Author Archives: Tonya Riley

New York man sentenced to 3 years for stealing students’ nude photos after hacking their accounts

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A federal judge sentenced a New York man to three years in federal prison for hacking the accounts of dozens of female college students to access private nude photos, the Justice Department said Thursday. Nicholas Farber, of Rochester, pleaded guilty in February to working with a co-conspirator between 2017 to 2019 to access the school emails of dozens of female SUNY Plattsburgh students. He then leveraged access to those accounts in order to access students’ Facebook, Snapchat and cloud accounts from which he stole private nude photographs and movies. Farber then traded the images online with an unnamed number of individuals. He was charged with computer fraud and aggravated identity theft for the hacking. Farber, a SUNY Plattsburgh graduate, is also ordered to pay $35,430 in restitution to the school for the costs of investigating and resetting the compromised accounts and then notifying victims. Farber’s accomplice, Michael Fish, pleaded guilty […]

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Apple reopens legal fight against security firm Corellium, raising concerns for ethical hackers

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Apple has reignited a legal battle with Corelluim days after settling with the security firm over an ongoing lawsuit against the company for providing a virtual environment for security researchers that recreates its operating system. Apple on Tuesday filed an appeal of a December ruling in which a judge dismissed an argument that Corellium had infringed Apple’s copyright by offering researchers a simulated environment that emulates Apple’s iOS software. The environment allows researchers to hunt for bugs via a controllable browser that can be rebooted, instead of jailbreaking an actual iPhone. It’s the latest update in a case that could have enormous implications for the ability of private researchers and academics to probe major technologies for dangerous flaws without the risk of legal retaliation. The move follows reassurances by Apple that it would rely on security researchers to help vet its controversial new system for scanning child sexual abuse imagery. […]

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T-Mobile confirms breach of more than 8 million customers’ data

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T-Mobile confirmed Wednesday that the information of more than 8 million customers as well as 40 million former or potential customers who had applied for credit with the company was compromised in a recent data breach. The hacker accessed customers’ names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license or ID information from some portion of the 7.8 million subscribers exposed in the breach. No phone numbers, account numbers, passwords, or financial information were compromised for paying customers, according to the company. The company did not say if or how many of those 7.8 million customers were also involved in the credit application breach. Names, phone numbers, and PIN numberss of roughly 850,000 active pre-paid customers were exposed. T-Mobile said it has reset all PINs and will be notifying affected customers. The company said the hacker obtained “additional information from inactive pre-paid accounts accessed through prepaid billing files” from […]

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Suspected Russian operatives tried to stir far right outrage about COVID-19 on 4chan

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Operators of an apparent Russian propaganda campaign shared coronavirus disinformation in an effort to influence the American far-right, according to a report out Tuesday by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.  The findings are included in a new report shedding light on a long-running Russian propaganda campaign known as Operation Secondary Infektion. The years-long campaign has used regional European websites, forged documents and throwaway accounts to further Russia’s political agenda in Europe. Secondary Infektion is perhaps best known for spreading disinformation through small, local websites, then promoting fabricated narratives on social media, with mixed success. Secondary Infektion promotes narratives in line with Russia’s political agenda in Europe, leading researchers to believe the group supports Russia’s intelligence apparatus. Since 2014 the group has staged a number of campaigns, including using fake tweets from accounts like Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. to spread a false narrative that British citizens planned to assassinate Prime Minister Boris […]

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T-Mobile investigates potentially massive breach of consumer data

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T-Mobile is investigating claims by a hacker that they have put sensitive information about more than 100 million of the company’s customers up for sale after breaching its servers. The data set includes names, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers and driver’s license information, Motherboard first reported. The sales ad asks for six bitcoin, which is roughly the equivalent to $278,781 as of Monday morning, in exchange for 30 million Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses from the data set. “We are aware of claims made in an underground forum and have been actively investigating their validity,” T-Mobile said in a statement to multiple outlets Sunday. “We do not have any additional information to share at this time.” T-Mobile did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment from CyberScoop. T-Mobile has just over 100 million customers in the United States, meaning that the data set could cover a […]

