Global cyber-espionage campaign linked to Russian spying tools

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Frank Cisco

Kaspersky investigators uncover evidence that may support US claims Moscow was behind attack

A Moscow-based cybersecurity company has reported that some of the malicious code employed against the US government in a cyber-attack last month overlaps with code previously used by suspected Russian hackers.

The findings by Kaspersky investigators may provide the first public evidence to support accusations from Washington that Moscow was behind the biggest cyber-raid against the government in years, affecting 18,000 users of software produced by SolarWinds, including US government agencies.

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Data breach hits 30,000 signed up to workplace pensions provider

Posted on December 23, 2020 by Frank Cisco

Fraud worries as UK company Now:Pensions says ‘third-party contractor’ posted personal details of clients to online public forum

About 30,000 customers of Now:Pensions face an anxious Christmas after a serious data breach at the pensions provider led to their sensitive personal details being posted on the internet.

In an email sent to affected customers, the workplace pensions firm warned that names, postal and email addresses, birth dates and National Insurance numbers all appeared in a public forum online.

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iPhones vulnerable to hacking tool for months, researchers say

Posted on December 20, 2020 by Frank Cisco

Analysis: NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware could allegedly track locations and access passwords

Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using Israeli firm’s spyware

For almost a year, spyware sold by Israel’s NSO Group was allegedly armed with a computer security super-weapon: a zero-footprint, zero-click, zero-day exploit that used a vulnerability in iMessage to seize control of an iPhone at the push of a button.

That means it would have left no visible trace of being placed on target’s phones, could be installed by simply sending a message that the victim didn’t even need to click on, and worked even on phones that were running the then-latest version of iOS, the operating system for iPhones.

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Outing of FSB hit squad highlights Russia’s data security problem

Posted on December 16, 2020 by Frank Cisco

Analysis: trade in stolen data is a boon for investigators and a headache for Kremlin

In early 2019, the journalist Andrey Zakharov managed to buy his own phone records and banking records in a groundbreaking investigation into Russia’s thriving markets in stolen personal data, in which law enforcement and telecoms employees can be contracted anonymously to dip into their systems and pull out sensitive details on anyone.

A year and a half later, investigators from Bellingcat and the Insider used some of the same tools and clever analysis to out a secret FSB team that had been tasked with killing Alexei Navalny using a novichok nerve agent.

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‘Antiquated process’: data regulator on obtaining Cambridge Analytica warrant

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Frank Cisco

UK information commissioner calls for international approach to emerging threat

The information commissioner has criticised the “antiquated process” that led to Facebook getting hold of Cambridge Analytica’s servers before the UK regulator itself, and renewed calls for an international approach to data privacy to tackle the emerging threat of data havens.

Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner, spoke to Damian Collins MP, the former chair of the digital, culture, media and sport committee, who led the parliamentary enquiry into disinformation, on his podcast Infotagion. She described discovering that Facebook was inside the offices of defunct electioneering consultancy Cambridge Analytica while in the middle of an interview with Channel 4’s Jon Snow.

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Twitter hires veteran hacker Mudge as head of security

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Frank Cisco

Peiter Zatko’s appointment follows mass attack on social media platform in July

Twitter has appointed one of the world’s most respected hackers as its new head of security in the wake of a humiliating mass attack in July.

The company has placed Peiter Zatko in charge of protecting its platform from threats of all varieties, poaching him from the payments startup Stripe. Zatko is better known as Mudge, his handle for more than 20 years of operation on both sides of the information security arena.

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BA fined record £20m for customer data breach

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Frank Cisco

Personal details of more than 400,000 customers accessed by hackers in 2018

British Airways has been fined a record £20m for a data breach in which more than 400,000 customers’ personal details were compromised by hackers in 2018.

The fine is the biggest ever issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), but a fraction of the £183m fine initially announced last year. This was reduced after investigators accepted BA’s representations about the circumstances of the attack; and was reduced further to take into account the dire financial position of BA since the onset of Covid-19.

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Give up Google, don’t hit ‘accept all’: how to fight for your privacy

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Frank Cisco

In Privacy Is Power, professor Carissa Véliz has made a shocking survey of how much intimate data we are surrendering. But she has a plan to fight back

“If you’re reading this book, you probably already know your personal data is being collected, stored and analysed,” Carissa Véliz begins, in Privacy Is Power. Her challenge, as a writer and a privacy advocate, is to shake us out of our complacency; to persuade us to see this not as a necessary sacrifice in the digital age, but an intolerable invasion. From the mounting dread I felt while reading Privacy Is Power, I’d say she was successful.

From the moment you wake up and first check your phone, to the marketers that infer your mood from your music choices, to the smart speaker that shares your private conversations, or the television that listens in on them (from the terms and conditions of a Samsung smart TV: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured”), there is nowhere to hide – or even just be – in this hyper-connected hellscape. Corporations can track you both by your face and your digital footprint, your medical records may be handed over to Big Tech, and advertisers may learn of your break-up before you do. In her book, Véliz, a professor at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University, often veers into the second person, cleverly underscoring her point: it’s impossible not to picture yourself blindly navigating this horror, then you remember – you already are.

Think twice before sharing. Before you post something, think how it might be used against you.

In Japan last year, a man sexually assaulted a pop star, claiming he had found her by analysing reflections in her eyes in photos she had posted online

Privacy Is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data, by Carissa Véliz is published by Bantam Press. To order a copy, go to guardianbookshop.com.

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Your data is not destined for China, assures TikTok’s UK boss

Posted on August 23, 2020 by Frank Cisco

The controversial app’s users are ignoring geopolitical battle over its digital security, says Richard Waterworth

TikTok’s UK chief has strenuously denied the video-sharing app, which Donald Trump has threatened to ban, shares data with China.

Richard Waterworth told the Observer that the UK and European arm of TikTok was growing quickly, despite the “turbulent” geopolitical battle in which the Chinese-born app has found itself.

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MPs criticise privacy watchdog over NHS test-and-trace data

Posted on August 20, 2020 by Frank Cisco

UK information commissioner ‘must ensure government uses public’s data safely and legally’

A cross-party group of more than 20 MPs has accused the UK’s privacy watchdog of failing to hold the government to account for its failures in the NHS coronavirus test-and-trace programme.

The MPs have urged Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner, to demand that the government change the programme after it admitted failing to conduct a legally required impact assessment of its privacy implications.

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Tag Archives: Data and computer security | The Guardian

Global cyber-espionage campaign linked to Russian spying tools

Data breach hits 30,000 signed up to workplace pensions provider

iPhones vulnerable to hacking tool for months, researchers say

Outing of FSB hit squad highlights Russia’s data security problem

‘Antiquated process’: data regulator on obtaining Cambridge Analytica warrant

Twitter hires veteran hacker Mudge as head of security

BA fined record £20m for customer data breach

Give up Google, don’t hit ‘accept all’: how to fight for your privacy

Your data is not destined for China, assures TikTok’s UK boss

MPs criticise privacy watchdog over NHS test-and-trace data