US authorities seize more domains linked to prolific DDoS-for-hire websites
U.S. authorities have seized 13 more domains linked to some of the world’s most popular DDoS-for-hire websites. These websites, also described as “booter” or “stressor” services, are marketed as legitimate security testing tools that allow admins to stress-test websites. In reality, the services are used for launching denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks designed to overwhelm websites and networks and force them offline. The DOJ announced on Monday that the FBI had seized 13 more domains linked to some of the most prolific booter services as part of Operation PowerOFF, an international law enforcement effort to disrupt online platforms that allow anyone to launch massive distributed DDoS attacks.
FBI says it has sabotaged hacking tool created by elite Russian spies
The FBI has sabotaged a suite of malicious software used by elite Russian spies, U.S. authorities said on Tuesday, providing a glimpse of the digital tug-of-war between two cyber superpowers. Senior law enforcement officials said FBI technical experts had identified and disabled malware wielded by Russia’s FSB security service against an undisclosed number of American computers, a move they hoped would deal a death blow to one of Russia’s leading cyber spying programs.
Microsoft enforces number matching to fight MFA fatigue attacks
Microsoft has started enforcing number matching in Microsoft Authenticator push notifications to fend off multi-factor authentication (MFA) fatigue attacks. In such attacks (also known as push bombing or MFA push spam), cybercriminals flood the targets with mobile push notifications asking them to approve attempts to log into their corporate accounts using stolen credentials. In many cases, the targets will give in to the repeated malicious MFA push requests, either by mistake or to stop the seemingly endless stream of alerts, allowing the attackers to log into their accounts.
Never leak secrets to your GitHub repositories again
GitHub is making push protection – a security feature designed to automatically prevent the leaking of secrets to repositories – free for owners of all public repositories. Previously, the feature was available only for private repositories with a GitHub Advanced Security license. This wider availability is aimed at helping developers and maintainers across open source proactively secure their code.
Clearview fined again in France for failing to comply with privacy orders
Clearview AI, the US startup that’s attracted notoriety in recent years for a massive privacy violation after it scraped selfies off the Internet and used people’s data to build a facial recognition tool it pitched to law enforcement and others, has been hit with another fine in France over non-cooperation with the data protection regulator. The overdue penalty payment of €5.2M has been issued by the French regulator, the CNIL — on top of a €20M sanction it slapped the company with last year for breaching regional privacy rules. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets out conditions for processing personal data lawfully.