Believe it or not no, stock GameStop wasn’t the only story in the world this week. The last few days have been a mess for cybersecurity as well, especially after those revelations [North Korean hackers targeted security pros](https://www.wired.com/story/north-korea-hackers-target-cybersecurity-researchers/) with a campaign to convince DMs. Lots of people were sharing screenshots of how they got off the shot, but it’s not yet clear how many more fell for the reason.
Speaking of falling, an international team of law enforcement agencies took down the infamous Emotet botnet this week, arresting two accused members of the gang behind it and arresting perpetrators. attend in the process. Ransomware operators and other malicious hackers who used Emotet to distribute the product are likely to move on to other methods of circulation, but at least they are “the most dangerous malware in the world,” as it were. Europol added, canceled for now.
These things tend to follow, after all. Take Flash, the software that launched a thousand vulnerabilities. Although Adobe killed it dead last week (for real this time) it will continue and maintain problems on some systems for years to come. Another potential problem: Telegram, the messaging app that has exploded in popularity as users have fled WhatsApp over privacy concerns and Parler over its current state of instability . While Telegram offers end-to-end encryption, it is by no means basic and is not available at all for group chairs, which some users may find themselves more than they could afford. expect.
Plans for an encrypted federal gun record challenged speculations this week, offering a way to balance accounting with privacy for a hot stove topic. And we took a look at how Facebook allows advertisers to target armed departments, which can have a detrimental effect on them.
Lastly, be sure to read the first installment in the serial novel we are running in WIRED this month and next. It follows a conflict with China in 2034 that is true fiction, but feels too close to real.
And there’s more! Each week we gather the news that we didn’t cover in depth. Click on the headings to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.
Most iOS updates have some sort of security fix. But hackers rarely take advantage of the vulnerabilities they seize. That’s the case with iOS 14.4, released earlier this week, which deals with not one but three bugs that attackers could use in the country, according to Apple ‘s security update. These are also not trivial matters; these flaws, which are present in WebKit and the iOS kernel, would have allowed remote code execution and welfare enhancement, respectively, and could either allow a hacker to access the device you and its data. Does that mean you were caught? Probably not! But it makes no sense to risk it when you can protect yourself by already installing the dang update.
Not all data distributions will be created equal. In this case, information such as their real names, date preferences, geolocation, Facebook user IDs and authentication tokens, and “body details” were shared as a free download on a hockey forum, ZDNet has 2.28 million users of the MeetMindful app. According to ZNet, the forum thread containing the download has been viewed more than 1,500 times since Sunday. Daily profile information is useful not only for identity theft, but also for more aggressive hacking schemes.
Ransomware has exploded recently, with hackers successfully targeting everything from hospitals to cities to multinational corporations. Last week the DoJ took action against one of the many agencies responsible for that situation, arresting a Canadian man he claims used Netwalker ransomware to shake victims for a combined $ 27.6 million. Unfortunately, Netwalker is a ransomware-as-a-service; the feds arrested an accused relative rather than a founding member of the group behind him. However, progress is progress.
Okay, well, it ‘s been a long week and this is an interview with a man who had to use bolt cutters to free himself from a battlement belt that a tractor had locked. at a distance. You deserve this.
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