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Telegram Offers Premium Subscription in Exchange for Using Your Number to Send OTPs

Telegram Offers Premium Subscription in Exchange for Using Your Number to Send OTPs
Mar 28, 2024 Technology / Data Privacy
In June 2017, a  study  of more than 3,000 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students  published  by the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER) found that 98% of them were willing to give away their friends' email addresses in exchange for free pizza. "Whereas people say they care about privacy, they are willing to relinquish private data quite easily when incentivized to do so," the research said, pointing out a what's called the privacy paradox. Now, nearly seven years later, Telegram has introduced a new feature that gives some users a free  premium membership  in exchange for allowing the popular messaging app to use their phone numbers as a relay for sending one-time passwords (OTPs) to other users who are attempting to sign in to the platform. The feature, called Peer-to-Peer Login (P2PL), is currently being tested in selected countries for Android users of Telegram. It was first spotted by  tginfo  in February 2024 (via  @AssembleDebug ). A

Meta Details WhatsApp and Messenger Interoperability to Comply with EU's DMA Regulations

Meta Details WhatsApp and Messenger Interoperability to Comply with EU's DMA Regulations
Mar 08, 2024 Interoperability / Encryption
Meta has offered details on how it intends to implement interoperability in WhatsApp and Messenger with third-party messaging services as the Digital Markets Act (DMA) went into effect in the European Union. "This allows users of third-party providers who choose to enable interoperability (interop) to send and receive messages with opted-in users of either Messenger or WhatsApp – both designated by the European Commission (EC) as being required to independently provide interoperability to third-party messaging services," Meta's Dick Brouwer  said . DMA, which officially  became enforceable  on March 7, 2024, requires companies in gatekeeper positions – Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and ByteDance – to meet certain obligations as part of the European Commission's efforts to clamp down on anti-competitive practices from tech players, level the playing field, as well as compel them to open some of their services to competitors. As part of its efforts to comply with the lan

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future
Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu

U.S. Court Orders NSO Group to Hand Over Pegasus Spyware Code to WhatsApp

U.S. Court Orders NSO Group to Hand Over Pegasus Spyware Code to WhatsApp
Mar 02, 2024 Spyware / Privacy
A U.S. judge has ordered NSO Group to hand over its source code for  Pegasus  and other remote access trojans to Meta as part of the social media giant's ongoing litigation against the Israeli spyware vendor. The decision marks a major legal victory for Meta, which  filed the lawsuit  in October 2019 for using its infrastructure to  distribute the spyware  to approximately 1,400 mobile devices between April and May. This also  included  two dozen Indian activists and journalists. These attacks leveraged a then zero-day flaw in the instant messaging app ( CVE-2019-3568 , CVSS score: 9.8), a critical  buffer overflow bug  in the voice call functionality, to deliver Pegasus by merely placing a call, even in scenarios where the calls were left unanswered. In addition, the attack chain included steps to erase the incoming call information from the logs in an attempt to sidestep detection. Court documents released late last month show that NSO Group has been asked to "produce

Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

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Meta Warns of 8 Spyware Firms Targeting iOS, Android, and Windows Devices

Meta Warns of 8 Spyware Firms Targeting iOS, Android, and Windows Devices
Feb 19, 2024 Mobile Security / Cyber Espionage
Meta Platforms said it took a series of steps to curtail malicious activity from eight different firms based in Italy, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) operating in the surveillance-for-hire industry. The findings are part of its  Adversarial Threat Report  for the fourth quarter of 2023. The spyware targeted iOS, Android, and Windows devices. "Their various malware included capabilities to collect and access device information, location, photos and media, contacts, calendar, email, SMS, social media, and messaging apps, and enable microphone,camera, and screenshot functionality," the company said. The eight companies are Cy4Gate/ELT Group, RCS Labs, IPS Intelligence, Variston IT, TrueL IT, Protect Electronic Systems, Negg Group, and Mollitiam Industries. These firms, per Meta, also engaged in scraping, social engineering, and phishing activity that targeted a wide range of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Skype, GitHub, R

