The U.S. government is warning that smart locks securing entry to an estimated 50,000 dwellings nationwide contain hard-coded credentials that can be used to remotely open any of the locks. The lock’s maker Chirp Systems remains unresponsive, even though it was first notified about the critical weakness in March 2021. Meanwhile, Chirp’s parent company, RealPage, Inc., is being sued by multiple U.S. states for allegedly colluding with landlords to illegally raise rents.
Law enforcement officers in Zambia have arrested 77 people at a call centre company they allege had employed local school-leavers to engage in scam internet users around the world.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said today it is investigating a breach at business intelligence company Sisense, whose products are designed to allow companies to view the status of multiple third-party online services in a single dashboard. CISA urged all Sisense customers to reset any credentials and secrets that may have been shared with the company, which is the same advice Sisense gave to its customers Wednesday evening.
The East Central University (ECU) of Ada, Oklahoma, has revealed that a ransomware gang launched an attack against its systems that left some computers and servers encrypted and may have also seen sensitive information stolen.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
Learn more about the DragonForce ransomware – how it came to prominence, and some of the unusual tactics used by the hackers who extort money from companies with it.
Read more in my article on the Tripwire State of Security blog.
If 25 documents stolen is “very serious,” I’m not sure the words exist to describe the 1.3 terabytes of data that Leicester City Council now says it has had stolen by hackers.
MPs aren’t just getting excited about an upcoming election, but also the fruity WhatsApp messages they’re receiving, can we trust AI with our health, and who on earth is pretending to be a producer for the Drew Barrymore TV show?
All this and much much more is discussed in the latest edition of the “Smashing Security” podcast by cybersecurity veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault, joined this week by John Hawes.
On April 9, Twitter/X began automatically modifying links that mention “twitter.com” to redirect to “x.com” instead. But over the past 48 hours, dozens of new domain names have been registered that demonstrate how this change could be used to craft convincing phishing links — such as fedetwitter[.]com, which is currently rendered as fedex.com in tweets.
Targus, the well-known laptop bag and case manufacturer, has been hit by a cyber attack that has interrupted its normal business operations.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
If only Patch Tuesdays came around infrequently — like total solar eclipse rare — instead of just creeping up on us each month like The Man in the Moon. Although to be fair, it would be tough for Microsoft to eclipse the number of vulnerabilities fixed in this month’s patch batch — a record 147 flaws in Windows and related software.