How are you Sneaking information into the Soviet Union right under the KGB’s nose? Of course, create your own encryption system. That’s exactly what saxophonist and music professor Merryl Goldberg did throughout the 1980s. This week Goldberg revealed that she used musical notation to hide the names and addresses of the activists as well as the details of the meetings. on a rare trip to the Soviet Union. To do so, she set up her own encryption system. Each musical note and sign represents the letters of the alphabet and helps conceal sensitive information. When Soviet officers examined the documents, no suspicion has been raised.
Goldberg’s story was told at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week, where WIRED’s Lily Newman explored the stories. Also coming from RSA: a warning that as ransomware becomes less profitable, attackers could turn to business email infiltration (BEC) scams to make money—BEC attacks have been highly profitable.
Also this week, dark web marketplace AlphaBay is about to complete its journey back to the top of the online underworld. The original AlphaBay site — which hosts more than 350,000 listings of products ranging from drugs to cybercrime services — was removed from the dark web in July 2017 as part of the Massive law enforcement operation. However, AlphaBay’s second-in-command, an actor named DeSnake, survived the law enforcement operation and relaunched the site last year. The current AlphaBay is growing rapidly and is on track to regain its dominant position in the dark web market.
In a different twist, Apple held its annual Worldwide Developers Conference this week and revealed iOS 16, macOS Ventura and some new MacBooks — WIRED’s Gear Team has helped you everything Apple announced at WWDC. However, there are two prominent new security features that are worth mentioning: Apple is replacing passwords with new cryptographic keysand it is introducing a safety check feature for helping people in abusive relationships. Database company MongoDB also hosted its own event this week, and while it may not be as famous as WWDC, MongoDB’s new Queryable Encryption tool could be a big hit. Key protection to prevent data leakage.
Also this week, we reported on a Tesla vulnerability that allows anyone create their own NFC car keys. New research from the Mozilla Foundation has found that Misinformation and hate speech are flooding TikTok ahead of the Kenyan electionwhich took place in early August. Elon Musk is said to have gained access to Twitter’s “fire hydrant”, raise privacy concerns. And we dive in shocking new evidence televised by the House Committee on January 6.
But that’s not all, guys. Every week, we update with big security and privacy news that we don’t cover at all. Click the link to see the full story, and stay safe out there.
Over the past two years, state-sponsored hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government have targeted a wide variety of communications technologies, from home routers to major telecom networks. That’s according to the NSA, FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), which published a security advisory this week. detailing “popular” hack.
Since 2020, China-backed organizations have been exploiting publicly known software flaws in hardware and incorporating compromised devices into own attack infrastructure. According to US agencies, attacks typically include five steps. Chinese hackers will use publicly available tools to scan for vulnerabilities in the network. They will then gain initial access through online services, accessing login details from the system, accessing the router, and replicating the network traffic, before finally “cleaning up”. “victim data.