Meta Launches Default End-to-End Encryption for Chats and Calls on Messenger

Meta Launches Default End-to-End Encryption for Chats and Calls on Messenger
Dec 07, 2023 Encryption / Data Privacy
Meta has officially begun to  roll out  support for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in Messenger for personal calls and one-to-one personal messages by default in what it called the "most significant milestone yet." "This isn't a routine security update: we rebuilt the app from the ground up, in close consultation with privacy and safety experts," Loredana Crisan, vice president of Messenger at Meta,  said  in a post shared on X (formerly Twitter). CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who announced a "privacy-focused vision for social networking" back in 2019,  said  the update comes "after years of work" redesigning the platform. It's worth noting that E2EE for group messaging in Messenger is still in the testing phase. Encrypted chats were first introduced as an opt-in feature called "secret conversations" in Messenger in 2016. Meta's Instagram also has  support for E2EE  for messages and calls but it's "only available in some

Meta Launches Paid Ad-Free Subscription in Europe to Satisfy Privacy Laws

Meta Launches Paid Ad-Free Subscription in Europe to Satisfy Privacy Laws
Oct 31, 2023 Privacy / Online Security
Meta on Monday announced plans to offer an ad-free option to access Facebook and Instagram for users in the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland to comply with "evolving" data protection regulations in the region. The ad-free subscription, which costs €9.99/month on the web or €12.99/month on iOS and Android, is expected to be officially available starting next month. The company's proposal for a subscription version of its service was  first reported  by The Wall Street Journal earlier this month. "In November, we will be offering people who use Facebook or Instagram and reside in these regions the choice to continue using these personalized services for free with ads, or subscribe to stop seeing ads," the company  said . "While people are subscribed, their information will not be used for ads." While the fee covers all linked accounts for a user, beginning March 1, 2024, the company plans to levy an additional fee

Meta Takes Down Thousands of Accounts Involved in Disinformation Ops from China and Russia

Meta Takes Down Thousands of Accounts Involved in Disinformation Ops from China and Russia
Sep 05, 2023 Social Media / Disinformation
Meta has disclosed that it disrupted two of the largest known covert influence operations in the world from China and Russia, blocking thousands of accounts and pages across its platform. "It targeted more than 50 apps, including Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, Medium, Blogspot, LiveJournal, VKontakte, Vimeo, and dozens of smaller platforms and forums," Guy Rosen, chief information security officer at Meta, said last week, describing the Chinese disinformation group. The network, which included 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 Pages, 15 Groups and 15 Instagram accounts, is said to have been run by "geographically dispersed operators" across China, posting content about China and its province Xinjiang, criticism of the U.S, Western foreign policies, and critics of the Chinese government. Central to the activity is the sharing of spammy links, the origins of which trace back to a cluster named Spamouflage (aka DRAGONBRIDGE ) that has been

Meta Set to Enable Default End-to-End Encryption on Messenger by Year End

Meta Set to Enable Default End-to-End Encryption on Messenger by Year End
Aug 23, 2023 Encryption / Privacy
Meta has once again reaffirmed its plans to roll out support for end-to-end encryption ( E2EE ) by default for one-to-one friends and family chats on Messenger by the end of the year. As part of that effort, the social media giant said it's upgrading "millions more people's chats" effective August 22, 2023, exactly seven months after it  started gradually expanding the feature  to more users in January 2023. The changes are part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "privacy-focused vision for social networking" that was announced in 2019, although it has since encountered significant technical challenges, causing it to  delay its plans  by a year. "Like many messaging services, Messenger and Instagram DMs were originally designed to function via servers," Timothy Buck, product manager for Messenger,  said . "Meta's servers act as the gateway between the message sender and receiver, what we call the clients." However, the addition of an

Instagram's Twitter Alternative 'Threads' Launch Halted in Europe Over Privacy Concerns

