Ever since Elon Musk spent $44 billion on Twitter and laid off a large percentage of the company’s staff, there have been concerns about data breaches. Now it appears a safety incident that predates Musk’s takeover is inflicting complications. This week, it emerged that hackers launched a trove of 200 million email addresses and their links to Twitter handles, which had been doubtless gathered between June 2021 and January 2022. The sale of the info might put nameless Twitter accounts in danger and heap additional regulatory scrutiny on the corporate.

WhatsApp has launched a brand new anti-censorship instrument that it hopes will assist individuals in Iran to keep away from government-enforced blocks on the messaging platform. The firm has made it attainable for individuals to use proxies to access WhatsApp and keep away from authorities filtering. The instrument is offered globally. We’ve additionally explained what pig-butchering scams are and learn how to keep away from falling into their traps.

Also this week, cybersecurity agency Mandiant revealed that it has seen Russian cyberespionage group Turla using innovative new hacking tactics in Ukraine. The group, which is believed to be related to the FSB intelligence company, was noticed piggybacking on dormant USB infections of different hacker teams. Turla registered expired domains of years-old malware and managed to take over its command-and-control servers.  

We additionally reported on the continued fallout of the EncroChat hack. In June 2020, police throughout Europe revealed that they had hacked into the encrypted EncroChat cellphone community and picked up greater than 100 million messages from its customers, a lot of them probably severe criminals. Now hundreds of individuals have been jailed primarily based on the intelligence gathered, however the bust is elevating wider questions round law enforcement hacking and the future of encrypted phone networks.

But that’s not all. Each week, we spherical up the safety tales we didn’t cowl in-depth ourselves. Click on the headlines to learn the total tales. And keep secure on the market. 

On December 31, as thousands and thousands of individuals had been making ready for the beginning of 2023, Slack posted a new security update to its blog. In the put up, the corporate says it detected a “security issue involving unauthorized access to a subset of Slack’s code repositories.” Starting on December 27, it discovered that an unknown risk actor had stolen Slack worker tokens and used them to entry its exterior GitHub repository and obtain a few of the firm’s code.

“When notified of the incident, we immediately invalidated the stolen tokens and began investigating potential impact to our customers,” Slack’s disclosure says, including that the attacker didn’t entry buyer information and Slack customers don’t have to do something. 

The incident is much like a December 21 safety incident disclosed by authentication agency Okta, as cybersecurity journalist Catalin Cimpanu notes. Just earlier than Christmas, Okta revealed its code repositories had been accessed and copied.

Slack rapidly found the incident and reported it. However, as noticed by Bleeping Computer, Slack’s safety disclosure didn’t seem on its standard information weblog. And in some components of the world, the corporate included code to cease search engines like google together with it of their outcomes. In August 2022, Slack compelled password resets after a bug had exposed hashed passwords for five years. 

A Black man in Georgia spent nearly every week in jail after police reportedly relied on a face recognition match that was incorrect. Police in Louisiana used the know-how to acquire an arrest warrant for Randal Reid in a theft case they had been investigating. “I have never been to Louisiana a day in my life. Then they told me it was for theft. So not only have I not been to Louisiana, I also don’t steal,” Reid instructed native information website Nola.

The publication says a detective “took the algorithm at face value to secure a warrant” and says little is understood about police use of face recognition know-how in Louisiana. The names of any methods used haven’t been disclosed. However, that is simply the most recent case of face recognition technology being used in wrongful arrests. While police use of face recognition tech has quickly spread across US states, analysis has repeatedly proven it misidentifies individuals of shade and ladies extra continuously than white males.

On the primary day of this 12 months, Ukraine launched its deadliest missile strike towards invading Russian troops thus far. An assault on a brief Russian barracks in Makiivka, within the Russian-occupied Donetsk area, killed 89 troops, the Russian protection ministry claims. Ukrainian officers say round 400 Russian troopers had been killed. In the aftermath, Russia’s protection ministry claimed the situation of troops was recognized as a result of they had been using mobile phones without permission. 

During the battle, either side have stated they’re able to intercept and locate phone calls. While Russia’s newest declare ought to be handled with warning, the battle has highlighted how open source data can be used to target troops. Drones, satellite tv for pc photos, and social media posts have been used to watch individuals on the frontlines.

A brand new regulation in Louisiana requires porn websites to confirm the ages of tourists from the state to show they’re over 18. The regulation says age verification have to be used when a web site incorporates 33.3 % or extra pornographic content material. In response to the regulation, PornHub, the world’s greatest porn web site, now offers individuals the option to link their drivers license or government ID through a third-party service to show they’re authorized adults. PornHub says it doesn’t gather consumer information, however the transfer has raised fears of surveillance.

Around the world, nations are introducing legal guidelines that require porn website guests to show they’re sufficiently old to view the express materials. Lawmakers in Germany and France have threatened to block porn sites in the event that they don’t put the measures in place. Meanwhile, in February 2022 Twitter started blocking adult content creators in Germany as a result of age verification methods weren’t in place. The UK tried to introduce related age-checking measures between 2017 and 2019; nonetheless, the plans collapsed due to porn website admins’ confusion, design flaws, and fears of data breaches.

The world of spies is, by its very nature, cloaked in secrecy. Nations deploy brokers to nations to assemble intelligence, recruit different property, and affect occasions. But sometimes these spies get caught. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, extra of Russia’s spies throughout Europe have been recognized and expelled from nations. A new database from open supply researcher @inteltakes has pulled collectively identified circumstances of Russia’s spies in Europe since 2018. The database lists 41 entries of spies being uncovered and, the place attainable, particulars every asset’s nationality, career, and the service they had been recruited by.