The mysterious hacking group that supplied a critical component of the WannaCry “ransomware” software attack that spread across the globe in mid-May has been releasing alleged National Security Agency secrets for the past eight months. Former intelligence officials now fear that the hackers, who go by the name Shadow Brokers, are taking a new tack: exposing the identities of the NSA’s computer-hacking team.
Russia's postal service was hit by Wannacry ransomware and some of its computers are still down, three employees in Moscow said, the latest sign of weaknesses that have made the country a major victim of the global extortion campaign. Wannacry compromised the post office's automated queue management system, infecting touch-screen terminals which run on the outdated Windows XP operating system, one of the workers said.
The Trump administration is asking Congress to give the federal government sweeping powers to track, hack and destroy any type of drone over domestic soil with a new exception to laws governing surveillance, computer privacy and aircraft protection, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. The document is a 10-page draft and summary of legislation the executive branch circulated among several congressional committees, according to a congressional aide.
Retail giant Target will pay an $18.5 million multistate settlement, the largest ever for a data breach, to resolve state investigations of the 2013 cyber attack that affected more than 41 million of the company's customer payment card accounts. Announced by 47 states and the District of Columbia, the agreement sets new industry standards for companies that process payment cards and maintain confidential information about their customers.
The FCC published its proposal to undo the 2015 net neutrality rules, meaning the public is once again able to go and comment on it. An early draft of the proposal was published last month, and very little has changed between what was in the proposal a month ago and what’s in it today.
European Union ministers approved proposals to make social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube tackle videos with hate speech on their platforms. The proposals, which would be the first legislation at EU level on the issue, still need to be agreed with the European Parliament before becoming law.
Apple has settled a patent dispute with Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia and agreed to buy more of its network products and services. The deal means Nokia will get bigger royalties from Apple for using its mobile phone patents, helping offset the impact of waning demand for its mobile network hardware.
Arguing that Pandora's minimalist logo "dilutes the distinctiveness" of its own branding, PayPal filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the music streaming service in Manhattan federal court. "Element by element and in overall impression, the similarities between the logos are striking, obvious, and patently unlawful," the lawsuit alleges.
Cyber security firm Symantec Corp. said it was "highly likely" a hacking group affiliated with North Korea was behind the WannaCry cyber attack this month that infected more than 300,000 computers worldwide and disrupted operations at hospitals, banks and schools across the globe. Symantec researchers said they had found multiple instances of code that had been used both in the North Korean group's previous activity and in early versions of WannaCry.
John L. Steele, a Chicago lawyer already indicted for his role in the Prenda Law shakedown scheme targeting downloaders of online porn, has been disbarred. The criminal and professional actions against Steele arose out of his actions through the firms of Steele Hansmeier PLLC, Prenda Law and other associated business entities to use the courts to allegedly orchestrate “an elaborate scheme to fraudulently obtain millions of dollars in copyright lawsuit settlements by deceiving state and federal courts throughout the country,” according to federal prosecutors.
United Nations experts investigating violations of sanctions on North Korea have suffered a "sustained" cyber attack by unknown hackers with "very detailed insight" into their work, according to an email warning seen by Reuters. The hackers eventually breached the computer of one of the experts on May 8, the chair of the panel of experts wrote in an email to U.N. officials and the U.N. Security Council's North Korea sanctions committee, known as the 1718 committee.
Russian cyber criminals used malware planted on Android mobile devices to steal from domestic bank customers and were planning to target European lenders before their arrest, investigators and sources with knowledge of the case told Reuters. Their campaign raised a relatively small sum by cyber-crime standards -- more than 50 million roubles ($892,000) -- but they had also obtained more sophisticated malicious software for a modest monthly fee to go after the clients of banks in France and possibly a range of other western nations.
A small Boston company, founded by the inventor of a popular corporate encryption technology called RSA SecurID, sued Apple and Visa, arguing that the Apple Pay digital payment technology violates its patents. The lawsuit, filed by Universal Secure Registry in Federal District Court in Delaware, says that its chief executive, Kenneth P. Weiss, received 13 patents for authentication systems that use a smartphone, biometric identification such as a fingerprint and the generation of secure one-time tokens to conduct financial transactions.
The U.S. Supreme Court put sharp new limits on where patent-infringement lawsuits can be filed, undercutting patent owners’ ability to channel cases to favorable courts. The justices unanimously ruled in favor of TC Heartland LLC, an Indiana-based maker of water flavorings that said a Kraft Heinz Co. unit shouldn’t be allowed to sue it in Delaware.
A week after it struck, the WannaCry ransomware attack appears to have been a financial bust for the hackers who launched it. But WannaCry left behind billions in losses for users and a deep sense of vulnerability among data security experts who fear that worse attacks are yet to come.
Read the article: Boston Globe
Companies without cyber insurance are dusting off policies covering kidnap, ransom and extortion in the world's political hotspots to recoup losses caused by ransomware viruses such as "WannaCry", insurers say. Cyber insurance can be expensive to buy and is not widely used outside the United States, with one insurer previously describing the cost as $100,000 for $10 million in data breach insurance.
Vine as we once knew it has already been shut down, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean the information you provided to the Twitter-owned company is secure. Twitter just sent out a mass email to Vine users alerting them of a “bug” that briefly allowed third parties to view email addresses and phone numbers associated with Vine accounts.
A federal judge dismissed two lawsuits accusing Facebook Inc. of supporting terrorist groups by letting them use its social media platform to further their aims, including violence against Jews. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn dismissed a lawsuit brought on behalf of roughly 20,000 Israeli citizens and a lawsuit by family members and the estates of victims of attacks by Hamas.
The Republican-led Federal Communications Commission voted to begin undoing a key decision from the Obama era. The move highlights the uphill battle for Democrats and consumer advocates, who say that weaker rules could allow Internet service providers to abuse their position as gatekeepers between customers and the rest of the Internet.
Restaurant search service Zomato has revealed that millions of its customer accounts were accessed, with email addresses and hashed passwords stolen. Zomato, which claims 120 million users each month, said that around 17 million accounts are affected, though it has asserted that financial information and other personal details remain safe.
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