10.10.25 Security News Bites

10.10.25 Security News Bites

Flock Surveillance Camera Company Now Detects Voices

The company that sells nationwide surveillance using license plate readers now also detects gunshots and voices. I think the idea is to detect voices like “Help Police!”, but it is getting a bit scary. You, of course, have no control over this as the private company or local jurisdiction that is paying Flock is their customer, not you. Credit: The Record

New Hacker Tactic: Crowdsourcing Extortion

Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters is crowdsourcing extortion. I don’t think I have heard of this M.O. before, but here is what they are doing. They will pay you $10 in Bitcoin if you harass a senior executive at an organization it hacked into paying a ransom. There is also an upside if you do “an exceptionally well job”. The invite, along with instructions, are available on Telegram. “You have permission to endlessly harass these executives till they comply with us” – AKA pay a ransom. Since they were not, apparently, successful in getting Salesforce to pay a ransom, maybe they can get Salesforce customers to pay. Very creative. For the sum of $10 in Bitcoin. Credit: The Register

Texas Cops Used Nationwide Flock Camera Network to Find Woman Who Got an Abortion

I am hoping this is an anomaly, but who knows. A Texas woman had her whereabouts tracked through the nationwide Flock surveillance camera network after aborting her pregnancy. Flock and the Johnson County Sheriff said that was because her family was worried about her. But new documents show it was actually a “death investigation” and it didn’t start until two weeks after the abortion. Flock’s CEO has already publicly said that how law enforcement uses their data is not his problem. It could be a PR problem for him. Credit: The Record

Acting Cyber Command and NSA Chief Won’t be Nominated

Nine months into the administration, there is still no one steering the Cyber Command and NSA ships. The temp captain, Lt. Gen. William Hartman, will apparently not be nominated to lead the two organizations. Hartman is going to retire instead. China, Russia and our other friends like North Korea, likely are cheering the chaos as these two organizations ability to fight them is probably weakened by the lack of a leader at either organization. At the same time, some inside the administration are still fighting to separate these Siamese twins because of the conflict of interest between offensive and defensive security. Credit: The Record

ICE is Buying Vehicles With built-in Surveillance Tech

I guess this should not surprise anyone. ICE paid $825,000 to a company that makes vehicles equipped with various technologies that law enforcement uses. This particular contract is for vehicles that have fake cell towers in them (sometimes called Stingrays after the branded version that L3Harris sells). This allows them to intercept phone calls and capture information about the phones in the area, which may allow them to find the phone’s owner. This is, apparently, a follow-on contract to a similar value contract last year. The company sells all sorts of vehicles from bomb trucks to surveillance vans. Credit: Tech Crunch

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