Latest News
JESSICA WILLIAMS and TONY MCAULEY / NOLA.com
New Orleans Convention Center Hit With Ransomware Attack, Presumably Ryuk Malware
New Orleans has been hit with a second ransomware attack in recent months, although this time, the malware has hit the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The earlier recent attack on New Orleans in December was said to involve Ryuk ransomware, and authorities say the ransomware that infected the center was the same as the December attack. The convention center has cybersecurity insurance with Travelers Insurance and filed a claim as soon as officials verified the attack this week, with Travelers supplying a cybersecurity incident response team to help the convention center.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet
Microsoft Warns of Zero-Day Flaw in Internet Explorer That Has Been Exploited in the Wild, Issues Workarounds and Says Patch Coming Soon
Microsoft has warned about a zero-day Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerability that is currently that is being exploited in the wild. The zero-day is a remote code execution (RCE) flaw caused by a memory corruption bug in IE’s scripting engine, the browser component that handles JavaScript code. Microsoft has issued workarounds and mitigations that can be applied to safeguard vulnerable systems from attacks. No patch is yet available, but Microsoft said it would issue one soon.
Kashmir Hill / New York Times
More Than 600 Law Enforcement Agencies Use Peter Thiel-backed Facial Recognition App That Can Link Photos Taken on the Street to Billions of Images
More than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using a groundbreaking universal facial recognition app developed by a tiny company called Clearview AI in the past year, according to the company. Backed by a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites, the tool allows law enforcement to take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. Until now, companies such as Google have viewed such a tool as taboo because it could be used in a “very bad way.” The underlying code to the tool includes programming language to pair it with augmented-reality glasses allowing users to potentially be able to identify every person they see. Moreover, Clearview can monitor whom law enforcement is searching for – the New York Times reporter investigating this story asked police to run her own photo, and shortly after she did so, Clearview contacted the relevant police department to ask if they were talking to the media. The company was founded by Hoan Ton-That and Richard Schwartz, who was an aide to Rudolph W. Giuliani when he was mayor of New York and backed financially by Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist behind Facebook and Palantir. Another early investor is a small firm called Kirenaga Partners.
ThemaNews.com
Leading Greek Government Websites Including National Intelligence Services Knocked Offline, Turkish Group ‘Anka Neferler’ Claims Credit
The websites of the Greek National Intelligence Services (EYP), the Parliament, the Foreign Ministry, the stock market, and the Ministry of Finance were knocked offline yesterday with a Turkish hacking group called “Anka Neferler” posting on Facebook that they are responsible for the cyber attacks. The attacker said, “Greece is threatening Turkey in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. And now it is threatening the Libyan conference.”
Podcasts
Threatpost
News Wrap: PoC Exploits, Cable Haunt and Joker Malware
Are publicly-released PoC exploits good or bad? Why is the Joker malware giving Google a headache? The Threatpost team discusses all this and more in this week’s news wrap.
The State Sponsored Podcast
The Iranian Cyberdogs of War
Javvad Malik and Scot Terban talk about the week’s top news including the prospect for cyberwar with Iran.
Spotlight
JESSICA WILLIAMS and TONY MCAULEY / NOLA.com
New Orleans Convention Center Hit With Ransomware Attack, Presumably Ryuk Malware
3 weeks ago
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet
Microsoft Warns of Zero-Day Flaw in Internet Explorer That Has Been Exploited in the Wild, Issues Workarounds and Says Patch Coming Soon
3 weeks ago
Kashmir Hill / New York Times
More Than 600 Law Enforcement Agencies Use Peter Thiel-backed Facial Recognition App That Can Link Photos Taken on the Street to Billions of Images
3 weeks ago
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