fake news | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Wednesday announced sanctions against two 46-year-old Russian nationals and the respective companies they own for engaging in cyber influence operations. Ilya Andreevich Gambashidze (Gambashidze), the founder of the Moscow-based company Social Design Agency (SDA), and Nikolai Aleksandrovich Tupikin (Tupikin), the CEO and current owner of Russia-based Company Group Structura LLC (Structura), have been accused of providing services to the Russian government in connection to a "foreign malign influence campaign." The disinformation campaign is tracked by the broader cybersecurity community under the name  Doppelganger , which is known to target audiences in Europe and the U.S. using inauthentic news sites and social media accounts. "SDA and Structura have been identified as key actors of the campaign, responsible for providing [the Government of the Russian Federation] with a variety of servic

Researchers have uncovered a list of 3,207 mobile apps that are exposing Twitter API keys in the clear, some of which can be utilized to gain unauthorized access to Twitter accounts associated with them. The takeover is made possible, thanks to a leak of legitimate Consumer Key and Consumer Secret information, respectively, Singapore-based cybersecurity firm CloudSEK said in a report exclusively shared with The Hacker News. "Out of 3,207, 230 apps are leaking all four authentication credentials and can be used to fully take over their Twitter Accounts and can perform any critical/sensitive actions," the researchers said.  This can range from reading direct messages to carrying out arbitrary actions such as retweeting, liking and deleting tweets, following any account, removing followers, accessing account settings, and even changing the account profile picture. Access to the Twitter API  requires  generating secret keys and access tokens, which act as the usernames and

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

Ukrainian radio operator TAVR Media on Thursday became the latest victim of a cyberattack, resulting in the broadcast of a fake message that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was seriously ill. "Cybercriminals spread information that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is allegedly in intensive care, and his duties are performed by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk," the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP)  said  in an update. The Kyiv-based holding company oversees nine major radio stations, including Hit FM, Radio ROKS, KISS FM, Radio RELAX, Melody FM, Nashe Radio, Radio JAZZ, Classic Radio, and Radio Bayraktar. In a separate post on Facebook, TAVR Media  disclosed  its servers and networks were targeted in a cyberattack and it's working to resolve the issue. The company also emphasized that "no information about the health problems of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy is

Twitter on Tuesday announced an expansion to its private information policy to include private media, effectively prohibiting the sharing of photos and videos without express permission from the individuals depicted in them with an aim to curb doxxing and harassment. "Beginning today, we will not allow the sharing of private media, such as images or videos of private individuals without their consent. Publishing people's private info is also prohibited under the policy, as is threatening or incentivizing others to do so," the company's Safety team  said  in a tweet. To that end, the policy also  discourages  users from sharing information such as sign-in credentials that would enable malicious actors to gain access to a person's sensitive information without their authorization. It also forbids users from seeking financial compensation in exchange for posting (or not posting) another individual's private information as part of blackmail schemes. As part o

If you think that the media files you receive on your end-to-end encrypted secure messaging apps can not be tampered with, you need to think again. Security researchers at Symantec yesterday demonstrated multiple interesting attack scenarios against WhatsApp and Telegram Android apps, which could allow malicious actors to spread fake news or scam users into sending payments to wrong accounts. Dubbed " Media File Jacking ," the attack leverages an already known fact that any app installed on a device can access and rewrite files saved in the external storage, including files saved by other apps installed on the same device. WhatsApp and Telegram allow users to choose if they want to save all incoming multimedia files on internal or external storage of their device. However, WhatsApp for Android by default automatically stores media files in the external storage, while Telegram for Android uses internal storage to store users files that are not accessible to any othe

Do you or someone you know lives in Egypt and holds an account on Facebook, Twitter, or/and other social media platforms with more than 5000 followers? If yes, your account can be censored, suspended and is subject to prosecution for promoting or spreading the fake news through social media platforms. On July 16, the Egyptian parliament approved a new law that classifies a personal social media account, blog or website with more than 5,000 followers as media outlets, allowing the state to block social media accounts and penalize journalists for publishing fake news. Social media networks are no doubt a quick and powerful way to share information and ideas, but not everything shared on Facebook or Twitter is true. Fake news is all around us, and every country is finding its own new ways to tackle this issue. Over the past the year, fake news or misinformation has emerged as a primary issue on social media platforms, seeking to influence millions of people with wrong propaga