Zack Whittaker

Security editor, TechCrunch
zack.whittaker@techcrunch.com
Signal: +1 646.755.8849
New York, NY

Newsletter: https://this.weekinsecurity.com
TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/author/zack-whittaker

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npub1p5zle0pk36rncv38srupa9hayycvc48anh0t9fxg2sjuhm7fw82q2tkrfz

NIP-05 Address

zackwhittaker_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

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nprofile1qqsq6p0uhsmgapeuxgncp7q7jm7jzvxv2n7emh4j5ny9gfwtalyhr4qgmmh02

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npub1p5zle0pk36rncv38srupa9hayycvc48anh0t9fxg2sjuhm7fw82q2tkrfz

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Last Notes

2024-08-08 14:36:26

NEW by me: Home security giant ADT says it was hacked, compromising customers' personal information — including phone numbers and home addresses.
The company said the breach affects a "small percentage" of its customers, without saying how many. ADT had at least six million customers as of June 2024.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/08/home-security-giant-adt-says-it-was-hacked/

2024-08-08 02:47:33

Definitely guilty of this, courtesy of Signal's latest release notes.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/924/114/919/485/112/original/3d9e5c1515b06079.jpeg

2024-08-06 23:02:45

New, by me: The U.K. data watchdog said it will issue a £6 million provisional fine to the NHS vendor Advanced for security failings that led to a 2022 ransomware attack and widespread disruption to healthcare services across the U.K. for weeks.
ICO said that Advanced failed to use MFA, which ultimately led to the cybercriminals getting in and stealing more than 83,000 people's data in the breach.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/06/uk-data-watchdog-fines-nhs-vendor-advanced-for-security-failures-prior-to-lockbit-ransomware-attack/

2024-08-06 15:12:26

New, by me: A cyberattack on a U.K.-based maker of school mobile device management software called Mobile Guardian has knocked out service to schools and students globally.
The Singapore Ministry of Education, a major customer of Mobile Guardian, says at least 13,000 students had their devices remotely wiped by the perpetrator.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/06/cyberattack-knocks-mobile-guardian-mdm-offline-and-wipes-thousands-of-student-devices/

2024-08-02 14:48:41

New, by me: U.S. pharma giant Cencora (formerly AmerisourceBergen) had a data breach in February, including personal and sensitive health information (such as diagnoses and medications)
But Cencora has refused to say how many people are affected.
We counted all of Cencora's data breach notices that it's published since. At least a million people have been notified so far — already one of 2024's biggest healthcare breaches — and the number is likely to rise.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/02/pharma-giant-cencora-is-alerting-millions-about-its-data-breach/

2024-08-01 12:44:04

A bug in a new Georgia voter registration website "allowed people to access a voter’s date of birth, driver’s license number and last four numbers of a Social Security number."
Per the AP, that’s the "same information needed to verify a person’s identity and allow a registration to be canceled."
I find it incredible and utterly bizarre — and so dangerous — that in this day and age, the U.S. makes voter registration data public — for exactly situations like this!
https://apnews.com/article/georgia-cancel-voter-registration-personal-information-5bf7d7d474e0e077c7fd50141ff487e8

2024-08-01 11:49:13

WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich released by Russia.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-01/us-reporter-released-by-russia-in-multi-country-prisoner-swap

2024-07-29 11:03:25

New, by me: A federal district court in New York ruled that U.S. border agents must obtain a warrant before searching the electronic devices of Americans and international travelers crossing the U.S. border.
The judge warned that had they ruled in the government's favor, this ruling could have be used to target political opponents, who "would only need to travel once through an international airport for the government to gain unfettered access" to their devices.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/us-border-agents-must-get-warrant-before-cell-phone-searches-federal-court-rules/

2024-07-26 14:04:09

X, formerly known as Twitter, has automatically activated a setting that allows the company to train its Grok AI on users’ posts.
X enabled the new setting by default.
The good news is that you can switch it off and also delete your conversation history with the AI.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/26/heres-how-to-disable-x-twitter-from-using-your-data-to-train-its-grok-ai/

2024-07-25 20:09:09

CrowdStrike says in an update, "using a week-over-week comparison, greater than 97% of Windows sensors are online as of July 24 at 5pm PT." Microsoft put that figure at about 8.5 million Windows devices affected. That remaining 3% — about 255,000 Windows devices by that count — are still knocked out and have to be manually fixed.
https://www.crowdstrike.com/falcon-content-update-remediation-and-guidance-hub/

2024-07-25 13:04:24

Exclusive, from me: Spytech, a little-known spyware maker based in Minnesota, has been hacked, TechCrunch has learned. The breach reveals thousands of devices around the world under the company's stealthy remote surveillance.
Spytech is the latest spyware maker in recent years to have been hacked, and the fourth known spyware maker hacked this year alone.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/25/spytech-data-breach-windows-mac-android-chromebook-spyware