Instagram's Twitter Alternative 'Threads' Launch Halted in Europe Over Privacy Concerns
Jul 05, 2023 Privacy / Social Media
Instagram Threads, the upcoming Twitter competitor from Meta, will not be launched in the European Union due to privacy concerns, according to Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC). The development was  reported  by the Irish Independent, which said the watchdog has been in contact with the social media giant about the new product and confirmed the release won't extend to the E.U. "at this point." Threads  is Meta's answer to Twitter that's set for launch on July 6, 2023. It's billed as a "text-based conversation app" that allows Instagram users to "discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what'll be trending tomorrow." It also enables users to follow the same accounts they already follow on Instagram. A listing for the app has already appeared in the  Apple App Store  and  Google Play Store , although it's yet to be available for download. The " App Privacy " section on the App Store indic

WhatsApp Upgrades Proxy Feature Against Internet Shutdowns

WhatsApp Upgrades Proxy Feature Against Internet Shutdowns
Jun 30, 2023 Privacy / Tech
Meta's WhatsApp has rolled out updates to its proxy feature, allowing more flexibility in the kind of content that can be shared in conversations. This includes the ability to send and receive images, voice notes, files, stickers and GIFs, WhatsApp told The Hacker News. The new features were  first reported  by BBC Persian. Some of the other improvements include streamlined steps to simplify the setup process as well as the introduction of shareable links to "share functioning/valid proxy addresses to their contacts for easy and automatic installation." Support for  proxy servers  was officially launched by the messaging service  earlier this January , thereby helping users circumvent government-imposed censorship and internet shutdowns and obtain indirect access to WhatsApp. The company has also made available a  reference implementation  for setting up a proxy server with ports 80, 443, or 5222 available and a domain name that points to the server's IP address.

E.U. Regulators Hit Meta with Record $1.3 Billion Fine for Data Transfer Violations

E.U. Regulators Hit Meta with Record $1.3 Billion Fine for Data Transfer Violations
May 22, 2023 Data Protection / Privacy
Facebook's parent company Meta has been fined a record $1.3 billion by European Union data protection regulators for transferring the personal data of users in the region to the U.S. In a binding decision taken by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), the social media giant has been ordered to bring its data transfers into compliance with the GDPR and delete unlawfully stored and processed data within six months. Additionally, Meta has been given five months to suspend any future transfer of Facebook users' data to the U.S. Instagram and WhatsApp, which are also owned by the company, are not subject to the order. "The EDPB found that Meta IE's infringement is very serious since it concerns transfers that are systematic, repetitive, and continuous," Andrea Jelinek, EDPB Chair,  said  in a statement. "Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transferred is massive. The unprecedented fine is a strong signal to organizati

Meta Takes Down Malware Campaign That Used ChatGPT as a Lure to Steal Accounts

Meta Takes Down Malware Campaign That Used ChatGPT as a Lure to Steal Accounts
May 04, 2023 Online Security / ChatGPT
Meta said it took steps to take down more than 1,000 malicious URLs from being shared across its services that were found to leverage OpenAI's ChatGPT as a lure to propagate about 10 malware families since March 2023. The development comes  against  the backdrop of  fake ChatGPT   web browser extensions  being increasingly used to steal users' Facebook account credentials with an aim to run unauthorized ads from hijacked business accounts. "Threat actors create malicious browser extensions available in official web stores that claim to offer ChatGPT-based tools," Meta  said . "They would then promote these malicious extensions on social media and through sponsored search results to trick people into downloading malware." The social media giant said it has blocked several iterations of a multi-pronged malware campaign dubbed  Ducktail  over the years, adding it issued a cease and desist letter to individuals behind the operation who are located in Vietna

Irish Regulators Fine Facebook $414 Million for Forcing Users to Accept Targeted Ads

Irish Regulators Fine Facebook $414 Million for Forcing Users to Accept Targeted Ads
Jan 05, 2023 Privacy / Data Protection
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has  fined  Meta Platforms €390 million (roughly $414 million) over its handling of user data for serving personalized ads in what could be a major blow to its ad-fueled business model. To that end, the privacy regulator has ordered Meta Ireland to pay two fines – a €210 million ($222.5 million) fine over violations of the E.U. General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ) related to Facebook, and a €180 million ($191 million) for similar violations in Instagram. The latest enforcement comes in the wake of concerns that the social media company used its Terms of Service to gain users' forced consent to allow targeted advertising based on their online activity. The complaints were filed on May 25, 2018, the date when GDPR came into effect in the region. It also arrives a month after the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), an independent body that oversees the consistent application of GDPR in the E.U.,  announced  that it had reached 

