Cybersecurity is the rickety scaffolding supporting everything you do online. For every new feature or app, there are a thousand different ways it can break – and a hundred of those can be exploited by criminals for data breaches, identity theft, or outright cyber heists. Staying ahead of those exploits is a full-time job, and one of the most lucrative and sought-after skills in the tech industry. All too often, it’s something up-and-coming companies decide to skip out on, only to pay the price later on.
The encrypted messaging app has already pushed out an update for a vulnerability that Russian hackers have been using to target Ukrainian soldiers. The attacks, discovered by Google, used malicious QR codes to link targets’ devices to the hackers’, allowing them to receive all their future messages. Signal’s update prompts users to confirm they want to create the link, but WhatsApp and Telegram may be vulnerable too.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a memo freezing its election security efforts to review all work and positions “related to election security and countering mis- and- disinformation” at the state and local level since 2017, reports Wired. The review is reportedly set to conclude on March 6th.
The outlet writes that the memo also confirms an earlier Politico report that CISA employees associated with the work were placed on administrative leave on February 7th.
A clever and since-fixed exploit allowed a security researcher to find the email address belonging to any YouTube account through a roundabout series of steps. Strangely enough, the Pixel Recorder app played an important role in spilling the Google account details.
Google’s security panel initially awarded the researcher $3,133 before upping the total to $10,000 — a sum that many on Hacker News still find rather low considering the exploit.
[brutecat.com]
Two zero-day holes being fixed on this Patch Tuesday could potentially allow attackers to delete your files and gain unmitigated system-level privileges, Bleeping Computer reports, so update ASAP.
In lighter news, the KB5051987 update continues rolling out a feature that improves taskbar previews. Plus, a new system tray icon will appear when using apps that support Windows Studio Effects on computers with a neural processing unit, like new Copilot Plus PCs.
This recent video from YouTuber Chuppl highlights a 2023 pre-print estimating people have wasted as many as 819 million hours solving reCAPTCHA since Google acquired it in 2009, as spotted earlier by Boing Boing. Dr. Andrew Searles, the researcher who submitted the study, told Chuppl that Google collects a trove of data through reCAPTCHA, including keystrokes, clicks, IP addresses, and more.
Please don’t buy used phones with TikTok installed. I know it’s hard to pass the time without the FYP, but it’s a massive security and privacy risk. Just scroll on your browser instead.
It’s not clear whether any of the examples in this New York Times story have actually sold, but eBay is full of listings that apparently have been purchased.
[The New York Times]
TechCrunch says that the US edtech giant declined to answer outstanding questions about the hack it reported this month, and several schools that were impacted have yet to receive an incident report.
Both the scale of the breach and who was behind it are still unknown. PowerSchool did notify customers that “sensitive personal information” on students and teachers was stolen, however.
Bleeping Computer points out why so many of those phishing texts about packages or unpaid tolls urge you to reply with something like a “Y” these days.
It’s because when the iOS Messages app’s “Filter Unknown Senders” option is on, links from those senders are disabled by default. Replying activates the link so you can tap it, which savvy Verge readers know you should never, ever do.
[BleepingComputer]
Android Authority has found code that enables the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) end-to-end encryption protocol for one-on-one chats in Google’s chat app. Google announced support for the standard way back in 2023, which should improve on its existing RCS encryption — especially for group chats — through interoperability between apps and operating systems. That’ll matter more when more companies (take the hint, Apple) get on board.
404 Media has a good story about the reported hack of Gravy Analytics, and let’s just say the situation doesn’t seem great:
The hackers said they have stolen a massive amount of data, including customer lists, information on the broader industry, and even location data harvested from smartphones which show peoples’ precise movements, and they are threatening to publish the data publicly.
Business Insider is highlighting the curious case of Corellium cybersecurity executive Chris Wade, who got a “full and unconditional pardon” from Trump for crimes the world had never heard about.
Wade was reportedly caught conducting stock market pump-and-dump schemes by sending spam emails from hacked computers. But why did the government keep it a secret, and why did Trump pardon him?