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Poly Network offers bug bounty to hacker who stole $600 million worth of cryptocurrency

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Poly Network is offering the hacker that stole $600 million worth of virtual currencies from the company a half-million dollars as a bug bounty, the company said Friday. Poly Network said that as of early Friday morning the hacker had returned roughly $340 million worth of assets they stole from the company. The remaining cryptocurrency assets have been transferred to a wallet jointly controlled by Poly Network and the hacker.  The company is also still trying to retrieve $33 million worth of Tether cryptocurrency frozen by Tether. A hacker, who the company is now calling “Mr. White Hat,” stole $600 million worth of virtual currencies from Poly Network on Tuesday. Less than 24 hours later, he began to return it. The hacker claimed in blockchain messages shared by cryptocurrency compliance firm Elliptic that he stole the money “for fun” and to keep it safe from others who might exploit a […]

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UN experts join growing calls for moratorium on surveillance technology

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United Nations experts on Thursday called for a halt to the sale and transfer of surveillance technology until countries introduce a regulatory framework to address the human rights impact of its abuse. “It is highly dangerous and irresponsible to allow the surveillance technology and trade sector to operate as a human rights-free zone,” the experts warned. The statement specifically singles out the Israeli spyware company NSO Group, which has been condemned for years by privacy advocates for aiding authoritarian regimes in tracking and intimidating journalists, human rights advocates and dissidents. The call for action follows a report from Amnesty International that the company’s Pegasus spyware was more widely used than previously thought. Between July 2014 and July 2021, the NSO group’s Pegasus software was used to target more than three dozen smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists and business executives, according to a Amnesty’s investigation with the French journalism nonprofit […]

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US makes progress on improving cyber but key issues remain, congressional committee finds

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A congressional commission dedicated to shoring up America’s cyber defenses has made significant progress in the wake of multiple recent cybersecurity crises, according to a new report. Nearly 75% of the 82 recommendations made in the Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s March 2020 report, which set out to assess ways the U.S. can improve its digital resilience, have been implemented or are on track to be implemented, according to an evaluation released Thursday by the Commission. The report notes that some of this movement has been spurred by a wave of high profile cybersecurity incidents within the past year, starting with the revelation in December 2020 that Russian hackers had infiltated at least nine federal agencies using network management software SolarWinds. In March, apparent Chinese hackers exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Exchange Server technology, affecting thousands of users. Multiple ransomware attacks have followed, including one against fuel provider Colonial Pipeline that forced […]

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Hackers returned some of the $600 million they stole from Poly Network, a cryptocurrency firm

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An unidentified hacker stole $600 million worth of virtual currencies from Poly Network the cryptocurrency company announced Tuesday. Then in an unusual twist, less than 24 hours later, the hacker began to return some of the stolen money after a public plea from the company. As of publication time, the hacker had returned more than $4,772,000 worth of assets, according to the company. Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency-tracking firm, confirmed Wednesday that funds were on the move. The incident is the largest public attack against the decentralized financed industry to date. The identity of the thieves remains unclear. Poly Network offers a service that promises interoperability between different chains of cryptocurrency, which each have their own digital ledger and act independently of one another. A preliminary investigation by cybersecurity firm SlowMist found that the hacker exploited a vulnerability in a feature that allows for the implementation of exchanges across chains. This allowed […]

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Senate fails to amend cryptocurrency reporting requirements, moving fight to the House

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The Senate stopped short Monday of passing an amendment that would have altered language in the current $1 trillion infrastructure bill to narrow the definition of parties that will be required to report cryptocurrency sales to the Internal Revenue Service. Senators failed to reach unanimous consent because of an objection to an unrelated requested attachment to increase military spending. A group of Senate Republicans and Democrats as well as representatives of the Treasury Department had struck a compromise to narrow the language on Monday and had hoped to pass the amendment through unanimous consent. Cryptocurrency industry leaders and privacy experts say that if the current language in the bill goes through it could handicap the emerging technology in the United States and strip privacy from users. “We may very well have to go back and revisit the rules but we shouldn’t just have an overly broad mandate or reporting requirement […]

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