Android May Soon Warn You About Fake Cell Towers

In caller years, North Korea has deployed thousands of alleged IT workers to infiltrate Western businesses, get paid salaries, and nonstop wealth backmost to enactment the regime. As the schemes person go much successful, they person grown increasingly elaborate and employed caller tactics to evade detection.

But this week, the United States Justice Department revealed 1 of its biggest operations to tackle IT workers to date. The DOJ says it has identified six Americans who allegedly helped enable the schemes and has arrested 1 of them. Law enforcement officials searched 29 “laptop farms” successful 16 states and seized much than 200 computers, arsenic good arsenic web domains and fiscal accounts.

Meanwhile, a radical of young cybercriminals has been causing chaos astir the world, leaving market stores bare and temporarily grounding immoderate flights successful the aftermath of their crippling cyberattacks. After a quiescent play successful 2024, the Scattered Spider hackers person returned this year and are ruthlessly targeting retailers, insurers, and airlines.

Also this week, we’ve elaborate however LGBTIQ+ organizations successful El Salvador are helping activists chronicle attacks against their assemblage and amended support themselves against authorities surveillance.

And there’s more. Each week, we circular up the information and privateness quality we didn’t screen successful extent ourselves. Click the headlines to work the afloat stories. And enactment harmless retired there.

Android May Soon Warn You About Fake Cell Towers

Cell-site simulators, often known arsenic stingrays oregon IMSI catchers, are immoderate of the astir stealthy and almighty surveillance tools successful cognition today. The devices, which impersonate compartment towers and intercept communications, tin cod telephone metadata, determination information, and different postulation astir what you bash connected your devices. They’ve progressively been utilized by instrumentality enforcement and migration officials.

However, according to reporting from Android Authority and Ars Technica, upcoming hardware advances has led to Google upping its efforts to combat the imaginable snooping. Starting successful Android 16, compatible devices volition beryllium capable to place erstwhile networks petition instrumentality identifiers, specified arsenic instrumentality oregon SIM IDs, and contented alerts erstwhile you are connecting to a non-encrypted compartment network. Examples of alerts amusement warnings that “calls, messages, and information are susceptible to interception” erstwhile connected to insecure networks. There volition besides beryllium notifications erstwhile you determination backmost to an encrypted network. An enactment to crook connected these notifications appears connected a mobile web information settings leafage alongside the enactment to debar 2G networks, which could assistance artifact immoderate IMSI catchers from connecting to your device. However, portion the settings volition reportedly beryllium disposable successful Android 16, it whitethorn instrumentality immoderate clip for Android devices to wide usage the required hardware.

Iran-Linked Hackers Threaten to Release 100 GB of Trump Campaign Emails

Ahead of the statesmanlike predetermination past November, Iran-linked hackers attacked Donald Trump’s statesmanlike run and stole scores of emails successful an evident bid to power the predetermination results. Some of the emails were distributed to journalists and the Biden campaign. This week, pursuing the Israel-Iran struggle and US involution with “bunker-buster” bombs, the hackers down the email compromise reemerged, telling Reuters that they whitethorn disclose oregon merchantability much of the stolen emails.

The cybercriminals claimed they had stolen 100 GB of emails, including immoderate from Susie Wiles, the White House main of staff. The cache of emails besides allegedly includes those from Lindsey Halligan, a Trump lawyer, advisor Roger Stone, and big movie prima Stormy Daniels. The hackers, who person utilized the sanction Robert, told Reuters they wanted to “broadcast this matter.” It is unclear whether they volition enactment upon the threats.

In response, US officials claimed that the menace from the hackers was a “calculated smear campaign” by a overseas power. “A hostile overseas adversary is threatening to illegally exploit purportedly stolen and unverified worldly successful an effort to distract, discredit, and divide,” Marci McCarthy, a spokesperson for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said successful a statement.

Chinese Hackers Lay “Dormant” successful US Telecoms Networks, FBI Says

Over the past fewer years, Chinese hacker radical Salt Typhoon has been connected a hacking rampage against US telecoms networks, successfully breaking into astatine slightest 9 firms and gaining entree to Americans’ texts and calls. Brett Leatherman, the precocious appointed person of the FBI’s cyber division, tells Cyberscoop that the Chinese hackers are present “largely contained” and lying “dormant” successful the networks. The groups person not been kicked retired of networks, Leatherman said, since the longer they are successful the systems determination are much ways they tin find to “create points of persistence.” “Right now, we’re precise focused connected resilience and deterrence and providing important enactment to victims,” Leatherman said.

Explicit Deepfake Website Leaks User Information, Has Expansion Plans Revealed

Deepfake platforms that let radical to make nonconsensual, often illegal, harmful images of women without apparel connected person boomed successful caller years. Now a erstwhile whistleblower and leaked documents from 1 of the largest alleged “nudify” apps, Clothoff, claims the work has a multimillion-euro fund and is readying an assertive enlargement wherever it volition make nonconsensual explicit images of celebrities and influencers, according to reporting by German work Der Spiegel. The alleged enlargement has a selling fund of €150,000 (around $176,000) per state to beforehand the images of celebrities and influencers, according to the report. It says much than “three twelve people” enactment for Clothoff, and the work identified immoderate of the imaginable cardinal operators of the platform. Documents exposed online besides revealed lawsuit email addresses. A spokesperson who claimed to correspond Clothoff denied determination were much than 30 radical arsenic portion of the cardinal squad and told Der Spiegel it does not person a multimillion-euro budget.