Security News
The Belgian plod says it seized 27.64 tons of cocaine worth €1.4bn from shipments into Antwerp in the past six weeks after defeating the encryption in the Sky ECC chat app to read drug smugglers' messages. "During a judicial investigation into a potential service criminal organization suspected of knowingly providing encrypted telephones to the criminal environment, police specialists managed to crack the encrypted messages from Sky ECC," the Belgian police claimed, CNN reports.
The UK's Government Reviewer of Terrorism Laws is again advising the removal of legal safeguards around a controversial law that allows people to be jailed if they refuse police demands for forced decryption of their devices. In what appears to be a recurring theme, Jonathan Hall QC said police should be able to threaten people arrested under terror laws with five years in prison if they don't hand over passwords on demand.
A security engineer and ex-contributor to an open systems non-profit organization recently reported a data leak to the organization. On discovering this GitHub repository which, the engineer says, was public since at least 2019, the engineer privately reported it to Apperta, and got thanked by them.
A security engineer and ex-contributor to an open systems non-profit organization recently reported a data leak to the organization. On discovering this GitHub repository which, the engineer says, was public since at least 2019, the engineer privately reported it to Apperta, and got thanked by them.
The City of London Police, which has responsibility for intellectual property crime across the UK, has warned universities and scientists not to use "Open science" site Sci-Hub. The site does not have permission to host or offer access to those papers, which is why it has in the past been shuttered by US courts for copyright breaches.
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.
Swiss authorities on Monday confirmed a police raid at the home of a Swiss software engineer who took credit for helping to break into a U.S. security-camera company's online networks, part of what the activist hacker cited as an effort to raise awareness about the dangers of mass surveillance. The Federal Office of Justice said regional police in central Lucerne, acting on a legal assistance request from U.S. authorities, on Friday carried out a house search involving hacker Tillie Kottmann.
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.
Police said Wednesday they had arrested at least 80 people and carried out hundreds of raids in two European countries after shutting down an encrypted phone network used by organised crime groups. Police launched a top-secret operation to crack the SKY ECC network - which operates over a special phone - and "As of mid-February, authorities have been able to monitor the information flow of approximately 70,000 users," the Hague-based law agencies said.
The Dutch Police have begun posting warnings on Russian and English-speaking hacker forums not to commit cybercrime as law enforcement is watching their activity. Since the conclusion of Operation LadyBird, law enforcement's disruption of the Emotet botnet, the Dutch Police state that they are creating forum accounts on hacker forums to warn hackers that they are watching them publicly.