's Worldcoin to Stop Collecting Biometric DataOnly 5% of Boards Have Cybersecurity Expertise, Despite Financial BenefitsUK Law Enforcers Arrest 400 in Major Fraud CrackdownChinese Hackers Target ASEAN Entities in Espionage CampaignNHS Trust Confirms Clinical Data Leaked by “Recognized Ransomware Group”US Treasury Urges Financial Sector to Address AI Cybersecurity ThreatsCISA Launches New Cyber Incident Reporting Rules for US Defense Contractors Tweet of the Week  (40:52)https://twitter.com/bettersafetynet/status/1773626490384511113 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (14:26)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield7th March 2017: WikiLeaks began its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Code-named Vault 7 by WikiLeaks, it was the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/176582899371309056514th March 2013: Security journalist Brian Krebs was swatted when police responded to a spoofed 911 call claiming Russians had broken into his home and had shot his wife.One of several people who made the false report, Eric Taylor (aka Cosmo the God), was sentenced to probation in 2017.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1768253237260435814 Rant of the Week (21:38)US Congress goes bang, bang, on TikTok sale-or-ban planThe United States House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act – a law aimed at forcing TikTok's Chinese parent ByteDance to sell the app's US operations or face the prospect of a ban.The bill names only TikTok as a "foreign adversary controlled application" and prohibits "Providing services to distribute, maintain, or update" the app – including by offering it for sale in an app store. Even updates to the app aren't allowed.If TikTok's US operations were locally owned and operated, none of the sanctions the bill mentions would be enforceable. And US lawmakers' fears that TikTok gives Beijing a way to gather intelligence and surveil citizens would be eased.[Related or coincidental? Or a BBB?]Former US Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin thinking about buying TikTokOn the heels of the US House of Representatives passing a TikTok ban bill, former US Treasury secretary and private equity mogul Steve Mnuchin is apparently thinking about buying the platform.Speaking to CNBC's pre-market team at Squawk Box, Mnuchin said he hoped the TikTok ban would pass in the Senate, forcing a sale of the platform to a US-based parent. "It's a great business and I'm going to put together a group to buy TikTok," Mnuchin told CNBC. Mnuchin didn't mention whether partners had been identified, or what phase the purchase was in. Billy Big Balls of the Week (32:14)CEO of Data Privacy Company Onerep.com Founded Dozens of People-Search FirmsThe data privacy company Onerep.com bills itself as a Virginia-based service for helping people remove their personal information from almost 200 people-search websites. However, an investigation into the history of onerep.com finds this company is operating out of Belarus and Cyprus, and that its founder has launched dozens of people-search services over the years.Onerep’s “Protect” service starts at $8.33 per month for individuals and $15/mo for families, and promises to remove your personal information from nearly 200 people-search sites. Onerep also markets its service to companies seeking to offer their employees the ability to have their data continuously removed from people-search sites. Industry News (41:21)UnitedHealth Sets Timeline to Restore Change Healthcare Systems After BlackCat HitRussia’s Midnight Blizzard Accesses Microsoft Source CodeThird-Party Breach and Missing MFA Contributed to British Library Cyber-AttackLawmakers Slam UK Government’s “Ostrich Strategy” for CybersecurityGoogle to Restrict Election-Related Answers on AI Chatbot GeminiMeta Sues Former VP After Defection to AI StartupGoogle Paid $10m in Bug Bounties to Security Researchers in 2023French Employment Agency Data Breach Could Affect 43 Million PeopleTikTok Faces US Ban as House Votes to Compel ByteDance to Sell Tweet of the Week (50:29)https://twitter.com/andylapteff/status/1767952062279492006 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (06:53)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield1st March 1988: The MS-DOS boot sector virus "Ping-Pong" was discovered at the Politecnico di Torino (Turin Polytechnic University) in Italy.The virus would show a small ball bouncing around the screen in both text mode (ASCII character "•") and graphical mode.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1763540406443163705  26th February 2004: Antivirus firm F-Secure apologized for sending the Netsky.B virus to 1000s of its UK customers & partners via a mailing list. The unknown sender sent it through the email list server, which didn't scan for viruses. And there was no business reason to accept external emails.