Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of the communications app Telegram, was arrested in France on Saturday as part of an investigation into his alleged failure to moderate illegal content on the platform, among other allegations. After being detained for four days, he was charged on Wednesday evening, banned from leaving France and released on condition that he post a 5 million euro ($5.5 million) bail and report to a French police station twice a week. The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday that Durov faces complicity charges related to child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking, as well as charges of importing crypto without prior declaration and an “almost total absence” of cooperation with French authorities.
“Nudify” deepfake websites that generate images of people’s naked bodies without their consent have been incorporating single-sign-on authentication systems into their websites, according to a WIRED investigation. Discord and Apple are terminating some developers’ accounts due to this use.
Microsoft on Wednesday published research into a new multi-stage backdoor that the notorious Iranian hacking group APT 33 or Peach Sandstorm has been using to target victims in sectors such as satellites, communications equipment, and oil and gas. And Google researchers found that suspected Russian hackers compromised Mongolian government websites between November 2023 and July 2024 and then infected vulnerable users who visited the sites with malware. Crucially, the attackers compromised the targets using exploits that were identical or very similar to hacking tools created by commercial spyware vendors NSO Group and Intellexa.
And there’s more. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we haven’t covered in depth. Click on the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe.
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) provided Austrian authorities with crucial information that led to the arrest of suspects who were allegedly plotting to bomb Taylor Swift’s concerts in Austria earlier this month. All three of the singer’s planned concerts were cancelled at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium because of the threat. CIA Deputy Director David Cohen told the CIA intelligence briefing on Wednesday: “There were people within my agency and others who thought it was a really good day for Langley and not just for the Swifties on my team.”
The prime suspect is a 19-year-old Austrian of North Macedonian origin who has reportedly made a full confession. Austrian security forces also arrested an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old in connection with the plot. Police also reportedly questioned a 15-year-old. The plot was allegedly inspired by Islamic State and included plans to attack fans outside the venue with knives or explosives. Earlier this month, Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said foreign intelligence agencies contributed to the investigation because Austrian law prohibits monitoring text messages.
“They were planning to kill a large number of people, tens of thousands of people at this concert, including, I’m sure, many Americans, and they were quite far along in this,” the CIA’s Cohen said at the briefing. “The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them with information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do.”
Hackers who may be backed by the Chinese government have been exploiting a Recently patched The vulnerability in the network management virtualization software known as Versa Director has compromised at least four U.S.-based internet service providers and stolen authentication credentials used by their customers. Researchers at Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs said Thursday that the attacks began on June 12 and are likely to be ongoing. The hackers exploited the Versa Director vulnerability to install remote access malware that Lumen dubbed “VersaMem.”
“Given the severity of the vulnerability, the implications of compromised Versa Director systems, and the length of time it has taken to enable Versa customers to patch the vulnerability, Black Lotus Labs felt it was appropriate to release this information at this time,” the researchers said. wrote in a blog post“Lumen Technologies shared threat intelligence to alert relevant U.S. government agencies about emerging risks that could impact our nation’s strategic assets.”
The coalition of film studios known as the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment said on Thursday that Hanoi police investigated and dismantled Vietnam-based pirate streaming service Fmovies and its affiliates. The task force said it cooperated with law enforcement and provided information about Fmovies, which it called “the largest pirate streaming operation in the world.” The group added that Fmovies and its affiliated sites, which included bflixz, flixtorz, movies7, myflixer and aniwave, had more than 6.7 billion views between January 2023 and June 2024. The police operation also led to the dismantling of video hosting provider Vidsrc.to and its affiliates because these services were allegedly “operated by the same suspects.” Hanoi police arrested two men in connection with the case.
Following a digital attack on dozens of French museums during the Olympics earlier this month, the ransomware gang known as Brain Cipher has claimed responsibility for the attacks and is threatening to leak 300GB of data stolen from the museums. Le Grand Palais and dozens of other French national museums and cultural organisations are overseen by Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais and all reportedly use a shared digital infrastructure, which was targeted by the attackers.
