Welcome to this week in NerdNews (TWINN). Your weekly top 5 technical and security issues Nerds should pay attention to:
Accenture lost ‘proprietary information’ in summer ransomware attack. Even organizations with strong security controls can fall victim. Even though the impact was less than many other stories, there may be additional fallout from this:
“In addition, our clients have experienced, and may in the future experience, breaches of systems and cloud-based services enabled by or provided by us,” it reads. “To date these incidents have not had a material impact on our or our clients’ operations; however, there is no assurance that such impacts will not be material in the future.”
EXCLUSIVE Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla’s driving data. This will be a significant battleground of individual privacy vs data usage for accident analysis.
“The NFI said the decrypted data showed Tesla vehicles store information about the operation of its driver assistance system, known as Autopilot. The vehicles also record speed, accelerator pedal position, steering wheel angle and brake usage, and depending on how the vehicle is used, that data can be stored for over a year.”
Cyber Private Eyes Go After Hackers, Without Counterattacking. “Hacking back” is illegal, but soon it may not be. The CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) makes it a federal offense to access a computer without authorization. Even without changes to the CFAA, experts are going on the offensive.
“Former spies and cyber cops say there is enough legal room for them to fight cybercriminals, and they use their military and law-enforcement training to do so.”
Nonprofit Websites Are Riddled With Ad Trackers. I like the publication’s tagline of “Big Tech Is Watching You. We’re Watching Big Tech.”
Planned Parenthood is downright creepy in what they do. 28 ad trackers and 40 third-party cookies tracking visitors. Even the mouse movements are being tracked.
Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline. Woohoo! Mind you, so far such activities can only be summarized as a whack-a-mole game. Every time a gang goes down, a new one pops up. Little by little, the good guys need to win!
Did you know?
You can now get a Chatter Telephone with Bluetooth! Everyone had one of these as a kid or for one of their kids. Well, now it can make REAL phone calls by using bluetooth to another phone. What will they think of next!? Come to think of it, this could be an interesting resource in blue & red team exercises.
Vor a video version of this see: https://youtu.be/kh5bo8Ms4go
