Security News for the Week Ending September 1, 2023
What Does $50,000 in iPads Get You?
The answer may be a prison sentence for bribery. The case is going back and forth, but now the case is back on. The head of Apple security wanted some concealed carry permits for his team and since the process wasn’t going as fast as Apple would like, they offered to “donate” $50,000 worth of iPads to the Sheriff in exchange for the permits. Sounds like a bribe. Credit: Cybernews
The FBI is Getting Good at This
After the FBI nuked the Qakbot malware network with assistance from international law enforcement, it figured out how to uninstall the malware from 700,000 infected computers. After they got control of the hacker’s admin servers, they wrote a program that it pushed out as an update to the malware. Note to hackers: if you can update your software, so can the FBI. The FBI had to reverse engineer the software, but with control of the hacker’s infrastructure, that was less difficult. Credit: Bleeping Computer
Apple Releases the Most UNlocked iPhone Ever – to Security Researchers
Apple does this every now and then. The Security Research Device (SRD) is a specially-built hardware variant of iPhone 14 Pro, with tooling and options that allow researchers to configure or disable many advanced security protections of iOS. Researchers can install and boot custom kernel caches on it, run arbitrary code, start services at startup, persist content across restarts, and more. This is much smarter of Apple than fighting with the security research community. Credit: Helpnet Security
Reminder – Windows 11 Will Force-Update if You Are Running 21H2 – Next Month
I can’t test this because I am running 23H2, but if you are running an old version of Windows 11, don’t be surprised one day when you wake up to a new version of Windows on your computer (you will see a message telling you to reboot to get this wonderfulness). This will not affect centrally managed business systems. You can find out what version you are running by typing WINVER in the magnifying glass window and selecting the Winver app. Credit: Bleeping Computer
US, Like China, Is Collecting DNA on up to 10 Percent of the Population
The FBI has collected DNA on over 20 million Americans – about 10% of the population including babies. And, the FBI wants to double its budget for DNA collection because it is adding 90,000 samples a month and expects that to increase to 120,000 a month. Years ago, the CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) was designed to collect DNA from violent felons and sex offenders. Since even breathing discards DNA, it is easy for local police to collect DNA from almost anyone if they want to. Even if you don’t think the Intercept is credible, the FBI is admitting what they are doing in the request for more money. Credit: The Intercept
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