266: Cyberflashing, Kaspersky, and secret spies

A Russian bank tells its customers to stop installing security updates, an Apple employee ends up in hot water, and learn our tips to avoid being virtually kidnapped.

The most famous policeman in Nigeria is in hot water over his links to Hushpuppi, has your Amazon Echo been talking to itself, and can an AI girlfriend save your marriage?

All this and more is discussed in the latest edition of the "Smashing Security" podcast by computer security veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault.

Why might Russian EV chargers be displaying an anti-Putin message? Why are Telegram groups sharing sharing explicit images of women without their consent? And who is watching you in the workplace?

The list is composed of 31 targets including Russian critical infrastructure, government agencies, banks, and hosting providers. Ukraine’s Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhaylo Fedorov called for this action to fight against Russia on the cyber front. A Telegram channel was used to coordinate the efforts and plan the cyber-attacks that will be conducted by the IT Army. 

Ooh la la! Horreur Wi-Fi en France! Some folks have experienced the drawbacks of Web 3.0 as their NFTs are stolen, and should computers own the copyright over the art they produce?

Picture of the Week. The "UpdraftPlus" WordPress Plug-In. "Xenomorph" Decrypting "The Hive" Un-Pixelating redacted text. No Internet For You!! If at first you don't succeed... Ukrainian DDoS Attacks. The Bobiverse trilogy. SpinRite News. A BGP Routing Attack.

Following up on a story we brought you last week, Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology has stated that Russia was behind recent DDoS disruptions of Ukrainian government and banking websites last week. Neuberger said the U.S. has “technical information” that shows digital infrastructure belonging Russia’s main intelligence directorate, the GRU, “transmitting high volumes of communication to Ukraine-based IP addresses and domains.”

How does Microsoft hope to defeat the macro terror? How is the UK Government trying to influence the public's opinion on end-to-end encryption? And what is MoviePass hoping to do with your eyeballs?

Picture of the Week. A high-severity 0-day in Chrome. Apple updates against another 0-day. CISA thinks this Apple vulnerability is quite serious. Which brings us back to "SeriousSAM" as it's being called. 

The 49ers confirmed the attack in a statement to BleepingComputer and said it caused a temporary disruption to portions of their IT network. While the team organization did not confirm whether hackers had successfully deployed the ransomware, they said they are still in the process of recovering systems, indicating that devices were likely encrypted. The leaked data is a 292MB archive of files that the threat actors say are stolen 2020 invoices from the 49ers’ network.