cybersecurity

Why a lot of people are getting hacked with government spyware

For more than a decade, makers of government spyware have defended themselves from criticism by saying that their surveillance technology is intended to be used only against serious criminals and terrorists, and only in limited cases.   The evidence gathered from dozens, if not hundreds of documented instances of spyware abuse all over the world, however, […]

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Congressional Budget Office confirms it was hacked

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office has confirmed it was hacked.  Caitlin Emma, a spokesperson for CBO, told TechCrunch on Friday that the agency is investigating the breach and “has identified the security incident, has taken immediate action to contain it, and has implemented additional monitoring and new security controls to further protect the agency’s systems

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‘Landfall’ spyware abused zero-day to hack Samsung Galaxy phones

Security researchers have discovered an Android spyware that targeted Samsung Galaxy phones during a nearly year-long hacking campaign. Researchers at Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 said the spyware, which they call “Landfall,” was first detected in July 2024 and relied on exploiting a security flaw in the Galaxy phone software that was unknown to Samsung

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Italian political consultant says he was targeted with Paragon spyware

Francesco Nicodemo, a consultant who works with left-wing politicians in Italy, has gone public as the latest person targeted with Paragon spyware in the country.  On Thursday, Nicodemo said in a Facebook post that for 10 months, he preferred not to publicize his case because he “did not want to be used for political propaganda,”

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Phone location data of top EU officials for sale, report finds

Journalists in Europe found it was “easy” to spy on top European Union officials using commercially obtained location histories sold by data brokers, despite the continent having some of the strongest data protection laws in the world. EU officials said they’re “concerned” about the trade of citizen and officials’ mobile phone location data, and have

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How an ex-L3 Harris Trenchant boss stole and sold cyber exploits to Russia

Peter Williams, the former general manager of Trenchant, a division of defense contractor L3Harris that develops surveillance and hacking tools for Western governments, pleaded guilty last week to stealing some of those tools and selling them to a Russian broker.   A court document filed in the case, as well as exclusive reporting by TechCrunch

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DOJ accuses US ransomware negotiators of launching their own ransomware attacks

U.S. prosecutors have charged two rogue employees of a cybersecurity company that specializes in negotiating ransom payments to hackers on behalf of their victims, with carrying out ransomware attacks of their own. Last month, the Department of Justice indicted Kevin Tyler Martin and another unnamed employee, who both worked as ransomware negotiators at DigitalMint, with

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Government hackers breached telecom giant Ribbon for months before getting caught

U.S. telecommunications giant Ribbon has confirmed that government-backed hackers had access to its network for almost a year before getting caught, according to a public filing. The telco giant said in a 10-Q disclosure last week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that a suspected “nation-state actor had gained access to the company’s IT

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Former L3Harris Trenchant boss pleads guilty to selling zero-day exploits to Russian broker

Peter Williams, the former general manager at defense contractor L3Harris, has pleaded guilty to selling surveillance technology to a Russian broker that buys “cyber tools,” the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed Wednesday.  “The material, stolen over a three-year period from the U.S. defense contractor where he worked, was comprised of national-security focused software that included

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