In the midst of the AI boom use the The US Senate is considering legislation to regulate the development of artificial intelligence, but lawmakers’ comments to WIRED this week indicate that Congress’s poor track record in tech regulation is likely to repeat itself. Meanwhile, in the European Union, challenges are filed under the EU GDPR data law on Thursday Allegations that Pornhub illegally collected user data.
We reviewed a common airline ticketing scam could turn actual flight bookings—but not ticket sales—into cash for cybercriminals. And tech companies have recently released a a bunch of important software updates that you should install on your device right now. Several patches announced in recent weeks from Progress Software company fix bugs in the popular file transfer service MOVEit, which has been exploited by ransomware agents to spread malware and steal data from international companies, universities, and the US government.
If you want a digital cleaning project for the weekend, we have Tips on how to make your chats and messaging more secure. And if you’re craving a long read, WIRED delved into the 1973 US National Personnel Records Center fire destroyed 17 million military records and prompted a large-scale recovery effort.
And there’s much more. Each week, we put together stories that we don’t cover in depth ourselves. Click on the title to read the full story. And stay safe out there.
On Tuesday, a 7-2 ruling by the US Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a man who repeatedly threatened a stranger online. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in majority opinion that First Amendment free speech protections require such cases to show that online harassers or cyber stalkers know that digital abuse their behavior can be construed as threatening behavior. Threats of violence are not protected by the First Amendment, but the court said prosecutors must demonstrate that the defendant “wrefully disregarded the substantial risk that his communications would considered violent threats.” The offender in the case the court is considering, Billy Counterman of Colorado, has “recommended to dismiss the charge on First Amendment grounds, arguing that his messages were not ‘ real threat’ and therefore cannot constitute a basis for criminal prosecution.”
Counterman had been texting a local singer repeatedly and repeatedly on Facebook he didn’t know for over two years, and when she blocked him, he created a new account to continue messaging her. . Victims of online harassment and digital rights advocates warned after the decision that it sets a dangerous precedent for empowering online stalkers. Soraya Chemaly, director of the Speech Project at the Women’s Media Center, said: “The court has just given stalkers and harassers, including politicians, journalists, climate scientists, The doctor advocates a vaccine, you can name it, a new weapon. Washington Post.
A cyberattack caused an outage several days this week for a Russian satellite communication system from Dozor-Teleport. The platform is widely used, including by the Russian military. Ukrainian satellite communication infrastructure had a similar blackout over a year ago. Dozor’s parent company, Amtel Svyaz, also struggled with a severe system outage this week. Many hackers have claimed responsibility for the attacks, including some purporting to be attackers and others who say they have links to the Wagner Group’s private Russian mercenary army. In addition to the outage, one of the entities claiming responsibility for the attack said it stole data from Dozor and published 700 files, including documents and images, to a leak website and Telegram.
LetMeSpy . invasive phone monitoring app said on June 21 that it itself was hacked. The company said attackers stole names, messages, call logs and location data collected by the service. LetMeSpy is a Polish Android application used around the world to track thousands of people. The company’s announcement said “there has been a security incident related to unauthorized access to website users’ data.”
Years after a Russian espionage campaign carried out a devastating supply chain attack on software company SolarWinds, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sent regulatory notices—called “Wells Announcement”—to some current and former Solarwinds employees. Such notices warn of potential securities law violations that could lead to civil enforcement action, but they are rarely related to cybersecurity incidents. Notably, one of the SolarWinds employees who received the notification was the company’s current chief information security officer, Tim Brown, who was Solarwinds’ head of security architecture at the time of the attack. labour. The company’s chief financial officer Barton Kalsu was also notified. The situation could be dire as the United States and other countries attempt to develop appropriate accountability mechanisms for senior executives who preside over other security breaches and lapses. The fear of security professionals is often that individual penalties will simply prevent talented practitioners from taking on top roles.