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1762092359313936553   Rant of the Week (11:48)Meta's pay-or-consent model hides 'massive illegal data processing ops': lawsuitConsumer groups are filing legal complaints in the EU in a coordinated attempt to use data protection law to stop Meta from giving local users a "fake choice" between paying up and consenting to being profiled and tracked via data collection. Billy Big Balls of the Week (20:16)Fox News 'hacker' turns out to be journalist whose lawyers say was doing his job A Florida journalist has been arrested and charged with breaking into protected computer systems in a case his lawyers say was less "hacking," more "good investigative journalism." Tim Burke was arrested on Thursday and charged with one count of conspiracy, six counts of accessing a protected computer without authorization, and seven counts of intercepting or disclosing wire, oral or electronic communications for his supposed role in the theft of unedited video streams from Fox News. Industry News (27:48)UK Unveils Draft Cybersecurity Governance Code to Boost Business Resilience34 Million Roblox Credentials Exposed on Dark Web in Three YearsBiden Bans Mass Sale of Data to Hostile NationsUS Government Warns Healthcare is Biggest Target for BlackCat AffiliatesSavvy Seahorse Targets Investment Platforms With DNS ScamsPharma Giant Cencora Reports Cybersecurity BreachUK Home Office Breached Data Protection Law with Migrant Tracking Program, ICO FindsFive Eyes Warn of Ivanti Vulnerabilities Exploitation, Detection Tools InsufficientBiden Warns Chinese Cars Could Steal US Citizens' Data Tweet of the Week (35:17)https://twitter.com/_FN8_/status/1762583435745402951 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (06:25)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield16th February 2010: Version 2.0 of the CWE/SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Errors was released.Take a look and decide which of these weaknesses have been eradicated over the last 14 years.Web Archivehttps://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/175871241860197174820th February 2003: Alan Giang Tran, former network admin for 2 companies, was arrested after allegedly destroying data on the companies' networks. Two months later he pleaded guilty to a federal charge of intentionally causing damage to a protected computer.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1760021831354896443 Rant of the Week (14:01)Avast fined $16.5 million for ‘privacy’ software that actually sold users’ browsing dataAvast, the cybersecurity software company, is facing a $16.5 million fine after it was caught storing and selling customer information without their consent. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the fine on Thursday and said that it’s banning Avast from selling user data for advertising purposes.From at least 2014 to 2020, Avast harvested user web browsing information through its antivirus software and browser extension, according to the FTC’s complaint. This allowed it to collect data on religious beliefs, health concerns, political views, locations, and financial status. The company then stored this information “indefinitely” and sold it to over 100 third parties without the knowledge of customers, the complaint says. Billy Big Balls of the Week(25:02)Husband 'made over a million' by eavesdropping on BP wifeThe husband of a BP employee has been charged with insider trading in the US following claims he overheard details of calls made by his wife while working from home.The US Securities and Exchange Commission alleged Tyler Loudon made $1.76m (£1.39m) in illegal profits.The regulator claimed Mr Loudon heard several of his wife's conversations about BP's takeover of TravelCenters of America and bought shares in the firm.BP has declined to comment.The SEC said: "We allege that Mr Loudon took advantage of his remote working conditions and his wife's trust to profit from information he knew was confidential."His wife - a mergers and acquisitions manager at BP - worked on the oil giant's takeover of TravelCenters. The SEC said Mr Loudon purchased 46,450 shares of TravelCenter's stock, without his wife's knowledge, before the deal was made public in February last year.Following the announcement, TravelCenter's share price rose nearly 71% and Mr Loudon allegedly immediately sold all of his newly-bought shares for a profit, the SEC said. Industry News (32:16)Attacker Breakout Time Falls to Just One HourNCSC Sounds Alarm Over Private Branch Exchange AttacksBiden Executive Order to Bolster US Maritime CybersecurityRansomware Warning as CVSS 10.0 ScreenConnect Bug is ExploitedChinese Duo Found Guilty of $3m Apple Fraud PlotOWASP Releases Security Checklist for Generative AI DeploymentRussian-Aligned Network Doppelgänger Targets German