For decades, the security industry has warned that the cybercriminal economy has been developing its own highly specialized, professional supply chain. But only when law enforcement tears the lid off a well-honed hacker operation—as they did today with the global Goznym malware crew—does the full picture of every interlinked step in that globalized crime network come into focus. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
May 20, 2019•7 min
As part of its expanded anti-phishing and account security measures, Google offers extensive support for physical authentication tokens. In a surprising setback, though, the company announced today that it has discovered a vulnerability in the Bluetooth version of its own Titan Security Key—which pairs to devices through the wireless Bluetooth Low Energy protocol, rather than through NFC or physical insertion into a port. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
May 20, 2019•4 min
The Tandberg video-teleconference monitor is sleeker than the average desktop computer but not much bigger. Developed by a Norwegian concern now owned by Cisco Systems, the desktop units—which look like knock-off iMacs, with a handset for dialing—support seamless and, when enabled, classified video-teleconferencing. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
May 17, 2019•11 min
Despite high-profile arrests and protocols with clever names, the robocall scourge remains indomitable. Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai teased a new proposal to put a serious dent in the problem. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. On the face of it, Pai’s proposal sounds appealing. It would allow carriers to block robocalls by default, rather than on an opt-in basis. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
May 17, 2019•5 min
This week, Microsoft issued patches for 79 flaws across its platforms and products. One of them merits particular attention: a bug so bad that Microsoft released a fix for it on Windows XP, an operating system it officially abandoned five years ago. There’s maybe no better sign of a vulnerability’s severity; the last time Microsoft bothered to make a Windows XP fix publicly available was a little over two years ago, in the months before the WannaCry ransomware attack swept the globe. Learn about...
May 16, 2019•6 min
Hackers got into pretty much everything, and Amazon is paying employees to quit. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Today's Headlines A phone call broke Whatsapp The messaging platform WhatsApp is well known for its end-to-end encryption, but recent news calls its security into question. The NSO Group, an Israeli spy firm, injected malware onto targeted phones in order to steal data by simply placing a phone call. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
May 16, 2019•3 min
You've heard the advice a million times. Don't click links in suspicious emails or texts. Don't download shady apps. But a new Financial Times report alleges that the notorious Israeli spy firm NSO Group developed a WhatsApp exploit that could inject malware onto targeted phones—and steal data from them—simply by calling them. The targets didn't need to pick up to be infected, and the calls often left no trace on the phone's log. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
May 15, 2019•5 min
Your Cisco routers aren't safe, the Supreme Court voted against Apple, and the nostalgic Tomagotchi has returned. Here's the tech news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Today's Headlines Hackers found a way into Cisco devices. Millions of them Everyone uses Cisco routers, including institutions that deal with hypersensitive information. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
May 15, 2019•3 min
The hack of health insurance giant Anthem Inc. has loomed large in the public consciousness since it first came to light in 2015—not just as one of the biggest breaches of all time, but also as a potential example of the Chinese government's longstanding cyber espionage campaign. Hackers stole names, birth dates, addresses, Social Security numbers, and employment details from 78 million Anthem customers. And for years China was reported to be behind it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx....
May 14, 2019•4 min
It was a week of notable firsts, although not always welcome ones. Israel responded to a Hamas cyberattack by blowing up the building that apparently housed the responsible hacking group, a new escalation in cyberwar doctrine. Google for the first time lets you limit how long it keeps your data—so go do that. And the CIA became the first intelligence agency to establish an official presence on the Tor anonymous network. For some reason. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
May 14, 2019•5 min
Thanks to advances in machine learning, computers have gotten really good at identifying what’s in photographs. They started beating humans at the task years ago, and can now even generate fake images that look eerily real. While the technology has come a long way, it’s still not entirely foolproof. In particular, researchers have found that image detection algorithms remain susceptible to a class of problems called adversarial examples. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
May 13, 2019•5 min
On the dark web drug market Empire this week, business proceeds as usual. "Satisfied customer, will be back," writes one user on the product page of a meth dealer with the handle shardyshardface. "Excellent," reads a plaudit posted by a buyer of the opiate oxycodone. "Bravo," says another for a five-dollar sample of fentanyl, one of 18 reviews posted on the product's profile page in the last week. In all, Empire lists over 18,000-plus narcotic offerings, including hundreds for oxycodone alone. L...
May 10, 2019•9 min
Binance is one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges. As of Tuesday, it’s now also the scene of a major cryptocurrency theft. In what the company calls a “large scale security breach,” hackers stole not only 7,000 bitcoin—equivalent to over $40 million—but also some user two-factor authentication codes and API tokens. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
May 09, 2019•5 min
The First Amendment and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act collided last month when the UK arrested Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on, among other things, a US extradition request for computer crime. He has since been sentenced to 50 weeks in a British prison. For roughly seven years before his arrest, he’d been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, but on April 11, the Ecuadorian government withdrew his asylum. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
May 09, 2019•11 min
The anonymity service Tor has grown in popularity around the world over the last few years, but it has also long been a tool for intelligence agencies and clandestine communications—not to mention endless cat-and-mouse games between law enforcement and criminals. But now, the CIA is staking out a more public presence there. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
May 08, 2019•4 min
This weekend, violence between Israel and Gaza escalated to a degree not seen since 2014, with 25 Palestinians and four Israelis killed in the fighting. Decades into the entrenched tensions of the region, the incident overall was tragically unsurprising. But for cybersecurity professionals, one aspect particularly stood out: The Israeli Defense Force claimed that it bombed and partially destroyed one building in Gaza because it was allegedly the base of an active Hamas hacking group. Learn about...
