News – September 2024


  • Sunken superyacht believed to contain watertight safes with sensitive intelligence data

    September 21, 2024

    Specialist divers surveying the wreckage of the $40 million superyacht that sank off Sicily in August, killing seven people including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, have asked for heightened security to guard the vessel, over concerns that sensitive data locked in its safes may interest foreign governments, multiple sources told CNN. Italian Prosecutors who have opened ...

  • What Is a Data Broker?

    September 20, 2024

    A data broker (also known as an information product company) is an organization that makes money by collecting your personal information, analyzing it, and licensing it out to be used by other companies for things like marketing purposes. Data providers gather data from many different sources to create a profile of who you are. This profile ...

  • Internet surveillance firm Sandvine says it’s leaving 56 ‘non-democratic’ countries

    September 20, 2024

    Sandvine, the makers of surveillance-ware that allowed authoritarian countries to censor the internet and spy on their citizens, announced that it is leaving dozens of “non-democratic” countries as part of a major overhaul of the company. The company, which was founded in Canada, published a statement on Thursday, claiming that it now wants to be “a ...

  • Agri-Food Sector Under Increasing Threat From Cyber Attacks

    September 20, 2024

    As the agri-food sector increasingly embraces automation with GPS, robotic systems, cloud-connected devices, and AI-driven tools to boost efficiency and crop yields, cyber risks have been rapidly escalating. With ransomware attacks as the primary threat, the food and agriculture sector ranks as the seventh most targeted industry in the United States, just behind sectors like manufacturing ...

  • -=TWELVE=- is back

    September 20, 2024

    In the spring of 2024, posts with real people’s personal data began appearing on the -=TWELVE=- Telegram channel. Soon it was blocked for falling foul of the Telegram terms of service. The group stayed off the radar for several months, but as Kaspersky researchers investigated a late June 2024 attack, they found that it employed techniques ...

  • “Simply staggering” surveillance conducted by social media and streaming services, FTC finds

    September 20, 2024

    The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a report that examines the data collection and use practices of major social media and video streaming services, finding that the companies engaged in vast surveillance of consumers in order to monetize their personal information while failing to adequately protect users online, especially children and teens. The report, called ...

  • UNC1860 and the Temple of Oats: Iran’s Hidden Hand in Middle Eastern Networks

    September 19, 2024

    UNC1860 is a persistent and opportunistic Iranian state-sponsored threat actor that is likely affiliated with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). A key feature of UNC1860 is its collection of specialized tooling and passive backdoors that Mandiant believes supports several objectives, including its role as a probable initial access provider and its ability to gain ...

  • Major data breach impacts Australian hardware store

    September 19, 2024

    About 40,000 customers of a major hardware chain have had their data leaked by hackers, including credit card details, mobile numbers and email addresses. Total Tools has fallen victim to a cyber attack which was first identified earlier this week. Total Tools chief executive Richard Murray said on Thursday they were confident the cause of the ...

  • Identifying Rogue AI

    September 19, 2024

    For many – certainly given the share price of some leading proponents – the hype of AI is starting to fade. But that may be about to change with the dawn of agentic AI. It promises to get humanity far closer to the ideal of AI as an autonomous technology capable of goal-oriented problem solving. But ...

  • Zooming in on CVE‑2024‑7965

    September 19, 2024

    On August 21, Google released an update for Chrome, fixing a total of 37 security flaws. Researchers across the globe paid their attention to the CVE‑2024‑7965 vulnerability described as an inappropriate implementation in the browser’s V8 engine. The vulnerability can lead to remote code execution (RCE) in the Chrome renderer and thus become a starting point ...