This week in Infosec

19th January 2012: US federal authorities shut down /Megaupload.com, a popular hub for illegal media downloads, and arrested its leaders. Hours later, the hacktivist collective Anonymous, knocked the US Department of Justice website offline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seizure_of_Megaupload

https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1219086142428999681?s=20

25th January 2003: The SQL Slammer worm was first observed. Slammer spread to the vast majority of all vulnerable hosts worldwide in 10 minutes. Yes, 10 minutes.

Though Microsoft released MS02-039 to patch the buffer overflow vuln in SQL Server six months earlier, many orgs hadn't patched.

https://www.wired.com/2003/07/slammer/

https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1221132001501007873?s=20

Tweet of the Week

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/bbc-wales-today-viewers-gobsmacked-23391438

https://twitter.com/Lovehoney/status/1354378061635063809?s=20

https://twitter.com/BCredibility/status/1354514912299593729/photo/1

Industry News

More Malware May Be Lurking on Govt School Laptops

Russian Government Agency Warns Firms of US Attack

Misconfigured Cloud Server Exposes 66,000 Gamers

TikTok Bug Gave Access to Contacts’ Profile Details

UK Spies Called on to Help in Fraud Fight

Manufacturing Giant Suffers Major Cyber-Disruption

More Security Vendors Admit to SolarWinds Attacks

Consumers Falling for $100m Clone Firm Scams

Remote Workers Could Offer Brexit Britain Cybersecurity Lifeline

Javvad’s Weekly Stories

Fears over cyber crime tool that can build phishing pages in real-time

Should We Be Cautious About Law Enforcement Requests for Digital Data?

Nefilim Ransomware Gang Hits Jackpot with Ghost Account

Laptops handed out by Department of Education found laced with malware

Billy Big Balls

The greatest pyramid scheme of 2021 so far...

https://imgur.com/a/DCCpuZA

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-55841719

https://twitter.com/swardley/status/1354482558147448835?s=20

Thom: Financial industry wrecks entire economy

Jav: "we must bail them out"

Thom: Senators do insider trading

Andy: "nothing we can do"

Thom: Covid shuts everything down

Jav: "bail out big company stocks with $4 trillion"

Thom: Random people do a stonk on reddit

Andy: "halt trading & bail out hedge funds they bankrupted"

Sticky Pickle of the Week

In October 2020, Kanye West bought Kim Kardashian West a hologram of her late father, Robert Kardashian, to celebrate her 40th birthday, bringing to the wealthy the idea of digital representations of the dead that can more authentically communicate with the living.

The hologram spoke for around three minutes, directly addressing Kardashian and her decision to become a lawyer “and carry on my legacy”.

Imagine you had a bank balance like Jav, and you wanted to do something for your loved ones when you’ve departed this life, how on earth do you get started with a trusted company to preserve your legacy?  

What would you do in this situation?

This is what someone else is doing...

Microsoft has been granted a patent that would allow the company to make a chatbot using the personal information of deceased people.  

The patent describes creating a bot based on the “images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages”, and more personal information.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/microsoft-chatbot-patent-dead-b1789979.html

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