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The last years have seen a scourge of account takeovers on social networks, with no more visible example than Last year’s daring Twitter hack. This week, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok took part in coordinated action to recover hundreds of accounts that had been used to facilitate the trading of these ill-gotten grips within the so-called OGUser community. It won’t solve the problem for good, but at least Something.
This is more than what can generally be said about the Streamlabs and StreamElements streamer donation platforms, which have allowed far-right and white supremacist users to monetize their hate. Both services are removing accounts that violate their terms of service when reported, but they have yet to take proactive action, as Twitter and Facebook have done in recent months.
Difficult also in moderation: Zoom, which despite the introduction of measures intended to stop “Zoom-bombing”, still suffers from the scourge. The researchers found that these attenuating characteristics doesn’t do much good against internal jobs—A high school student calling 4chan to disrupt his classroom, for example – which remain a common source of attacks.
Speaking of attack sources, it turns out SolarWinds provided two. Not only did Russian hackers succeed in a so-called supply chain attack by manipulating the company’s own code, Chinese hackers used flaw in SolarWinds software to dig deeper into at least one network they had already compromised.
Joe biden’s had their work cut out for them to fight disinformation. A big update to the way Chrome handles cookies will give advertisers some benefits, but it works great for google. And don’t forget to check out these recent articles: a look at the frightening convergence of ubiquitous sensor data, and the second part of our serialization of 2034, a novel about a fictional war with China that seems too real.
And there’s more! Every week, we collect all the news that we haven’t covered in depth. Click on the titles to read the full stories. And stay safe there.
An Amazon transparency report this week found that government requests for user data increased 800% between the first and second half of 2020. The company processed 3,222 requests in the first six months of the year and 27,664 requests in the past. Surprisingly, almost half of the requests came from the German government; Amazon transmitted user data in a total of 52 cases. The company does not have award tip to a particular cause, and it distributes the Amazon Web Services data requests separately.
It’s very likely that Chrome will automatically install updates on your computer, but it won’t hurt to check. Google says it fixed a so-called zero-day bug that hackers were actively exploiting. It’s unclear if this is the same loophole that North Korean hackers exploited as part of a larger campaign targeting security researchers, but the timing suggests the possibility, some say.
Few countries impose more restrictions on Internet use than Iran, which uses its centralized control of broadband services to strangle specific sites or completely deny access. The most recent victim of this censorship is the encrypted messenger Signal, which Iran shut down last week. But the developers of the app have devised a workaround, instructing individuals to set up their own TLS proxies that will allow people in Iran to bypass the blockade. You need a little know-how, but each virtual private server can support hundreds of users at a time.
In the wake of Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuits against conspiracy theorists Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, voting technology company Smartmatic launched its own defamation complaints this week. In addition to Giuliani and Powell, Smartmatic has filed a lawsuit against Fox Corporation of Rupert Murdoch as well as Fox anchors Maria Baritromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro. Smartmatic is seeking at least $ 2.7 billion in damages, alleging that the network has repeatedly spread false statements about its role in the 2020 election.
Motherboard and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab this week linked a fake version of WhatsApp to an Italian surveillance company called Cy4Gate. Phishing apps offer a potentially valuable breakthrough for hackers, who can potentially trick the victim into granting permissions that allow deep access to their devices. It appears to have been a targeted attack, but it’s an important reminder to stick to official app storesand be careful about what permissions you allow, even for software you trust.
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