A joint investigation by WIRED, Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) and Netzpolitik.org found that US companies that legally collect digital advertising data are enabling adversaries to cheaply track US military and intelligence personnel. A crowdsourced analysis of billions of location coordinates by a US-based data broker revealed detailed tracking of thousands of devices from sensitive US sites in Germany, including NSA facilities and bases which supposedly house US nuclear weapons.
Separately, social media giant Meta has revealed for the first time its efforts to combat forced labor compounds driving the rise of pig slaughter scams on its platforms. The company revealed that it has been quietly collaborating with global law enforcement, tech industry partners and outside experts for more than two years to dismantle the criminal syndicates behind these operations in Southeast Asia and the United Arab Emirates. This year alone, Meta reports that it has closed more than 2 million accounts linked to fraudulent compounds in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates.
At Friday’s Cyberwarcon security conference, cybersecurity firm SpyCloud shared findings on publicly accessible black market services that offer low-cost access to sensitive information about Chinese citizens, including phone numbers, banking details, hotel and flight records. , and even real-time location. data. According to the company’s researchers, these services appear to obtain your data through internal staff of Chinese surveillance agencies and government contractors, who sell their access. Also at the conference, cybersecurity firm Volexity discovered that a group of Russian hackers had developed a novel Wi-Fi hacking technique that involves taking control of a nearby laptop and using it as a bridge to infiltrate a Wi-Fi network. specific. Dubbed “nearest neighbor attack,” the method was discovered during a 2022 investigation by the company into a network breach in an unnamed Washington, DC. customer. And finally, researchers explored how the United States is denouncing foreign influence campaigns faster than ever, but there is plenty of room for improvement.
That’s not all. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth. Click on the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.
Hacktivists have broken into an online “educational platform” founded by misogynistic right-wing influencer Andrew Tate, reportedly revealing the email addresses of hundreds of thousands of users, as well as the contents of private chat servers. the platforms. The hack data, first reported by the Daily Dot, has now been published by transparency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets.
Andrew Tate, the so-called “king of toxic masculinity,” is currently under house arrest in Romania and faces two separate criminal chargesincluding allegations of forming an organized criminal group and trafficking in women in Romania, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The engaged platform, a subscription service known as The Real World (previously called Hustler’s University), describes itself as a “global community” focused on “personal growth.” According to their website, members receive expert training, mentoring, and access to a wide range of educational courses for about $50 a month.