DELL CAMERON & ANDREW COUTS
Looking for love? Be careful what you wish for.
A loose-knit community of con artists known as Yahoo Boys has begun using real-time face-swap technology to woo victims with romance scams. Using a variety of tools and techniques, the scammers use AI-powered apps to make themselves look like entirely different people on video calls. Just remember: If someone you’ve never met IRL is asking you for money, just say no.
Elsewhere in the world of harmful deepfakes, two major websites used for creating fake nude images of people are now blocked in the United Kingdom. The censorship, which appears to be self-imposed, comes just days after the UK proposed legislation that would ban nonconsensual, sexualized AI-generated images.
A Russian cybercriminal gang called Cyber Army of Russia Reborn appears to have been created with the help of Sandworm, the notorious Russian military hacking unit that has carried out devastating cyberattacks against Ukraine for years. The difference? Cyber Army of Russia Reborn is even more brazen, taking credit for attacks against critical infrastructure in Europe and the United States.
Change Healthcare’s ransomware saga entered a new chapter this week. A cybercriminal group called RansomHub claims to be selling highly sensitive patient information stolen from the company. The sale follows RansomHub’s claims that it possesses terabytes of data stolen in a February attack by another ransomware gang known as AlphV or Black Cat, which received a $22 million payment in March. Change Healthcare says it has spent $872 million response to the ransomware attack as of March 31.
The biggest global surveillance program carried out by the US may be about to get bigger. A two-year renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which technically expired on Friday, will soon go up for a vote by the US Senate after passing the House last week. Included in the legislation is a provision that would greatly expand the number of businesses that could be conscripted to spy on behalf of the US government, which critics have called the “Stasi provision.” One of the largest lobbying firms for Big Tech companies has opposed the provision over fears that tech industry workers could be forced to become informants.
That’s not all. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.
There’s a kernel of truth in every good fiction, which is why the very real Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, is a constant go-to for shows like the X-Files and games like Metal Gear Solid. It tends to pop up whenever a shadowy government agency is needed to reverse engineer a stolen alien artifact or construct a giant killer robot. A Darpa announcement this Thursday, however, sounds almost too much like the opening sequence of a Hideo Kojima game: With the help of the US Air Force Test Pilot School, the agency says an experimental aircraft known as the X-62 was successfully flown by artificial intelligence during a simulated dogfight against a human pilot in an F-16. “The potential for autonomous air-to-air combat has been imaginable for decades,” US Air Force secretary Frank Kendall says, “but the reality has remained a distant dream up until now.”
Details are scant as to the impact, but for at least several hours this week, hackers felled computer systems supporting the work of New York’s state legislature. While an attack on something called the Legislative Bill Drafting Commission isn’t quite as jaw-dropping as one against a power plant or a naval base, the LBDC is one of a dozen required stops that legislation in New York must make en route to becoming law. Bills can’t be introduced, amended, or reviewed by committee without it, much less get a vote. Luckily, the agency reports it was able to get back on its feet within a few hours using a “backup system.” An investigation of the attack is ongoing.
An armada of law enforcement agencies arrested 37 suspects around the world last weekend in an operation targeting LabHost, reportedly one of the world’s largest phishing-as-a-service platforms. The investigation was spearheaded by the London Metropolitan Police in cooperation with Europol. Investigators uncovered a whopping 40,000 phishing domains being operated by as many as 10,000 users worldwide, Europol says. LabHost charged a monthly fee of $249. That cybercriminals have discovered the psychological benefits of just-below pricing is yet another sign of the growing popularity and sophistication of these markets.
Encrypted messaging apps WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram have gone the way of Winnie the Pooh. Citing “national security concerns,” China ordered Apple to delete “certain apps” from its Chinese App Store this week, the tech behemoth announced (while neglecting to specify which ones). Apple reportedly met with Chinese authorities to express concern over how banning the apps would impact its users but relented after being met with a stone wall. “We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate,” the company said, “even when we disagree.” Apple is heavily dependent on China’s workforce to manufacture its products, and sales in the region have topped $70 billion in recent years. That Apple has become beholden to the Chinese government because of this is no longer much of a secret.
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