Facebook to Pay $725 Million to settle Lawsuit Over Cambridge Analytica Data Leak

Facebook to Pay $725 Million to settle Lawsuit Over Cambridge Analytica Data Leak
Dec 27, 2022 Data Security / Privacy
Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a long-running class-action lawsuit filed in 2018. The legal dispute sprang up in response to revelations that the social media giant allowed third-party apps such as those used by Cambridge Analytica to access users' personal information without their consent for political advertising. The proposed settlement, first  reported  by Reuters last week, is the latest penalty paid by the company in the wake of a  number  of  privacy   mishaps   through the years . It still requires the approval of a federal judge in the San Francisco division of the U.S. District Court. It's worth noting that Facebook previously sought to  dismiss the lawsuit  in September 2019,  claiming  users have no legitimate privacy interest in any information they make available to their friends on social media. The  data harvesting scandal , which  came  to  light  in March 2018, involved a

Facebook Cracks Down on Spyware Vendors from U.S., China, Russia, Israel, and India

Facebook Cracks Down on Spyware Vendors from U.S., China, Russia, Israel, and India
Dec 19, 2022 Cyber Attacks / Surveillance
Meta Platforms disclosed that it took down no less than 200 covert influence operations since 2017 spanning roughly 70 countries across 42 languages. The social media conglomerate also took steps to disable accounts and block infrastructure operated by spyware vendors, including in China, Russia, Israel, the U.S. and India, that targeted individuals in about 200 countries. "The global surveillance-for-hire industry continues to grow and indiscriminately target people – including journalists, activists, litigants, and political opposition – to collect intelligence, manipulate and compromise their devices and accounts across the internet," the company  noted  in a report published last week. The networks that were found to engage in coordinated inauthentic behavior ( CIB ) originated from 68 countries. More than 100 nations are said to have been targeted by at least one such network, either foreign or domestic. With 34 operations, the U.S. emerged as the most frequently ta

Irish Regulator Fines Facebook $277 Million for Leak of Half a Billion Users' Data

Irish Regulator Fines Facebook $277 Million for Leak of Half a Billion Users' Data
Nov 29, 2022
Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) has  levied fines  of €265 million ($277 million) against Meta Platforms for failing to safeguard the personal data of more than half a billion users of its Facebook service, ramping up privacy enforcement against U.S. tech firms. The fines follow an inquiry initiated by the European regulator on April 14, 2021, close on the heels of a leak of a "collated dataset of Facebook personal data that had been made available on the internet." This included the  personal information  associated with 533 million users of the social media platform, such as their phone numbers, dates of birth, locations, email addresses, gender, marital status, account creation date, and other profile details. Meta acknowledged that the information was "old data" that was obtained by malicious actors by taking advantage of a technique called "phone number enumeration" to  scrape users' public profiles . This entailed misusing a t

Meta Takes Down Fake Facebook and Instagram Accounts Linked to Pro-U.S. Influence Operation

Meta Takes Down Fake Facebook and Instagram Accounts Linked to Pro-U.S. Influence Operation
Nov 23, 2022
Meta Platforms on Tuesday said it took down a network of accounts and pages across Facebook and Instagram that were operated by people associated with the U.S. military to spread narratives that depicted the country in a favorable light in the Middle East and Central Asia. The network, which originated from the U.S., primarily singled out Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. The social media giant stated the individuals behind the activity impersonated the communities they targeted, propagating content in Arabic, Farsi, and Russian that floated themes of increased military cooperation with the U.S., and criticized Iran, China, and Russia. These narratives spanned "Russia's invasion of Ukraine, China's treatment of the Uyghur people, Iran's influence in the Middle East, and the support of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan by Russia and China," Meta  said  in its Quarterly Adversaria
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