ElectionsChange Healthcare Cyber-Attack Leads to Prescription DelaysICO Bans Serco Leisure's Use of Facial Recognition for Employee Attendance Tweet of the Week (42:37)https://twitter.com/lauriewired/status/1760751495073640705 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (08:40) With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield14th February 2001: In a presentation at Black Hat Windows Security Conference 2001, Andrey Malyshev of ElcomSoft shared that Microsoft Excel uses a default encryption password of "VelvetSweatshop". https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/175778227540662283516th February 2004: The Netsky worm first appeared. It spread via an email attachment which after opened would search the computer for email addresses then email itself to those addresses. Its dozens of variants accounted for almost a quarter of malware detected in 2004.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1758497889972576608       Rant of the Week (5:10)Air Canada must pay damages after chatbot lies to grieving passenger about discountAir Canada must pay a passenger hundreds of dollars in damages after its online chatbot gave the guy wrong information before he booked a flight.Jake Moffatt took the airline to a small-claims tribunal after the biz refused to refund him for flights he booked from Vancouver to Toronto following the death of his grandmother in November last year. Before he bought the tickets, he researched Air Canada's bereavement fares – special low rates for those traveling due to the loss of an immediate family member – by querying its website chatbot.The virtual assistant told him that if he purchased a normal-price ticket he would have up to 90 days to claim back a bereavement discount. Following that advice, Moffatt booked a one-way CA$794.98 ticket to Toronto, presumably to attend the funeral or attend to family, and later an CA$845.38 flight back to Vancouver.He also spoke to an Air Canada representative who confirmed he would be able to get a bereavement discount on his flights and that he should expect to pay roughly $380 to get to Toronto and back. Crucially, the rep didn't say anything about being able to claim the discount as money back after purchasing a ticket.When Moffatt later submitted his claim for a refund, and included a copy of his grandmother's death certificate, all well within that 90-day window, Air Canada turned him down.Staff at the airline told him bereavement fare rates can't be claimed back after having already purchased flights, a policy at odds with what the support chatbot told Moffatt. It's understood the virtual assistant was automated, and not a person sat at a keyboard miles away. Billy Big Balls of the Week (22:06)Australia passes Right To Disconnect law, including (for now) jail time for bosses who email after-hoursAustralia last week passed a Right To Disconnect law that forbids employers contacting workers after hours, with penalties including jail time for bosses who do the wrong thing.The criminal sanction will soon be overturned – it was the result of parliamentary shenanigans rather than the government's intent – and the whole law could go too if opposition parties and business groups have their way.European companies have already introduced Right To Disconnect laws in response to digital devices blurring the boundaries between working hours and personal time. The laptops or phones employers provide have obvious after-hours uses, but also mean workers can find themselves browsing emailed or texted messages from their boss at all hours – sometimes with an expectation of a response. That expectation, labor rights orgs argue, extends the working day without increasing pay.Right To Disconnect laws might better be termed "Right to not read or respond to messages from work" laws because that's what they seek to guarantee. Industry News (31:45)US, UK and India Among the Countries Most At Risk of Election Cyber InterferenceSouthern Water Notifies Customers and Employees of Data BreachCybersecurity Spending Expected to be Slashed in 41% of SMEsGoldPickaxe Trojan Blends Biometrics Theft and Deepfakes to Scam BanksMicrosoft, OpenAI Confirm Nation-States are Weaponizing Generative AI in Cyber-AttacksPrudential Financial Faces Cybersecurity BreachGoogle Warns Unfair AI Rules Could Empower Hackers, Harming DefenseHackers Exploit EU Agenda in Spear Phishing CampaignsNew Ivanti Vulnerability Observed as Widespread Security Concerns Grow Tweet of the Week (39:24)https://twitter.com/MalwareJake/status/1758454999380557885 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (08:59)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield8th February 2000: A 15-year-old Canadian identified at the time only by his handle  "MafiaBoy" launched a 4-hour DDoS attack against http://cnn.com. The attacks also targeted Yahoo, eBay, Amazon and other sites over a 3 day period. In 2001 a Canadian court sentenced him to 8 months.