Week in cyber: recap of most important stories
Have data leaks and breaches become so routine that we don't even notice news about them anymore? As always, we summed up stories we think you shouldn't be indifferent to since they paint quite a scary picture of the dark side of our digital lives.
Shutterstock/Cybernews
Have data leaks and breaches become so routine that we don't even notice news about them anymore? As always, we summed up stories we think you shouldn't be indifferent to since they paint quite a scary picture of the dark side of our digital lives.
Here's your weekly recap of exclusive Cybernews stories and some of the scariest, infuriating, or bizarre things we observed in the week that ended the longest month of the year.
Justinas Vainilavičius brought you a story about the cybercrime economy. Believe it or not, it is the third biggest economy after the US and China. It is projected to cost the world $8 trillion in 2023 and $10.5 trillion by 2025.
With the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine approaching, Damien Black sat down for an exclusive interview with Victor Zhora, Chief Digital Transformation Officer at the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine, to talk about the havoc that cyber soldiers bring, and Ukraine's desire to make them answer before Hague.
As always, this week, we had some exclusive research reports for you to dive into. Paulina Okunytė detailed a story on how Renewal by Andersen, the largest window and door manufacturer in North America, leaked nearly 300,000 documents exposing the company's customer home addresses, contact details, and home renovation orders, including interior and exterior photos of client homes from various US states.
Circle K leak was yet another exclusive discovery by the Cybernews research team, highlighting the importance of keeping your data private, even the one that seems insignificant and of no use to criminals. A popular chain of convenience stores and gas stations exposed a treasure trove of employee and customer information: partial payment card numbers, full customer loyalty card numbers, purchase data, employee email addresses, phone numbers, and zip codes, among other data.
Vilius Petkauskas detailed the hilarious Yandex search policy following its source code leak. For example, Yandex tried to make it impossible for users to find an image of Putin when searching for profane words and phrases. However, Yandex also did not allow its search engine to associate Putin with the word "bald" and terms such as "bunker grandfather" or "master thief."
Gintaras Radauskas knows all about the Netflix password-sharing crackdown, among other things. The crackdown is expected to reach the US and Canada in March, and it will be rolled out worldwide after that. The guidance states that all Netflix accounts will need to set their primary location, and users will have to check in at their home address via the designated Wi-Fi network.
Anna Zhadan described yet another AI misuse. ElevenLabs' Prime Voice AI tool has been dangerously misused to generate the voices of celebrities. Emma Watson can be heard reading out a section of Hitler's Mein Kampf. In a separate audio, American political commentator Ben Shapiro makes racist remarks about a member of the US Democratic Party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Sir David Attenborough's voice was also used in a racist recording.
Stefanie Schappert deep-dived into the cybercriminal forums and found a threat actor trying to sell what is allegedly customer data from US Cellular. A dark web hacker claims to have obtained the stolen data belonging to 144,000 US Cellular mobile customers and is now offering it up for free on the popular black market.
Other notable stories:
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