Security News for the Week Ending July 1, 2022
Russia Cyber Attacks Lithuania After Gov Refuses to Let Russian Coal, Steel Trains Through
Apparently Russia couldn’t figure out a way to do any real damage, so they launched a denial of service attack against a bunch of Lithuanian web sites.. This includes the state tax inspector, migration department and secure national data network. The problem with these type of attacks is that they require a lot of continuous resources. So, Lithuania shut down the web sites until Russia got bored and moved on with life. Credit: The Record
China Targets Rare Earth Competitors
Right now China pretty much has a stranglehold on the refining of rare earth minerals, which are critical to a variety of technology products, especially chip manufacture. As the world tries to free itself from China’s grip, Canada and the U.S. are trying to get into the rare earth business. China, using a threat actor group called Dragonbridge, has been running an active disinformation and misinformation campaign against us. It has not worked well so far, but China is very persistent. Credit: Security Week
Feds Working on National Privacy Law
Congress is working on a national privacy bill titled the American Data Privacy and Protection Act. It attempts to deal with both preemption and with the private right of action, as well as forced arbitration. It is doing this in a way that will likely make everyone unhappy. Enforcement would be by the FTC and states Attorneys General. The bill covers a lot of ground (see link), but the odds of it passing are pretty slim. Still, anything is possible. Credit: Akin Gump
Even the Supreme Court isn’t Immune to Hackers
No, I don’t mean the leaking of the draft Roe v Wade decision months ago. Rather, since the decision was officially released, hackers have been doxing the conservative judges – they are posting the justices home addresses and credit card numbers. Some of the videos had thousands of likes. Many of the videos have been taken down by TikTok, but they are still circulating elsewhere. They are also mobilized to poison the data from period tracking apps that might be used by law enforcement agencies. An example could be to use the apps to track online gaming sessions. Of these, the most concerning is the publishing of their home addresses as crazies might decide to harm them. Credit: Vice
Walmart Sued for Turning Blind Eye to Money Laundering
The Federal Trade Commission is suing Walmart for ignoring obvious fraud in its money transfer operation. The FTC says Walmart made millions in fees while victims lost many times that. Both Moneygram and Western Union settled with the FTC over similar charges, agreeing to pay back hundreds of millions. Walmart, of course, says they are not guilty. Moneygram, Ria and Western Union say that between 2013 and 2018 they received 226,000+ complaints about fraud induced money transfers sent from or received at a Walmart store. Credit: The Register
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