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/17555767303060892457th February 2000: Dennis Michael Moran (aka Coolio) performed a smurf attack against Yahoo's routers, causing its websites to be inaccessible for hours. Conversations on an IRC channel led to him being identified and convicted for a series of DDoS and website defacement crimes.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1755267532540244316      Rant of the Week (14:35)Viral news story of botnet with 3 million toothbrushes was too good to be trueIn recent days you may have heard about the terrifying botnet consisting of 3 million electric toothbrushes that were infected with malware. While you absent-mindedly attended to your oral hygiene, little did you know that your toothbrush and millions of others were being controlled remotely by nefarious criminals.Alas, fiction is sometimes stranger than truth. There weren't really 3 million Internet-connected toothbrushes accessing the website of a Swiss company in a DDoS attack that did millions of dollars of damage. The toothbrush botnet was just a hypothetical example that some journalists wrongly interpreted as having actually happened.It apparently started with a January 30 story by the Swiss German-language daily newspaper Aargauer Zeitung. Tom's Hardware helped spread the tale in English on Tuesday this week in an article titled, "Three million malware-infected smart toothbrushes used in Swiss DDoS attacks."https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/awareness/2024/02/how-to-tell-if-your-toothbrush-is-being-used-in-a-ddos-attack Billy Big Balls of the Week (21:50)Finance worker pays out $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’A finance worker at a multinational firm was tricked into paying out $25 million to fraudsters using deepfake technology to pose as the company’s chief financial officer in a video conference call, according to Hong Kong police.The elaborate scam saw the worker duped into attending a video call with what he thought were several other members of staff, but all of whom were in fact deepfake recreations, Hong Kong police said at a briefing on Friday.“(In the) multi-person video conference, it turns out that everyone [he saw] was fake,” senior superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching told the city’s public broadcaster RTHK.Chan said the worker had grown suspicious after he received a message that was purportedly from the company’s UK-based chief financial officer. Initially, the worker suspected it was a phishing email, as it talked of the need for a secret transaction to be carried out.However, the worker put aside his early doubts after the video call because other people in attendance had looked and sounded just like colleagues he recognized, Chan said.Believing everyone else on the call was real, the worker agreed to remit a total of $200 million Hong Kong dollars – about $25.6 million, the police officer added. Industry News (28:58)Clorox and Johnson Controls Reveal $76m Cyber-Attack BillMeta's Oversight Board Urges a Policy Change After a Fake Biden VideoMalware-as-a-Service Now the Top Threat to OrganizationsChinese Spies Hack Dutch Networks With Novel Coathanger MalwareMeta to Introduce Labeling for AI-Generated Images Ahead of US ElectionGovernments and Tech Giants Unite Against Commercial SpywareFrance: 33 Million Social Security Numbers Exposed in Health Insurance Hack20 Years of Facebook, but Trust in Social Media Remains Rock BottomAI-Powered Robocalls Banned Ahead of US Election Tweet of the Week (37:15)https://x.com/gossithedog/status/1755282171198054805?s=46&t=1-Sjo1Vy8SG7OdizJ3wVbg Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (08:19)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield31st Jan 2011 (13 years ago): Chris Russo reported a vulnerability to dating website PlentyOfFish's CEO Markus Frind's wife. Yada yada yada Markus Frind then accused Russo of extortion and emailed Russo's mother.  https://techcrunch.com/2011/01/31/plentyoffish-ceo-we-were-hacked-almost-extorted-so-i-emailed-the-hackers-mom/https://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/01/plentyoffish-com-hacked-blames-messenger/ Rant of the Week (13:56)The TikTok Hearing Revealed That Congress Is the ProblemFor some, the job on Thursday was casting the hearing's only witness, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, as a stand-in for the Chinese government—in some cases, for communism itself—and then belting him like a side of beef. More than a few of the questions lawmakers put to Chew were vague, speculative, and immaterial to the allegations against his company. But the members of Congress asking those questions feigned little interest in Chew’s responses anyway. Attempts by Chew, a 