Security News
United Kingdom's Greater Manchester Police said earlier today that some of its employees' personal information was impacted by a ransomware attack that hit a third-party supplier. The impacted organization, not named in a statement published today, is a service supplier for GMP and other organizations across the UK. GMP does not believe the data on the hacked systems contains financial information belonging to the police department's employees.
The power of the EU's Digital Services Act to actually police the world's very large online platforms has been tested in a new study focused on Russian social media disinformation. The independent study of the DSA's risk management framework published by the EU's executive arm, the European Commission, concluded that commitments by social media platforms to mitigate the reach and influence of global online disinformation campaigns have been generally unsuccessful.
A man was arrested in Northern Ireland for suspected Collection of Terrorist Information following an incident where police mistakenly leaked details that identified 10,000 serving officers, but he has now been released on bail. The information was leaked when police posted a spreadsheet online listing the surnames and initials of 10,000 serving officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, plus civilian staff members.
Cumbria Constabulary inadvertently published the names and salaries of all its officers and staff online earlier this year, making it the second UK force in a fortnight to admit disclosing personal information about its employees. In a statement, the force told The Register: "Cumbria Constabulary became aware of a data breach on Monday 6th March 2023 where information about the pay and allowances of every police officer and police staff roles as at 31st March 2022 was uploaded to the Constabulary's website, which was a human error."
A bulletproof hosting provider is a hosting company that turns a blind eye to reports of criminal activity or the hosting of copyrighted material on their servers. Cybercriminals prefer these types of hosting providers over traditional companies, as they can launch cybercrime campaigns without fear that they will be shut down after malicious activity is reported.
A spreadsheet containing details of serving Northern Ireland police officers was mistakenly posted online yesterday, potentially endangering the safety of officers, given the volatile politics of the region. The data leak involved a spreadsheet detailing the surnames and initials of all serving officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, plus civilian staff members.
Seems that there is a deliberate backdoor in the twenty-year-old TErrestrial Trunked RAdio standard used by police forces around the world. TETRA has been used in products, including radios, sold by Motorola, Airbus, and more.
Secondly, the underlying encryption algorithms are proprietary, guarded as trade secrets under strict non-disclosure agreements, so it simply hasn't had the levels of global, objective mathematical scrutiny that unpatented, open source encryption systems have. Simply put, if you need to keep the algorithm secret, as well as the decryption key for each message, you're in deep trouble, because your enemies will ultimately, and inevitably, get hold of that algorithm.
The Spanish National Police has apprehended a Ukrainian national wanted internationally for his involvement in a scareware operation spanning from 2006 to 2011. "The operation has been carried out by investigators from the General Information Police Station in coordination with the Provincial Information Brigades of Tenerife and Barcelona and with the El Prat Airport Police Station," a Spanish National Police press release published on Saturday reads.
French police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone and GPS of their phones and other devices, lawmakers agreed late on Wednesday, July 5. Covering laptops, cars and other connected objects as well as phones, the measure would allow the geolocation of suspects in crimes punishable by at least five years' jail.