Pakistan to launch home-grown messaging app amid internet disruptions

The Pakistani government is set to roll out “Beep Pakistan”, a communication application designed for federal officials and employees. Shaza Fatima Khwaja, the state minister for information technology and telecommunication, said that the application was currently undergoing trial runs within Read More …

US senators ask FTC to investigate car makers’ privacy practices

An ongoing US Senate investigation indicated that connected car makers violate consumer privacy by sharing and selling drivers’ data, including their location, on a vast scale, and that the same car makers often obtain consumer consent through deception. Based on Read More …

Mandrake spyware sneaks onto Google Play again, flying under the radar for two years

In April 2024, Kaspersky researchers discovered a suspicious sample that appeared to be a new version of Mandrake. Ensuing analysis revealed as many as five Mandrake applications, which had been available on Google Play from 2022 to 2024 with more Read More …

US border agents must get warrant before cell phone searches, federal court rules

A federal district court in New York has ruled that U.S. border agents must obtain a warrant before searching the electronic devices of Americans and international travelers crossing the U.S. border. The ruling on July 24 is the latest court Read More …

UK: 48 cyber breaches of utility companies recorded last year, a 586% increase on 2022

The number of successful cyber attacks against UK utility companies has risen to 48 in 2023, a 586% increase on the seven cases in 2022, says global specialty (re)insurance group Chaucer. So far these cyber attacks have been largely restricted Read More …

Intruders at HealthEquity rifled through storage, stole 4.3M people’s data

HealthEquity, a US fintech firm for the healthcare sector, admits that a “data security event” it discovered at the end of June hit the data of a substantial 4.3 million individuals. Stolen details include addresses, telephone numbers and payment data.… Read More …

Elon Musk’s X accused of AI data grab in ‘blatant breach of law’

Privacy organisation Open Rights Group has branded a move by social network X (formerly Twitter) to use user data to train its Grok AI as a “blatant breach of GDPR”. The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is an EU law Read More …

Georgia: Columbus hit by data breach, officials say not considered ransomware incident

Columbus experienced a data breach last Wednesday, the same day as an internet outage, city officials say. The only information believed to have been accessed are employees’ names, work emails and passwords, according to Mike Richardson, the city’s director of Read More …