Security News Update for the Week Ending February 10, 2023

If You Think the Chinese Balloon Incident is a Major Wake-up call …

China has been spying on the US for decades. And we have been spying on them. Kind of like Spy vs. Spy in Mad Magazine when we were kids. If you think that the balloon gave China important information – above the terabytes of data they collect from us on a daily basis, you are probably wrong. There were, the Pentagon now says, 3 additional balloon visits over the United States during the Trump administration and one more during the Biden administration. Meaning these are relatively common. None of which were shot down. Apparently, relatively common. The rest of the quote from the title is “… about Chinese actions, abilities or intentions, it may just mean you’ve been asleep.” Credit: WaPo

European Police Hack Encrypted Messaging App, Arrest Dozens

Police searched 79 locations in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland last week, arresting 48 people associated with encrypted messaging app Exclu. The cops had penetrated the company’s servers months ago and had been reading the contents of messages. Exclu is – or I should say was – a haven for crooks and the cops have been after them since 2019. Credit: The Register

Auto Dealers Are Prime Targets for Hackers

Car dealers are prime targets for hackers due to weak security, poor employee training and a massive amount of financial data. AT&T says that the crooks are zeroing in on car dealers because of outdated IT and no process maturity. In addition, you have all of the tech that is used in the repair side of the dealerships. Assuming the dealers don’t improve their practices, it could get ugly. One thing that works in favor of improved security is that due to the lending part of dealerships, the FTC just reclassified them as financial institutions. Credit: SC Magazine

Hackers Are Going Old School

As credit card fraud becomes harder and less lucrative due to chip cards and better fraud detection, hackers are going old school. Check fraud is becoming more attractive. Watch the video (15 minutes) for more details. Credit: Data Breach Today

In the AI Wars, Google Loses $100 Billion in Valuation, Users Flock to Microsoft

As Google tried to demo its competitor to ChatGPT, the demo blew up and Google’s shares tanked, losing $100 billion in value. In the meantime, over one million users have already signed up for Microsoft’s ChatGPT based Bing search. Also, unlike Google’s standalone AI bot, Microsoft plans to merge Edge, search, browsing and chat into a single interface. I suspect there are some folks at Google working like crazy right now. Credit: Cybernews

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