May 08, 2019•8 min
The week began with dragon’s breath. After a major breach in its firewall, a scrappy security team in the north engaged in an epic battle to rid its system of an infected payload that kept growing bigger and bigger, spewing frozen ice flames across all critical infrastructure. Yes, I’m talking about Game of Thrones, folks, and yes, we asked an officer in the Army National Guard to do a tactical analysis of the battle of Winterfell, and yes, it’s wonderful and you should read it. Learn about your...
May 07, 2019•5 min
Hackers are hacking, Portland is leading the charge for open internet, and Paris is pondering what to do with what's left of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. A hacker group is on a hijacking spree Over the past three years, insidious supply chain attacks on at least six different companies have now all been tied to a single group of hackers. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
May 07, 2019•2 min
A software supply chain attack represents one of the most insidious forms of hacking. By breaking into a developer's network and hiding malicious code within apps and software updates that users trust, supply chain hijackers can smuggle their malware onto hundreds of thousands—or millions—of computers in a single operation, without the slightest sign of foul play. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
May 06, 2019•11 min
In the United States, the public discourse has lately centered around nation state disinformation campaigns much more than hacktivism. But internationally, dramatic or destructive digital acts that call attention to particular issues continue to simmer—and boiled over in the lead-up to the ouster of longtime Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir. The #OpSudan effort did not directly lead to al-Bashir's arrest. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
May 03, 2019•7 min
In December, WIRED took stock of then 17 known criminal investigations swirling around Donald Trump, Russia’s role in the 2016 election, and Trump’s network of businesses and business partners—probes by not just Special Counsel Robert Mueller but by at least a half-dozen other federal, state, and local investigators. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
May 02, 2019•17 min
Two years ago, as Nebraska was considering a “right to repair” bill designed to make it easier for consumers to fix their own gadgets, an Apple lobbyist made a frightening prediction. If the state passed the legislation, it would turn into a haven for hackers, Steve Kester told then-state senator Lydia Brasch. He argued the law would inadvertently give bad actors the opportunity to break into devices like smartphones. The bill was later shelved, in part because of industry pressure. Learn about ...
May 01, 2019•6 min
By now we’re all familiar with the battle tactics in Game of Thrones: Confront your enemy head on—usually in some nicely arrayed lines—and hack at them until no one’s left alive or someone has won. It’s a tried and true method, with little in the way of actual operational depth. And as Sunday night’s Battle of Winterfell showed, it's particularly ineffective against an endless army of the undead. Spoilers ahead, obviously. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Apr 30, 2019•10 min
The week in security news began much as you’d expect: still trying to make sense of the redacted Mueller report, which was released to congress late last week. Garrett M. Graff’s takeaways? The report makes clear that Trump was worse than a “useful idiot,” along with 14 other insights you may have missed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Apr 30, 2019•5 min
Around a year ago, André Tenreiro was called into a meeting between the chief technology officer of the phone carrier he worked for—one of the largest in Mozambique—and an executive of the country's largest bank. The latter had seen an escalating pattern of fraud based on so-called SIM swap attacks, where hackers trick or bribe a phone company employee into switching the SIM card associated with a victim's phone number. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Apr 29, 2019•9 min
You’ve seen the ads in your email or online: Celebrities supposedly hawking miracle weight loss cures or galaxy brain supplements. They’re at this point endemic to the web, as deeply ingrained as hashtags and puppies. But even though plenty of people fall for them, no one ever really does anything about it. Of all the security threats online, spam ranks pretty low on the priority list. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Apr 26, 2019•7 min
Back in January, approximately 1,000 Robert Mueller news-cycles ago, I argued that given the arc of the special counsel Russia probe, it’d be embarrassing for Donald Trump if he weren’t an agent of the Russian intelligence: “We’ve reached a point in the Mueller probe where there are only two scenarios left,” I wrote at the time. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Apr 25, 2019•10 min
Democrats in Washington found themselves Friday confronting an unwelcome surprise conclusion following the release of the final report by special counsel Robert Mueller: Maybe we should impeach President Trump after all. Ever since taking back the House of Representatives in January, Democratic leaders have carefully modulated the demands for impeachment from their activist base. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Apr 25, 2019•9 min
After a series of bombings killed over 300 people in Sri Lanka Easter Sunday, the country’s government blocked access to social media sites including Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and the chat app Viber, according to state media and independent organizations that monitor internet blocks. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Apr 24, 2019•8 min
Netflix made a splash when it debuted Black Mirror: Bandersnatch in December, a "choose your own adventure"-style movie that put viewers in charge of their cinematic destiny. It has since invested in even more interactive programming, including a live-action show featuring survivalist Bear Grylls. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Apr 24, 2019•6 min
