Tag Archive for: game

Cybercriminals reportedly hack Canadian woman’s online accounts through App Store game

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Now, a mother from Cochrane, Alberta, has been struggling to regain control of her online accounts after they were hacked by cybercriminals who infiltrated her devices through a gaming app.

Apps on Apple’s App Store are carefully vetted, and Apple ensures that the apps that make their way to the App Store are free of known malware and haven’t been tampered with. Apple says all of the App Store apps are ‘Sandboxed,’ which means they can only access certain resources and programs that are necessary for their functioning.

However, Wolf Online 2, an animal-themed game, reportedly bypassed Apple’s vetting system, and it is still up on the App Store.

Susanne Jarman downloaded the game for her nine-year-old daughter on her iPad. Jarman also installed the app on her own iPad to join her daughter in the game.

Soon after, Jarman encountered some suspicious players who tried to manipulate her and her daughter’s actions in the game. “There was a time where there was a screen sharing almost, my character dispersed and he was telling us ‘don’t move,’” Jarman told CTV News Calgary.

Jarman soon deleted the app but subsequently discovered a new shared folder in her notes app that contained all her financial files. The hackers had already accessed her iCloud account and changed her Apple ID username and password. They also breached every other account she had, including her banking, tax, and email accounts, and even stole her photos of her late husband, which she cherished dearly.

Jarman has been trying to recover her accounts for the last eight months but has been unsuccessful. She has resorted to living without the Internet until the situation can be resolved. “It is so hard to go back to the 1990s, people don’t want to do that. You go to a place and they ask for your email address and I don’t have one that’s secure,” she explained.

Apple says it is investigating the…

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If kid’s game gets infected, you may bring that to work: what to do?

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“That cheating software your kid downloaded for his game is probably safe,” said not a single cybersecurity specialist, ever. At best, your kid will ruin the gaming experience for others. At worst, they’ll introduce malware to their device. Due to repeated incidents, Cybernews experts recommend keeping kids’ gaming platforms separate, virtually or physically, or consider sandboxing their games.

Some kids would do a lot to become a mafia boss LVL 50. In this case, parents were left deeply frustrated to discover that their child had become engrossed in a mobile game called Grand Mafia. Unbeknownst to them, the child had made a whopping 62 transactions using their credit card between September 4th and October 8th, 2022.

These transactions amounted to €1,240, and to add to their frustration, Revolut declined to reimburse the unauthorized charges, a report from the regulating authority reveals.

And this isn’t even the most significant risk that parents can face if they leave their kid’s actions online unchecked. Malware, likely, was not a culprit here, so the kid might be able to keep their impressive mafia boss level.

Recent game hacks reveal that crooks could steal not only your kid’s loot and the accounts they spent years grinding, but also remotely control their computer and spread infections to other devices.

For example, if you are logged in with your Google account in Chrome on the same compromised computer, all the malicious extensions and add-ons that hackers put here may automatically sync in your work computer if the same Google account is used.

Minecraft has been declared the most malware-infected game. Recently, cybercriminals used Minecraft Mods to execute code remotely, after a Bleeding Pipe vulnerability was discovered. Mods in the Minecraft community are used extensively, and the game is one of the most popular.

Bad actors used the technique to steal the game’s servers, personal game accounts, Steam, and Discord session info. Still, the possibilities are nearly endless as they could also steal user data for use in identity theft and use computers in botnet attacks while showing the user pop-ads.

Roblox, the other very popular game among kids,…

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Hackers, data breaches put more Mainers at risk in ‘ongoing chess game’

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May 15—As many as 35,086 Mainers may have lost personal information to computer hackers in a data breach reported Friday — and the incident was just one of hundreds that have struck the state in recent months.

PharMerica Corp., a Kentucky-based pharmacy services company, said the hackers stole names, Social Security numbers, insurance information and medication history from the records of 5.8 million people nationwide. In a May 12 letter, the company said it learned March 14 that an “unknown third party” had illicitly accessed the computerized data and that an investigation was underway.

The report came a day after revelations of another data breach, potentially affecting more than 11,000 Maine residents. Brightly Software, a North Carolina subsidiary of industrial conglomerate Siemens, said Thursday that hackers took the names, phone numbers and employer information of roughly 3 million people from a user database.

The theft occurred April 20, and Brightly discovered it April 28, according to the Office of the Maine Attorney General, which maintains a log of data breaches affecting Maine consumers.

Last month, 20,000 Mainers received a notice that hackers had accessed their Social Security numbers, Medicare member numbers and health plan subscriber numbers from the database of NationsBenefits, a health insurance administrator in Florida.

Sometime in early April, a data breach at California-based NextGen Healthcare exposed electronic health records of more than 1 million people, including 3,900 Mainers.

The data disasters affect what may appear to be unlikely targets.

In December, 785 Maine customers of carmaker Nissan were notified their information had been hacked. A ransomware attack and data breach in January hit almost 800 Maine employees and job applicants at Yum! Brands, which owns Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut and other fast-food restaurants.

The list of such incidents gets longer each day: More than 300 data breaches affecting Maine residents have been recorded over the last six months by the attorney general’s office. During the same period in 2019-20, at the onset of the pandemic, there were 218 breaches.

Information security experts say cybercrime is not only on…

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New computer game lets you decide how to save Social Security

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Computer games are usually built around an overarching goal: Kill the zombies, win World War II, rescue Princess Zelda. Now gamers have a new mission: Keep Social Security solvent.

“The Social Security Challenge” is an online, interactive experience created by the American Academy of Actuaries, a professional association that provides statistical analyses for public policy. The game is now on the Academy’s website — and you can play it for free.

Linda Stone, a senior pension fellow at the Academy, said the purpose of the initiative is to educate the public about the funding shortfall bearing down on the New Deal-era program — and the many ways Congress could solve it.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about Social Security,” Stone said. “And as Social Security reform has become more of a topic of conversation lately … I think it’s important for the public to understand what the options are so they can evaluate what they’re hearing.”

Social Security is America’s largest entitlement program. This year, it will pay out more than $1 trillion in benefits to 67 million Americans — including 48.6 million retirees, 7.6 million disabled workers, 5.9 million survivors and all their dependents. 

But this lifeline is rapidly approaching insolvency. According to last year’s report by the program’s board of trustees, Social Security will only be able to make 80% of its scheduled payments by 2035, or 74% by 2096. 

But that’s only if Congress does nothing — something that’s unlikely to happen, given that more than 90% of Americans support the program. And as the Academy’s new game makes clear, there are still many ways to save it — whether by increasing taxes, cutting benefits or taking over steps — before it’s “Game Over.”

That’s where you, Player 1, come in. In the Social Security Challenge, you begin by exploring “Townsville,” a SimCity-looking community of average Americans. Right away, it becomes clear this is not like other video games. As you visit Townsville’s stores and offices, you are armed not with a bazooka but with a journal. And as animated citizens pop up and speak to you, your task is not to blow their brains out, but to take notes on their concerns.

“Hello, I’m Vince,”…

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