Cyber News & Updates
Breaking news, security alerts, and trending stories from across the cybersecurity landscape.
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India Orders Messaging Apps to Work Only With Active SIM Cards to Prevent Fraud and Misuse
India’s Department of Telecommunications has issued a new directive for messaging apps, mandating they only work with active SIM cards linked to the user’s mobile number. This aims to combat phishing, online scams, and other cyber frauds by preventing anonymous activities and ensuring account traceability.
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GlassWorm Returns with 24 Malicious Extensions Impersonating Popular Developer Tools
The GlassWorm supply chain campaign has resurfaced, infiltrating the Microsoft Visual Studio Marketplace and Open VSX with 24 malicious extensions. These extensions impersonate popular developer tools and frameworks, stealing credentials and cryptocurrency, and turning developer machines into attacker-controlled nodes. This re-emergence highlights the adaptive nature of the adversary and the persistent challenge in securing developer…
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Scottish Council Two Years into Ransomware Recovery
The Scottish Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, or Council for the Western Isles, is now two years deep into recovering from a major ransomware attack that hit them in early November 2023. The direct financial fallout from this cyber incident has already exceeded 1 million euros. The attack highlighted inadequate continuity plans, unresolved IT infrastructure weaknesses,…
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AI Brings About a Shift in Video Surveillance
AI is revolutionizing video surveillance, moving beyond simple motion detection to systems that not only see what’s happening but understand why. This shift promises more proactive, reliable, and efficient security through Vision-Language Models (VLM) which combine visual information with language, allowing them to track activities over time and identify cause and effect.
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Regions Calling: Life With No Internet Is the New Normal
Life without consistent internet is the new norm in many Russian regions. Frequent mobile outages and restrictions are transforming daily life far beyond Moscow, forcing a return to cash and impacting financial aid for soldiers and their families.
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European Parliament for mandatory age verification for social media
The European Parliament is pushing for mandatory age verification on social media, suggesting a minimum age of 16 for access. This move aims to protect children online from privacy violations, mental health issues, and harmful content, with the Digital Services Act (DSA) already mandating age verification for services posing risks to minors.
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Chinese Travel Bookings to Russia Surge Amid Visa-Free Talks and Japan Tensions
Chinese travel bookings to Russia have surged dramatically, with some metrics showing increases of up to 400%, driven by President Vladimir Putin’s pledge for visa-free travel and escalating tensions between Beijing and Tokyo. This shift is also fueled by a diplomatic spat between Japan and China.
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French government advises against biometric phone security
The French government is advising against using biometric security, like facial scans or fingerprints, to unlock phones, as detailed in a new advisory document from ANSSI, the national agency for information system security. Instead, ANSSI recommends using end-to-end encrypted chat apps for sensitive communication and disabling automatic MMS reception to prevent spyware attacks. They also…
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Russia Shutters Poland’s Consulate in Irkutsk in Tit-for-Tat Measure
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has announced the closure of Poland’s consulate in Irkutsk, a tit-for-tat measure responding to Warsaw’s recent decision to shut down one of Russia’s consulates. This leaves both nations with only one diplomatic mission each in their respective capitals.
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Belgian data trader fined for illegal resale of data
The Belgian data trader Infobel has been hit with a €40,000 fine by the Belgian Data Protection Authority (GBA) for illegally reselling personal data for marketing purposes. The GBA found Infobel lacked proper consent from individuals, violating GDPR and emphasizing specific, active consent for data use.