Security News

Gigaset Android phones infected by malware via hacked update server
2021-04-07 15:36

Owners of Gigaset Android phones have been repeatedly infected with malware since the end of March after threat actors compromised the vendor's update server in a supply-chain attack. Gigaset is a German manufacturer of telecommunications devices, including a series of smartphones running the Android operating system.

Have I Been Pwned adds search for leaked Facebook phone numbers
2021-04-06 17:50

Facebook users can now use the Have I Been Pwned data breach notification site to check if their phone number was exposed in the social site's recent data leak. This leak's main component is a Facebook user's phone number, rather than an email address, and thus Have I Been Pwned could not accurately alert a user if they were exposed in the breach.

Phone Cloning Scam
2021-04-06 11:05

A newspaper in Malaysia is reporting on a cell phone cloning scam. The scammer convinces the victim to lend them their cell phone, and the scammer quickly clones it.

533 Million Facebook Users' Phone Numbers and Personal Data Leaked Online
2021-04-06 01:48

In what's likely to be a goldmine for bad actors, personal information associated with approximately 533 million Facebook users worldwide has been leaked on a popular cybercrime forum for free-which was harvested by hackers in 2019 using a Facebook vulnerability. The leaked data includes full names, Facebook IDs, mobile numbers, locations, email addresses, gender, occupation, city, country, marital status broken, account creation date, and other profile details broken down by country, with over 32 million records belonging to users in the U.S., 11 million users the U.K., and six million users in India, among others.

533 million Facebook users’ phone numbers leaked on hacker forum
2021-04-03 18:48

The mobile phone numbers and other personal information for approximately 533 million Facebook users worldwide has been leaked on a popular hacker forum for free. The sold data included 533,313,128 Facebook users, with information such as a member's mobile number, Facebook ID, name, gender, location, relationship status, occupation, and email addresses.

And that's yet another UK education body under attack from ransomware: Servers, email, phones yanked offline
2021-03-30 12:12

The Harris Federation, a not-for-profit charity responsible for running 50 primary and secondary academies in London and Essex, has become the latest UK education body to fall victim to ransomware. In a message to pupils and parents, the group, which is led and run by teachers, admitted that criminals had meddled with its servers.

China Slams US Plan to Expel Phone Carriers in Tech Clash
2021-03-20 16:53

China's government on Thursday called on Washington to drop efforts to expel three state-owned Chinese phone companies from the United States in a new clash over technology and security. The United States should "Stop the wrong practice of generalizing the concept of national security and politicizing economic issues" and "Stop abusing state power to unreasonably suppress Chinese enterprises," said a ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian.

Encrypted phones biz Sky Global shuts up shop after CEO indictment, police raids on users in Europe
2021-03-19 07:11

Encrypted phone network Sky Global has seemingly shut down after European police swooped on users and distributors, and its chief exec was indicted by American prosecutors. News of the company shutdown was broken by Vice News after raids in Belgium and the Netherlands on Sky ECC users and resellers.

UK to introduce new laws and a code of practice for police wanting to rifle through mobile phone messages
2021-03-11 11:30

A new UK law will explicitly authorise the "Voluntary" slurping of data from mobile phones of crime suspects and witnesses. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which was introduced to Parliament this week, contains clauses that will allow police and others to extract data from mobile phones if the user "Voluntarily" hands the device over.

Belgian cops crack down on encrypted phone network Sky ECC in 200 overnight raids as firm denies criminal ties
2021-03-10 14:48

A series of police raids in Belgium have resulted in the apparent shutdown of the Sky ECC encrypted mobile phone network. As the second major encrypted phone network to be shut down by police in Europe, Sky ECC's seeming downfall has parallels with the Encrochat story, where French and Dutch police man-in-the-middle'd the encrypted phone network on suspicion it was being used mainly by organised criminals.