40-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker, to elaborate on TikTok’s business practices were frequently interrupted, and his requests to remark on matters supposedly of considerable interest to members of Congress were blocked and occasionally ignored. These opportunities to get the CEO on record, while under oath, were repeatedly blown in the name of expediency and for mostly theatrical reasons. Chew, in contrast, was the portrait of patience, even when he was being talked over. Even when some lawmakers began asking and, without pause, answering their own questions.The hearing might’ve been a flop, had lawmakers planned to dig up new dirt on TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance, or even hash out what the company could do next to allay their concerns. But that wasn't the aim. The House Energy and Commerce Committee was gathered, it said, to investigate “how Congress can safeguard American data privacy and protect children from online harms.” And on that, the hearing revealed plenty. Billy Big Balls of the Week (23:41)ICBC Partners Wary to Resume Trading With Bank After Cyberattack Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s largest lender by assets, has been unable to convince some market participants that it’s safe to reconnect their computer networks to the bank’s US unit after a ransomware attack disrupted its systems, according to people familiar with the matter.The attack, which was claimed by the Russia-linked LockBit cybercrime and extortion gang earlier this month, impeded trading in the $26 billion Treasury market and, the people said, it has left users of the bank’s US arm skittish about trading with the bank.For its part, ICBC has told users that its US division is back online and operational, the people said. One person familiar with the hack and investigation said a reason the bank could get back online quickly was that a key part of its trading system was unaffected by the attack — a server that was more than 20 years old, made by now-defunct IT equipment maker Novell Inc.. That server contained much of the bank’s trading data and capabilities and is so old that LockBit’s ransomware didn’t work on it, the person said. Industry News (35:28)US Agencies Failure to Oversee Ransomware Protections Threaten White House GoalsUS Thwarts Volt Typhoon Cyber Espionage Campaign Through Router DisruptionInterpol-Led Initiative Targets 1300 Suspicious IPsIvanti Releases Zero-Day Patches and Reveals Two New BugsPump-and-Dump Schemes Make Crypto Fraudsters $240mGoogle’s Bazel Exposed to Command Injection Threat Tweet of the Week (41:51)https://x.com/MikeIrvo/status/1752123455125016839?s=20 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (04:51)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield25th January 2003: The SQL Slammer worm was first observed. It relied on a vulnerability Microsoft reported a whopping 6 months earlier via security bulletin MS02-039. Despite the long-available patch,  75,000 systems were compromised within 10 minutes..https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/175052975790379043121st January 1992: Former General Dynamics employee Michael John Lauffenburger was sentenced. He had created a logic bomb, which was programmed to go off on May 24, 1991. Unfortunately for him, an employee accidentally discovered it, dismantled it, and contacted authorities.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1749184231752802757      Rant of the Week (11:10)Third-party ink cartridges brick HP printers after ‘anti-virus’ updateHP is pushing over-the-air firmware updates to its printers, bricking them if they are using third-party ink cartridges. But don’t worry, it’s not a money-grab, says the company – it’s just trying to protect you from the well-known risk of viruses embedded in ink cartridges …HP has long been known for sketchy practices in its attempt to turn ink purchases into a subscription service. If you cancel a subscription, for example, the company will immediately stop the printer using the ink you’ve already paid for.CEO Enrique Lores somehow managed to keep a straight face while explaining to CNBC that the company was only trying to protect users from viruses which might be embedded into aftermarket ink cartridges.It can create issues [where] the printers stop working because the inks have not been designed to be used in our printers, to then create security issues. We have seen that you can embed viruses in the cartridges, and through the cartridge, go to the printer; from the printer, go to the network.ArsTechnica asked several security experts whether this could happen, and they said this is so out-there, it would have to be a nation-state attack on a specific individual. Billy Big Balls of the Week (19:04)British man Aditya Verma appears in Spanish court over plane-bomb hoaxA British man accused