All posts tagged: hacking

RFK Jr. Orders HHS to Give Undocumented Migrants’ Medicaid Data to DHS

RFK Jr. Orders HHS to Give Undocumented Migrants’ Medicaid Data to DHS

Published by skeptic

With demonstrations ramping up against the Trump administration, this week was all about protests. With President Donald Trump taking the historic step to deploy US Marines and the National Guard to Los Angeles, we dove into the “long-term dangers” of sending troops to LA, as well as what those troops are permitted to do while they’re there. Of course, it’s not just the military getting involved in the LA protests against the heavy crackdowns by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). There’s also Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which further escalated federal involvement by flying Predator drones over LA. And there are local and state authorities, who’ve used “nonlethal” weapons and chemical agents like tear gas against protesters. Even Waymo’s self-driving taxis—some of which were set on fire during last weekend’s LA protests—could be used to investigate people who commit crimes during demonstrations thanks to their surveillance capabilities. In addition to protests, the undocumented community is pushing back against ICE’s enforcement activities by turning social media platforms into DIY alert systems for ICE raids and other …

Cybercriminals Are Hiding Malicious Web Traffic in Plain Sight

Cybercriminals Are Hiding Malicious Web Traffic in Plain Sight

Published by skeptic

For years, gray market services known as “bulletproof” hosts have been a key tool for cybercriminals looking to anonymously maintain web infrastructure with no questions asked. But as global law enforcement scrambles to crack down on digital threats, they have developed strategies for getting customer information from these hosts and have increasingly targeted the people behind the services with indictments. At the cybercrime-focused conference Sleuthcon in in Arlington, Virginia today, researcher Thibault Seret outlined how this shift has pushed both bulletproof hosting companies and criminal customers toward an alternative approach. Rather than relying on web hosts to find ways of operating outside law enforcement’s reach, some service providers have turned to offering purpose-built VPNs and other proxy services as a way of rotating and masking customer IP addresses and offering infrastructure that either intentionally doesn’t log traffic or mixes traffic from many sources together. And while the technology isn’t new, Seret and other researchers emphasized to WIRED that the transition to using proxies among cybercrminals over the last couple of years is significant. “The issue …

Mysterious hacking group Careto was run by the Spanish government, sources say

Mysterious hacking group Careto was run by the Spanish government, sources say

Published by skeptic

More than a decade ago, researchers at antivirus company Kaspersky identified suspicious internet traffic of what they thought was a known government-backed group, based on similar targeting and its phishing techniques. Soon, the researchers realized they had found a much more advanced hacking operation that was targeting the Cuban government, among others. Eventually the researchers were able to attribute the network activity to a mysterious — and at the time completely unknown — Spanish-speaking hacking group that they called Careto, after the Spanish slang word (“ugly face” or “mask” in English), which they found buried within the malware’s code.  Careto was never publicly linked to a specific government. But TechCrunch has now learned that the researchers who first discovered the group were convinced that Spanish government hackers were behind Careto’s espionage operations. When Kaspersky first revealed the existence of Careto in 2014, its researchers called the group “one of the most advanced threats at the moment,” with its stealthy malware capable of stealing highly sensitive data, including private conversations and keystrokes from the computers it …

Tesla Accused of Hacking Odometers to Rip Off Customers

Tesla Accused of Hacking Odometers to Rip Off Customers

Published by José

Tesla has been accused of manipulating the odometers in its cars to avoid repair responsibilities and warranty agreements. As The Street reports, a class-action lawsuit filed in February claims that Tesla has been trying to dodge warranty-related obligations by intentionally overstating the distances its vehicles travel. The plaintiff, a man in California who bought a used 2020 Model Y with 36,772 miles, noticed an “abnormal spike in average daily miles driven” — despite a “consistent driving routine” — while he was taking it to the shop multiple times for suspension repairs. As a result, his warranty expired after reaching the 50,000-mile threshold “well ahead of schedule,” according to the lawsuit. However, after the expiry, the “reported average daily miles” suddenly dropped off, becoming “more closely aligned with his historical data on his other vehicles,” making him suspicious that the EV maker was fudging the numbers. “Tesla Inc. employs an odometer system that utilizes predictive algorithms, energy consumption metrics, and driver behavior multipliers that manipulate and misrepresent the actual mileage traveled by Tesla vehicles,” the lawsuit reads. …

Someone Is Hacking Crosswalk Buttons to Speak in the Voice of Elon Musk Lamenting the Terrible Sadness in His Life

Someone Is Hacking Crosswalk Buttons to Speak in the Voice of Elon Musk Lamenting the Terrible Sadness in His Life

Published by José

Last week, hackers took over the crosswalk buttons of downtown intersections in Palo Alto, Redwood City, and Menlo Park in California, to play seemingly AI-generated clips of Elon Musk’s voice. As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, the satirical clips mock the billionaires in a number of creative ways, as seen in videos going viral on social media. While the perpetrator — or perpetrators — have yet to come forward, the hack highlights growing disillusionment and anger aimed at ultra-wealthy tech oligarchs who have accumulated huge amounts of influence and power. Anti-Musk sentiment, in particular, has surged as of late, with his embrace of far-right extremism and dismantling of federal agencies spawning a major protest movement across the country. One crosswalk voice clip relentlessly skewers Musk’s close — but possibly unraveling — relationship with president Donald Trump. “You know, it’s funny, I used to think he was just this dumb sack of sh*t,” Musk’s cloned voice says in a video shared on TikTok. “But once you get to know him, he’s actually pretty sweet and tender and loving.” …

