Security News

Researchers are warning of an increase in phishing emails that use YouTube redirect links, which help attackers skirt traditional defense measures. If certain malicious URLs are blocked by web browser phishing filters, attackers commonly use a redirector URL to bypass these filters and redirect the victim to their phishing landing page.

Thus did the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismiss a top right-wing content creator's allegation that Google had violated its First Amendment rights by tagging dozens of its videos on abortion, gun rights, Islam and terrorism with its Restricted Mode and demonetizing them so the nonprofit can't make money from advertising. It's best known for its many 5-minute videos, some of which, starting in 2016, Google dubbed Restricted, including videos about the 10 Commandments, whether police were racist, and Israel's legal founding.

A few weeks ago, Twitter told Clearview to stop collecting its data and to delete whatever it's got. Facebook has also demanded that Clearview stop scraping photos because the action violates its policies, and now Google and YouTube are likewise telling the audacious startup to stop violating their policies against data scraping.

YouTube is the latest social media firm to adjust its policies as the 2020 U.S. presidential election gets underway. On Monday, the company announced plans to remove misleading political content and other disinformation from its platform.

The malvertising-focused trojan known as Shlayer has burbled to the top of the malware heap when it comes to targeting Mac users. Shlayer is a trojan downloader, which spreads via fake applications that hide its malicious code, according to Kaspersky.

The big one: rather than trying to verify that users are over the age of 13, it's just going to treat all content aimed at kids as if it is watched by kids, regardless of age of the viewer, and it's going to COPPA-ify that content. As per federal COPPA guidelines, that means that YouTube will limit data collection and use and the serving up of personalized ads on such videos.

The new policy addresses how coordinated online abuse often happens in real life: poisonous drips spanning multiple videos/comments.

Or your small/new channel, or to shut you down if you use an ad blocker, though a clause in its new ToS is leading people to fear the worst.

100K or so creators in the YouTube car community were targeted by a phishing campaign that captured 2FA codes.

At every turn, the info-stealer uses legitimate services to get around normal email, endpoint and network defenses.