Cybercrime

During the trial of Brianna Ghey’s killers, the court heard an illuminating text exchange between the teenage murderers Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe.

Jenkinson had been fuelling her fantasies by accessing murder and torture videos on the dark web. “I love watching torture vids. Real ones on the dark web,” she told her friend. But she wanted more and asked Ratcliffe how to get hold of live videos of people being tortured, for which you had to pay. “Why would I know?,” Ratcliffe said.

A Russian ransomware gang allegedly infiltrated a technology company responsible for handling top-secret documents from US intelligence agencies, like the FBI.

The notorious group Blackcat, also known as ALPHV, is threatening to release the classified documents if the company, Technica, does not contact them soon.

Technica is a veteran-owned company that provides technology solutions to support the Federal Government’s mission to defend and protect America.

Your personal information may have been leaked in the ‘Mother of all Breaches’ (MOAB), cybersecurity researchers have warned.

Over 26 billion personal records have been exposed, in what researchers believe to be the biggest-ever data leak.

Sensitive information from several sites including Twitter, Dropbox, and Linkedin was discovered on an unsecured page.

Customers have reported problems with slot machines and online room booking systems following a cyber-attack on casino and hotel giant MGM Resorts.

Certain systems were shut down due to a “cyber-security issue”, the firm said.

But it added that its facilities remained “operational”.

One customer at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas said she had walked into the wrong room because the hotel’s digital keys were malfunctioning, and said staff had to distribute physical keys.

Organized cybercrime is set to pose a threat to Canada’s national security and economic prosperity over the next two years, the national signal intelligence agency said on Monday.

The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) in a report identified Russia and Iran as cybercrime safe havens where criminals can operate against Western targets.

Security experts have warned about the emergence of previously unknown spyware with hacking capabilities comparable to NSO Group’s Pegasus that has already been used by clients to target journalists, political opposition figures and an employee of an NGO.

Researchers at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School said the spyware, which is made by an Israeli company called QuaDream, infected some victims’ phones by sending an iCloud calendar invitation to mobile users from operators of the spyware, who are likely to be government clients. Victims were not notified of the calendar invitations because they were sent for events logged in the past, making them invisible to the targets of the hacking. Such attacks are known as “zero-click” because users of the mobile phone do not have to click on any malicious link or take any action in order to be infected.

An ‘Amazon for crime’ online marketplace selling millions of sets of stolen personal information for 56p each has been blown open by UK and international investigators.

A sting on the site – which was called Genesis Market – unfolded last night and saw raids on users across the globe.

It was led by the FBI and Dutch police forces and 17 other countries, including the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), which made 24 arrests in and around Grimsby.

The “cyber incident” that was responsible for knocking the National Research Council (NRC) offline last year was of foreign origin, according to a news report.

The federal agency said in a recent statement that the audit report on the incident won’t be published due to security concerns.

Ontario’s privacy commissioner is investigating a sweeping data project at the University of Toronto that is alleged to have collected over 600,000 electronic medical records without patient consent or knowledge.

… Access to that giant database is then sold or shared with researchers and other “third parties,” according to a copy of the complaint obtained by Global News.