Tag Archive for: protest

New Sarbloh ransomware supports Indian farmers’ protest

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Protestors

A new ransomware known as Sarbloh encrypts your files while at the same time delivering a message supporting the protests of Indian farmers.

Last year the Indian government passed a new set of laws called the ‘Indian agriculture acts of 2020’, also known as the Farm Bills, which the government says is necessary to modernize its agricultural industry.

Farmers believe that these new laws will hurt their livelihoods and make it more challenging to generate revenue as the new laws removed restrictions on how farmers can sell goods and for how much.

Since November 2020, thousands of Indian farmers have been protesting these bills outside of New Delhi.

New Sarbloh ransomware supports the Indian farmers

As detailed by numerous security firms, including Malwarebytes, Cyble, and QuickHeal, a new ransomware known as ‘Sarbloh’ is being distributed through malicious Word documents that contain a political message in support of Indian farmers.

It is unknown whether the malicious Word document is sent via phishing emails or another method, but when opening it, users will be prompted to ‘Enable Content’ to view its content correctly.

Malicious Word document
Malicious Word document

When the button is press, the Word document’s macros will download a file called putty.exe using bitsadmin.exe to the Documents folder and then executed.

When executed, the ransomware will encrypt files on the computer that match certain file types and append the .sarbloh to the file’s name. For example, the file 1.jpg would be encrypted and renamed to 1.jpg.sarbloh.

Sarbloh encrypted files
Sarbloh encrypted files

After the files on the computer have been encrypted, a ransom note will be created called README_SARBLOH.txt that contains a message supporting the farmers in India.

Sarbloh ransom note
Sarbloh ransom note

The full text of this ransom note can be read below:

YOUR FILES ARE GONE!!!
THEY WILL NOT BE RECOVERABLE UNTIL THE DEMANDS OF THE FARMERS HAVE BEEN MET

WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?
Using military grade EnCryPtiOn all the files on your system have been made useless.

India, Sikhs have long been the face against the oppression placed upon them.
Each time we have resisted.
Today you come for the very throats of Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim farmers by trying to take their…

Source…

Pakistan’s Baluchis Protest Iranian Treatment Of Ethnic Brethren After Border Shootings

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Dozens of ethnic Baluch rights activists have staged a protest in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi to condemn the killing of their ethnic brethren by Iranian border guards last month.

The protest comes amid reports of violent unrest and Internet blackouts in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan Province triggered after security forces killed cross-border fuel smugglers.

Human Rights Watch last month said at least 10 people were killed at the Saravan border area near Pakistan on February 22, although the number of dead may be higher.

In the wake of the killings, there have been reports of armed men attacking Iranian government buildings and security forces near the border, prompting a harsh crackdown.

In Karachi, the protesters demanded of the Iranian government stop using violence against smugglers and protesters who have few other means of earning a living in the poverty-stricken region.

They also demanded compensation for those who have been killed and injured.

Sistan-Baluchistan, one of Iran’s poorest provinces, is a volatile area where drug smugglers and militant groups operate along a porous border with Pakistan, which also faces an ethnic Baluch separatist insurgency and a brutal state crackdown that has killed thousands of people since 2004.

Source…

Kansas City protest is billed as a Save Our Children event, but will QAnon show up? – Kansas City Star

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Kansas City protest is billed as a Save Our Children event, but will QAnon show up?  Kansas City Star
“HTTPS hijacking” – read more

LAPD Infiltrated An Anti-Fascist Protest Group Because The First Amendment Is Apparently Just A Suggestion

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Maybe the LAPD doesn’t have the experience its counter-coastal counterpart has in inflicting damage to rights and liberties, but it’s trying, dammit! The NYPD’s brushes with the Constitution are numerous and perpetual. The LAPD may have spent more time working on the Fourth and Fifth Amendments during its Rampart peak, but now it’s rolling up on the First Amendment like a repurposed MRAP on a small town lawn.

The Los Angeles Police Department ordered a confidential informant to monitor and record meetings held by a political group that staged protests against President Trump in 2017, a move that has drawn concern and consternation from civil rights advocates.

On four separate occasions in October 2017, the informant entered Echo Park United Methodist Church with a hidden recorder and captured audio of meetings held by the Los Angeles chapter of Refuse Fascism, a group that has organized a number of large-scale demonstrations against the Trump administration in major U.S. cities, according to court records reviewed by The Times.

Perhaps no entities show more concern about opposition to fascism than law enforcement agencies, for some weird and completely inexplicable reason. Somehow, this investigation involved the Major Crimes Division, which felt the need to get involved because of all the major criminal activity that is the hallmark of protest groups.

What sort of major crimes are we talking about? Well, let’s just check the record…

Police reports and transcripts documenting the informant’s activities became public as part of an ongoing case against several members of Refuse Fascism who were charged with criminal trespassing…

I see the term “major” has been redefined by the Major Crimes Division to encompass anything it might feel the urge to investigate. Supposedly, this incursion on the First Amendment was the result of an “abundance of caution” following reports of violent clashes between anti-fascists and alt-right demonstrators at other protests/rallies.

Again, the LAPD seems to not understand the meaning of the words it uses, because an “abundance of caution” should have resulted in steering clear of First Amendment-protected activities, rather than infiltrating them.

Also, an abundance of caution might have resulted in the LAPD checking out the other set of theoretical combatants, but the Los Angeles Times reports a police official said no attempt was made to infiltrate any far-right protest groups.

“Major.” “Caution.” “Consistency.” These words are beyond the department’s comprehension. And here’s the kicker: the Major Crimes Division did not send its informant in until after the demonstration was already over, the freeway had already been blocked, and criminal trespassing charges had already been brought. This wasn’t an investigation. It was a fishing expedition targeting people who don’t like fascists that used the First Amendment as a doormat. Calls to the LAPD’s Irony Division were not returned.

I guess we’re all supposed to feel better about this now that the LAPD has promised to investigate itself over its First Amendment-infringing infiltration. But it seems a department that routinely struggles to use words properly and cannot steer clear of the Constitutional shoreline shouldn’t be trusted to run a fax machine, much less an internal investigation.

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