Tag Archive for: woes

Hacking Capabilities of Iranian Dissidents Adds to Tehran’s Woes

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Just over a year ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran experienced one of its most serious cybersecurity breaches, resulting in the temporary inaccessibility of several government websites and the disruption of power grids, surveillance cameras, and other digital infrastructure. Contrary to what one might have expected, the attacks came not from any of Tehran’s foreign adversaries but rather from a group of anti-government hacktivists known collectively as Gyamsarnegouni, or “Uprising Until Overthrow.”

Cybersecurity researchers discerned the domestic origins of the hack mainly based upon the fact that the operation also saw the release of vast quantities of government documents detailing personnel and financial records, secret strategic communications by regime authorities The leak involved such a tremendous amount of data that it likely would have been impossible to access remotely from outside the Islamic Republic, partly because Iranian internet access is notably slow, with frequent outages, and partially because the systems targeted by the underlying hack were effectively cut off from the global internet.

Our research pointed out that that not only that individuals inside the Islamic Republic carried out the attacks but also that they almost certainly required the participation of figures inside the regime itself, who would have had direct access to the systems in question.

It would be difficult to overstate the damage these attacks have done to Iran’s ruling system by opposition hacktivists alongside finely-honed modern cyber espionage and digital sabotage tools. The damage should be evident from the scale and diversity of Iranian hacktivists’ achievements in recent years, especially in the immediate aftermath of the killing of Mahsa Amini by morality police in September 2022, which sparked an immediate, nationwide uprising that many have called the clerical regime’s greatest challenge in all of its 44 years.

An attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting penetrated highly secure networks, typically isolated from the internet, and allowed hackers to briefly broadcast opposition messaging on state media, including some of the uprising’s defining slogans, like…

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The year’s best apps, Twitter rival Hive’s security woes, App Store backlash grows • TechCrunch

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Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.

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Twitter, Spotify, Meta and Coinbase all bash Apple’s App Store

Elon Musk wasn’t happy with Apple this week. The new Twitter exec claimed Apple threatened to remove the app from the App Store — which was not likely true. Instead of taking on the claims directly and starting a Twitter fight, Apple CEO Tim Cook invited Musk to Apple’s campus, where they took a walk and resolved their differences. Or at least that’s how Musk put it, referring to the potential Twitter ban as a “misunderstanding.”

“Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so,” said Musk regarding Twitter’s potential App Store removal.

That’s not to say Apple wouldn’t ever ban Twitter one day if it found itself so unmoderated that it was allowing unchecked hate speech or stoking violence. It once took action against Parler, and Twitter could see App Store policy enforcement if it devolved as well.

The Musk-Apple drama stirred others to tweet their App Store issues, too.

Spotify…

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Judge Won’t Reinstate Aurora Pride Parade Permit Amid Security Staffing Woes – NBC Chicago

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A judge on Thursday refused to reinstate a permit for the Aurora Pride Parade after officials said organizers did not secure the needed law enforcement officers required for the event.

Still, organizers said the parade is not off just yet.

The special event permit for the third annual Aurora Pride Parade was revoked after the Aurora Police Department earlier this week said it could not supply enough sworn officers to provide Parade security. Organizers appealed the decision, saying in a statement Wednesday, “Our position has been misrepresented, and we’re making every effort to keep the parade as scheduled.

“It is unacceptable that Aurora City officials have denied a permit for the upcoming Pride Parade,” the ACLU of Illinois, which represents Aurora Pride, said in a statement following the court hearing Thursday. “The Parade has been a family friendly event, aimed at welcoming all members of the Aurora community for a celebration of diversity and inclusion. Rather than embrace this event – as thousands of members of the community have done over the past few years – City officials have created a faux controversy and refuse to provide adequate security so that everyone has the opportunity to celebrate safely.”

The ACLU called the permit issue “not constitutional” and said it plans to take its case to federal court in hopes a judge will “order Aurora to meets it obligation to its residents.”

“The intent of the federal lawsuit is to reverse the action of both the city and the appeals process by attacking that on first amendment grounds,” Aurora Pride President Gwyn Ciesla told NBC 5. “It’s possible there could be an injunction in place to reverse that decision.” 

The lead up to the parade has been at the center of controversy, as organizers and the Aurora Police Department continued to spar over what law enforcement representation would look like at the event.

Last month, Aurora Pride Parade organizers asked that law enforcement officers “participate without service weapons (our rules forbid all weapons), out of uniform, and without the presence of any official vehicles.”

Organizers of the parade said they had made the uniform and weapon…

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Consultant, school system officials say hackers pose common woes for institutions

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Jul. 16—While Joplin officials continue to mostly remain mum, a failure of the city government’s computer and telephone systems more than a week ago could have been the result of a ransom demand, a Joplin information technology expert says.

City systems seemed to be operating July 6, but city officials announced July 7 that the city’s computer systems were down. That interrupted the city’s internet-based telephone system and its online capabilities.

In a statement, the city called it a “network security incident” and said it was reported to a law enforcement agency.

There has since been no explanation of the cause and not much word on the status of the investigation. City officials did cite phone system restoration, but nothing about the computer systems. In recent days, the city has not made further statements or answered Globe questions sent to officials about the situation.

Ransomware attack?

John Motazedi, the owner of a local IT consulting firm, SNC Squared, speculated that the city might have been hit by ransomware, a malware program used to encrypt computer systems. Motazedi said his opinion is conjecture but that the failures reported by the city resemble what happens when hackers disable a system to demand a ransom payment.

Motazedi said there are several ways to infect a computer system with crippling software. It can be done by sending a coded program through an email that can unleash encryption through the system, downloading a malicious program without knowing it is infected, or by going into the system’s servers, the central brain of a computer system, to implant the encryption.

“Typically they get in through some administrative account because that account can get into other machines that are connected together,” Motazedi said. An administrative account is used by IT technicians to oversee computer operations and make changes to the system.

Once a system is overtaken by encryption of its programs, the user cannot operate the computer or the system but will instead receive a pop-up message to pay a certain amount of money to receive a code that can be used for decryption. Typically, internet criminals demand payment in bitcoins, a kind of online currency difficult to…

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