Tesla Installing Countermeasures as People Are Hacking the Cables Off Superchargers

Tesla Installing Countermeasures as People Are Hacking the Cables Off Superchargers

Published by José

Active Defense Countermeasures Amid a spate of vandalism at Supercharger stations, Tesla appears to be employing countermeasures to head off the theft of its valuable copper charging cables. For years now, opportunists have targeted electric vehicle charging stations for the copper wiring that powers them, and more recently Tesla’s physical locations have been targeted by a wave of anti-Elon Musk vandalism. With Tesla Supercharger stations lacking physical security guards, thieves have had little stopping them from hacking off the cables to steal the metal worth up to $5.20 per pound — until now, at least. In a post on X, Tesla charging czar Max de Zegher appeared to confirm that the company is experimenting with anti-theft technology, including so-called “DyeDefender” wraps for charger cables that spit out blue dye when cut, and stamps on the wires themselves that he hopes will flag the stolen materials at recycling centers. Responding to a post from the blog Drive Tesla Canada about the exploding dye cable wraps, de Zegher said that the solution was “just a trial” and added …

China’s Salt Typhoon Spies Are Still Hacking Telecoms—Now by Exploiting Cisco Routers

China’s Salt Typhoon Spies Are Still Hacking Telecoms—Now by Exploiting Cisco Routers

Published by skeptic

When the Chinese hacker group known as Salt Typhoon was revealed last fall to have deeply penetrated major US telecommunications companies—ultimately breaching no fewer than nine of the phone carriers and accessing Americans’ texts and calls in real time—that hacking campaign was treated as a four-alarm fire by the US government. Yet even after those hackers’ high-profile exposure, they’ve continued their spree of breaking into telecom networks worldwide, including more in the US. Researchers at cybersecurity firm Recorded Future on Wednesday night revealed in a report that they’ve seen Salt Typhoon breach five telecoms and internet service providers around the world, as well as more than a dozen universities from Utah to Vietnam, all between December and January. The telecoms include one US internet service provider and telecom firm and another US-based subsidiary of a UK telecom, according to the company’s analysts, though they declined to name those victims to WIRED. “They’re super active, and they continue to be super active,” says Levi Gundert, who leads Recorded Future’s research team known as Insikt Group. “I …

How victims of PowerSchool’s data breach helped each other investigate ‘massive’ hack

How victims of PowerSchool’s data breach helped each other investigate ‘massive’ hack

Published by skeptic

On January 7, at 11:10 p.m. in Dubai, Romy Backus received an email from education technology giant PowerSchool notifying her that the school she works at was one of the victims of a data breach that the company discovered on December 28. PowerSchool said hackers had accessed a cloud system that housed a trove of students’ and teachers’ private information, including Social Security numbers, medical information, grades, and other personal data from schools all over the world.  Given that PowerSchool bills itself as the largest provider of cloud-based education software for K-12 schools — some 18,000 schools and more than 60 million students — in North America, the impact could be “massive,” as one tech worker at an affected school told TechCrunch. Sources at school districts impacted by the incident told TechCrunch that hackers accessed “all” their student and teacher historical data stored in their PowerSchool-provided systems.  Backus works at the American School of Dubai, where she manages the school’s PowerSchool SIS system. Schools use this system — the same system that was hacked — …

How to survive winter by hacking your light habits

How to survive winter by hacking your light habits

Published by skeptic

Many people who live in the northern part of the world suffer extended periods of darkness this time of the year – and often the winter blues. But there are things you can do to boost your health and wellbeing, and prevent winter depression. Several meteorological phenomena produce a lack of daylight. In research, we often refer to the number of hours with daylight as a photoperiod. At winter solstice, the photoperiod is short – or even absent if you go to the Arctic circle. People living in Russia, Canada, northern USA and northern Europe get very little sunlight in winter. Capital cities like Oslo in Norway, Stockholm in Sweden and Helsinki in Finland are all situated above 59 degrees north. These densely populated areas have inhabitants who are particularly affected by a lack of light. Another obstacle for people up north is the very low angle of the sun in the sky. Even if the sun rises above the horizon, it is often blocked by nature or buildings. Then there is the common thick …

You Need to Create a Secret Password With Your Family

You Need to Create a Secret Password With Your Family

Published by skeptic

Scammers are out of control. Every year, fraudsters and cybercriminals make billions by tricking people into parting with their cash. Romance fraud, business email compromise, investment scams, sextortion—the list of ways criminals prey on people is virtually endless and constantly changing. Add to that impersonation scams, where a criminal pretends to be someone known to their target and extracts money. There have been increasing calls for people, and particularly families, to create passphrases or passwords with each other. At the start of December, the FBI issued a recommendation that people create a “secret word or phrase with your family to verify their identity,” and British bank Starling has also published guidelines on creating safe phrases with others. It’s a simple, if not new, approach—one that can potentially be effective. For instance, if you receive a message or call from your “son” or “daughter,” and they’re urgently asking for money to get out of a jam, asking them to provide a pre-agreed passphrase can reveal whether it’s really them. “Fraudsters will use manipulation tactics to put …