of public disorder after joking about blowing up a flight has gone on trial in Spain.Aditya Verma made the comment on Snapchat on his way to the island of Menorca with friends in July 2022.The message, sent before Mr Verma departed Gatwick airport, read: "On my way to blow up the plane (I'm a member of the Taliban)."Mr Verma told a Madrid court on Monday: "The intention was never to cause public distress or cause public harm."If found guilty, the university student faces a hefty bill for expenses after two Spanish Air Force jets were scrambled.Mr Verma's message was picked up by the UK security services who flagged it to Spanish authorities while the easyJet plane was still in the air.A court in Madrid heard it was assumed the message triggered alarm bells after being picked up via Gatwick's Wi-Fi network. Industry News (27:39)Thai Court Blocks 9near.org to Avoid Exposure of 55M CitizensMega-Breach Database Exposes 26 Billion RecordsFrench Watchdog Slams Amazon with €32m Fine for Spying on WorkersAI Set to Supercharge Ransomware Threat, Says NCSCX Makes Passkeys Available for US-Based UsersChatGPT Cybercrime Surge Revealed in 3000 Dark Web PostsHPE Says SolarWinds Hackers Accessed its EmailsSouthern Water Confirms Data Breach Following Black Basta ClaimsChina-Aligned APT Group Blackwood Unleashes NSPX30 Implant Tweet of the Week (33:12)https://x.com/TheHornetsFury/status/1750612652873928949?s=20 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

This week in InfoSec  (09:34)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield11th January 2000: Newly declassified documents proved the existence of ECHELON, a global eavesdropping network run by the NSA.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1745518896495390826  13th January 2009: The domain name http://clintonemail.com was registered - the one used for email addresses on the Clinton family's private email server, which drew controversy when it was revealed that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used it for official communications.https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1746214861091053961     Rant of the Week (15:53)The 'nothing-happened' Y2K bug – how the IT industry worked overtime to save world's computersForty years ago, both Jerome and Marilyn Murray saw their brainchild reach the light of day. In 1984, their book, Computers in Crisis, was published, becoming the first authoritative guide to the Millennium Bug coding problem, which, in the final year of the century, would consume media, political and business attention.Today, more than 20 years after the date-field imposed deadline passed, the Millennium Bug — or Y2K problem — still gets a mixed reception. While many in the industry see it as a job well done — or at least adequately done — it has also become a byword for the over-reach of experts. Billy Big Balls of the Week (26:55)Woman films herself being fired by HR to expose how cold U.S. corporate culture can be (Link to actual TikTok video in here)Forbes article: Viral TikTok Video Of Cloudflare Employee Is A Lesson On How To Not Fire WorkersRecently, many of the new workplace trends have emanated from TikTok. Influencers have ushered in new themes, such as bare minimum Mondays, acting your wage, quiet quitting and rage applying. A new phenomenon has arisen where employees are now documenting their layoffs on the social media platform.This week, Brittany Pietsch, a mid-market account executive at Cloudflare, an Internet infrastructure provider that offers a variety of security, performance and reliability services for websites and applications, went viral after posting a video of her being let go from the tech company.Pietsch anticipated her firing, as her “work bff” had been given the pink slip 30 minutes prior to her meeting. The account executive was joined on a video call by a member of the human resources team and another individual, who didn’t introduce himself and jumped right into the purpose of the call, “We have an important meeting today. We finished our evaluations of 2023 performance. This is where you have not met Cloudflare expectations for performance. We have decided to part ways with you.” Industry News (36:02)1.3 Million FNF Customers' Data Potentially Exposed in Ransomware AttackHelloFresh Fined £140K After Sending 80 Million Spam MessagesBritish Library Catalogue Back Online After Ransomware AttackSenators Demand Probe into SEC Hack After Bitcoin Price SpikeTool Identifies Pegasus and Other iOS SpywareMajorca Tourist Hotspot Hit With $11m Ransom DemandAI, Gaming, FinTech Named Major Cybersecurity Threats For KidsNCSC Builds New “Cyber League” Threat Tracking CommunityIranian Phishing Campaign Targets Israel-Hamas War Experts Tweet of the Week (42:01)https://twitter.com/0xdade/status/1747820425693045014 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!