Security News for the Week Ending January 29, 2021
Adult Web Site Hacked; 2 Million Records Leaked
Most visitors to adult web sites do not want to be “outed”, but that is exactly what happened to 2 million customers of MyFreeCams. While the data stolen (username, email, UNENCRYPTED passwords and account balance) is not that sensitive, the fact that someone has an account there at all could be used to blackmail their customers. As is too often the case, the site discovered the breach when the media asked them if the data they had was legit. Ouch. Credit: Cybernews
FBI’s Goal of Weakened Encryption Might Backfire on All of Us
A group associated with Hezbollah known as Lebanese Cedar has hacked telephone companies and Internet providers in the US, UK, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and the UAE. At least. Reports have identified at least 250 servers that were compromised by the group. If the FBI gets their way and we add more holes in the security scheme, that will only make the job of hacking us and ransomware easier for terrorists. That doesn’t seem like a great plan. Contrary to their wishes, there is no way to create a hole that only the good guys can use. Credit: ZDNet
Open Source Library Flaws Used by DoD & IC for Satellite Imagery Could Lead to Takeovers
Nitro is a software library used by the Defense Department and Intelligence Community to store, transmit and exchange satellite images. Researchers at GRIMM discovered the bugs in Nitro which they think could have led to system takeovers. The good news is that the researchers, who were working with DHS CISA alerted the vendor and they released a fixed version the following day. Credit: SC Magazine
Air Force Intelligence Officer Planned to Sell Secrets to Russia
Elizabeth Jo Shirley, an Air Force Intelligence Officer, kidnapped her daughter to Mexico and planned to defect to Russia with top-secret information. She worked at the NSA, Department of Energy and other government agencies for nearly 20 years before she went rogue. She was sentenced to 97 months. Credit: The Register
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