2024-07-25 10:01:28

Daniel Freund, a German Green MEP, has told Politico that he was targeted by suspected Candiru spyware on his phone.
Freund, a vocal critic of Hungary's presidency, said: “I’m not saying it was Hungary, but out of the possibilities, this is what seems most likely."
https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/orban-critic-mep-targeted-with-spyware/

2024-07-19 21:25:48

Seeing an alarming number of people post totally wrong claims about the CrowdStrike outage, such as the claim that the Las Vegas Sphere was affected.
Nope! Go check out one of the YouTube live streams. It's fine.
There's a ton of misinformation going around — to some extent as expected. Granted, wrong news about the Sphere is low stakes. But it goes to show how easy it is for more confusion to spread in what is already a confusing (and chaotic) situation.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/19/from-the-sphere-to-false-cyberattack-claims-misinformation-runs-rampant-amid-crowdstrike-outage/

2024-07-19 18:24:49

U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA has acknowledged that while the CrowdStrike outage is *not* a cyberattack, it has observed malicious actors "taking advantage" of the s(h)ituation for "phishing and other malicious activity" and warned organizations to "avoid clicking on phishing emails or suspicious links."
More: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2024/07/19/widespread-it-outage-due-crowdstrike-update
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/814/558/431/108/048/original/acca06d60ac9a5c0.png

2024-07-19 15:23:24

As a friendly reminder, if you're in PR and you've sent me some "expert commentary" or some other meaningless junk, I can promise you I haven't read any of it it as it's all gone perfectly into my spam folder.

2024-07-18 15:17:50

Exclusive, by me: The U.S. Postal Service was sharing the postal addresses of its online customers with advertising and tech giants Meta, LinkedIn, and Snap, TechCrunch has found.
The USPS told TechCrunch that it addressed the issue and stopped the practice, claiming that it was “unaware” of the data sharing.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/18/usps-shared-customer-postal-addresses-with-meta-linkedin-and-snap/

2024-07-18 11:21:09

Considering updating my Slack profile picture to the meme of Matthew McConaughey smoking to adequately reflect my constant mood of "the shit I've seen."
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/807/220/239/694/560/original/f7f23fa28be88619.png

2024-07-16 13:17:27

New, by me: Kaspersky will lay off dozens of staff and leave the U.S. market following a U.S. government order in June banning the sale of the company’s software.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/16/kaspersky-to-shut-down-us-operations-lay-off-employees-after-us-government-ban/

2024-07-12 10:28:54

BREAKING: U.S. phone giant AT&T confirmed Friday it will notify millions of consumers about a fresh data breach that allowed cybercriminals to steal the phone and text records of "nearly all" of its customers, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch.
AT&T confirmed the breach was linked to a data theft at cloud data giant Snowflake. AT&T said the data breach affects at least 110 million AT&T customers.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/12/att-phone-records-stolen-data-breach/

2024-07-11 21:44:06

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Each customer service ticket in the dataset contained information about the customer, including their approximate location based on the IP address of the sender’s device.
We analyzed that data by extracting all of the location coordinates from the dataset and plotting the data in the offline mapping tool, QGIS.
The results show mSpy has customers all over the world, with large clusters across Europe, India, Japan, South America, the UK and the United States.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/11/mspy-spyware-millions-customers-data-breach/
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/770/031/135/731/699/original/0169bcef4f7f15d3.jpg

2024-07-11 20:12:46

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The huge trove of mSpy's breached Zendesk contains about a decade's worth of customer support requests (and file attachments) dating back to 2014, including from government employees and in one case, a sitting U.S. appeals court judge.
The dataset raises questions about the use of mSpy by U.S. government officials and agencies, as it is unclear if any outreach was authorized or if any use of the spyware followed a legal process.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/11/mspy-spyware-millions-customers-data-breach/

2024-07-11 19:27:58

NEW, by me: A data breach at the phone surveillance operation mSpy has exposed millions of its customers who bought access to the phone spyware app over the past decade, as well as the Ukrainian company behind it.
Troy Hunt, who runs data breach notification site Have I Been Pwned, added about 2.4 million unique email addresses of mSpy customers to his site’s catalog of past data breaches.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/11/mspy-spyware-millions-customers-data-breach/

2024-07-09 13:05:46

New, by @npub1m6u…rk8l: Evolve Bank & Trust says a ransomware attack earlier this year stole personal data on some 7.6 million customers — including data on individuals at downstream fintech companies who rely on Evolve's services.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/09/evolve-bank-says-ransomware-gang-stole-personal-data-on-millions-of-customers/

2024-06-24 19:51:10

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"I would also like to have a setting that enforces MFA. Hopefully this can be implemented soon," said Bas... *two years ago*.

