Rani Govender, senior policy officer at the NSPCC, said: “We don’t think there’s a trade-off between safety and privacy, we think it’s about investing in those technical solutions which we know are out there, that can deliver for the privacy and safety of all users on these services.”
More than a dozen international law enforcement organizations worked together under U.S. leadership to identify and locate victims of child sexual exploitation in a just-completed operation that officials say is likely the most successful of its kind.
In the three-week “surge” known as Operation Renewed Hope, which began July 17, investigators combing through sexually graphic internet material involving children, much of it on the dark web and some of it decades old, made probable identifications of 311 child victims and confirmed the rescue of several victims from active abuse.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, took the lead in the operation, which included representatives from the Justice Department, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, Interpol and Europol, as well as 13 law enforcement agencies from Australia, Canada and countries in Europe and South America.
In many of the cases in which victims have been identified, HSI officials told NBC News that the material had existed for many years, but investigators were previously unable to identify the child victims or the adult abusers. Thanks to new facial recognition and artificial intelligence technology, there are now fresh leads in these formerly cold cases.
After they narrowed down a location or tentatively identified a victim, the investigators sent their new leads to the appropriate local law enforcement agency. The operation sent more than 100 leads to HSI field offices and 25 partnering countries. Some suspects in Canada and the United States have already been arrested.
The announcement comes a week after the FBI revealed it had identified dozens of victims of child sex trafficking and more than 100 suspects in a separate sweep called Operation Cross Country.
Mike Prado, deputy assistant director of the HSI Cyber Crimes Center, said the results of Operation Renewed Hope “exceeded our wildest expectations in the sense of being able to identify children who have been abused for, in many cases, years.”
He gave NBC News a tour of the operation while it was in progress, being careful to avoid showing any of the highly graphic material under review.
In one room, more than 20…
According to the internet security company Kaspersky, cryptojacking is an act of mining cryptocurrency by hacking into someone else’s computer, smartphone, and other electronic devices. It is typically done by gaining unauthorised access to the host’s computer and using its resources to mine cryptocurrency without the host noticing it or before it is too late.
Since the Proof-of-Work consensus using coins like Bitcoin (BTC) requires extensive computational power to generate new coins and mining rigs consume heavy electricity besides their high cost and maintenance expenses, hackers use the cryptojacking method to mine Bitcoin and other Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies using the host’s resources.
Researchers at the Kaspersky Labs further explain that cryptojacking can infect even Android devices even though phones have low processing power than computers. In this type of attack, hackers pool the processing power of a large number of phones to mine Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies.
Exponential Rise In Cryptojacking Attacks In 2022
According to a report titled ‘2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report’ by cybersecurity firm SonicWall, cryptojacking attacks in the financial sector has risen by 269 per cent year to date, about five times more than the cyber attacks targeting the retail industry.
The report noted that the finance industry has witnessed significantly higher cryptojacking incidences than any other sector. Overall, crypto-jacking cases went up by 30 per cent to 66.7 million in the first half of 2022, SonicWall said in the report.
“Despite a precipitous drop in the price of cryptocurrency, global cryptojacking volume rose to 66.7 million in the first half of 2022, up 30% over the first half of 2021. The number of attacks on the finance industry is five times greater than the second highest industry — retail, which used to be at the very bottom of the list,” the report noted.
What Is Cryptojacking Cases Rising?
SonicWall researchers noted that despite a sharp drop in Bitcoin prices since January 2022, cryptojacking cases kept…
Google is allowing some Android apps to use their own payment systems after getting into battles with both Match Group and Epic Games’ Bandcamp, but the move might be temporary. The company is facing legal action for requiring apps in the Google Play Store to use its billing, and the interim solution Google came up with is to let those apps use their own payments — with a catch.
Match Group withdrew its temporary restraining order against Google on Friday, according to TechCrunch, which it had filed amid its antitrust lawsuit against the company. Match eked out some “concessions” from Google, including making sure its apps would not be ousted from the Play Store for using alternative payment options, TechCrunch reported. Rather than pay Google, Match is putting aside $40 million in an escrow account, maintaining that the fees are illegal and awaiting a judge’s ruling.
The lawsuit, which alleges that Google has “illegally monopolized” the app market for Android with its Play Store policy, is still ongoing. Google’s Play Store policy requires app developers use the company’s billing system, then takes a cut of the revenue. In the original complaint, Match claimed Google holding it “hostage,” while Google responded that it charges for services “like any business,” and that its commission is the “lowest rate among major app platforms.”
“We plan to rebut Match’s unfounded complaint and will be counter-suing for damages and breach of our developer contract,” a Google spokesperson told Protocol. “Match has agreed to put up to $40 million in escrow as a reserve against damages and to work to integrate Google Play’s billing system.”
Google also settled its differences with Epic Games on Friday, and won’t kick Epic subsidiary Bandcamp off of Google Play Store for using its own payment system, Music Business Worldwide reported. Under the agreement, Bandcamp will also start an escrow account for Google’s fees, setting aside 10% of its revenue generated from digital sales until Epic’s case against Google is resolved, the company said in a blog post.
Epic acquired online music platform Bandcamp, which has used its own billing system on Android since 2015, in March. Bandcamp was…