2024-06-21 13:35:00

NEW, by me: UnitedHealth has confirmed that a ransomware attack on its Change Healthcare subsidiary resulted in the theft of medical records affecting a “substantial proportion of people in America.”
The data includes diagnoses, medications, tests, and billing (including banking information) on likely tens, if not hundreds of millions of people.
The ramifications for those whose private medical information was irretrievably compromised are likely incalculable.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/21/change-healthcare-confirms-ransomware-hackers-stole-medical-records-on-a-substantial-proportion-of-americans/

2024-06-05 23:01:20

NEW, by me: Cloud data giant Snowflake is at the center of a recent spate of alleged data thefts, including Ticketmaster.
Snowflake has largely blamed its customers for not using MFA (which Snowflake does not require nor enforce).
TechCrunch has this week seen hundreds of alleged Snowflake customer passwords that are available online for cybercriminals to use as part of hacking campaigns, suggesting a greater risk to customer account compromises than first known.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/05/snowflake-customer-passwords-found-online-infostealing-malware/

2024-06-04 11:52:36

A fantastic excerpt on Wired from @npub1n2y…qlcl's new book DARK WIRE, about how the FBI ran an encrypted phone company used almost exclusively by criminals as the largest ever wiretap operation. I bought a copy of his book, so should you. It's a brilliant read and one of my favorite books of the year.
https://www.wired.com/story/inside-biggest-fbi-sting-operation-in-history/

2024-05-22 18:15:18

NEW, by me: The check-in computers at several hotels around the U.S. are running a consumer-grade spyware app called pcTattletale.
pcTattletale was seen stealthily and continually capturing screenshots of the hotel booking systems, which contained guest information and reservation details.
This was discovered because a security researcher found a flaw in the spyware is exposing these screenshots to the internet, not just the spyware's intended users.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/22/spyware-found-on-hotel-check-in-computers/

2024-05-17 16:47:46

New, by me: Two university students have uncovered a security bug that lets millions do their laundry for free.
CSC ServiceWorks provides internet-connected laundry machines to thousands of residential homes and universities around the U.S., Canada and Europe.
The students found that any security checks are done by the app on the user’s device and automatically trusted by CSC’s servers,
But CSC still hasn't fixed the isue — or acknowledged their findings.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/17/csc-serviceworks-free-laundry-million-machines

2024-04-25 19:46:23

UPDATED, by me: U.S. health conglomerate Kaiser disclosed a data breach affecting 13.4 million members.
Kaiser confirmed it was sharing patients’ information with third-party advertisers, including Google, Microsoft, and X (formerly Twitter).
In a statement, Kaiser blamed "certain online technologies, previously installed on its websites and mobile applications, may have transmitted personal information to third-party vendors.”
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/25/kaiser-permanente-health-plan-millions-data-breach

2024-04-24 18:12:49

Poland’s prosecutor general told the parliament on Wednesday that powerful Pegasus spyware was used against at least 578 people from 2017 to 2022 during the former government in Poland, among them elected officials.
Adam Bodnar told lawmakers that he found the scale of the surveillance “shocking and depressing.”
https://apnews.com/article/poland-spyware-pegasus-nso-group-israel-413bb3cb27daac011d52b524c6d16160

2024-04-22 10:48:06

The North Koreans are just like us. They also leave misconfigured cloud servers exposed to the internet for anyone to find.
https://www.wired.com/story/north-korea-amazon-max-animation-exposed-server/

2024-04-18 17:06:27

NEW, by me: Hackers are threatening to publish a confidential database containing millions of records used by companies for screening prospective customers for links to financial crimes.
The financially motivated hacking group says it took 5.3 million records from the World-Check database.
TechCrunch was provided a sample of the records. The London Stock Exchange Group, which maintains the database, confirmed a third-party breach.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/18/world-check-database-leaked-sanctions-financial-crimes-watchlist/

2024-04-11 13:18:34

New, by me: U.S. cyber agency CISA is urging Sisense customers to reset their credentials after the company reported a recent compromise.
CISA said it was investigating as the breach "relates to impacted critical infrastructure sector organizations."
Sisense is a data analytics and business intelligence company that counts airlines, telcos, and tech companies as customers.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/11/cisa-government-sisense-reset-credentials-cyberattack/

2024-04-09 14:49:22

New, by [@lorenzofb](https://infosec.exchange/@lorenzofb): A ransomware gang published an audio recording of one of its hackers trying to extort a U.S. company to pay a ransom.
Instead, the call shows a hilarious — and failed — attempt to extort and intimidate rank-and-file employees.
Today's hero is Beth in HR, who doesn't stand for any of this hacker's bullshit.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/09/ransomware-gang-fail-calling-front-desk-extortion/

2024-04-04 16:17:09

Wow, Elon Musk must be desperate if he's re-adding blue checks to people like me who have long left the hellsite formerly known as Twitter. No, I'm not going back. Instead, I will continue my lifelong streak of not giving Musk a single penny of my money.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/213/812/101/399/943/original/57d777d401cff052.png