Tuesday Newsday Aug 22 - 29: Exploits, Hacks, & The Erosion Of Civil Rights
Welcome to the first edition of the blog version of our Tuesday Newsday™ segment. This week, we'll be diving into breaking news in the tech world that either happened during this past week or has long-standing implications that are still relevant.
Without any further ado, let's get into it:
- The exploitation of the MOVEit file transfer platform has officially become the largest hack of 2023 with over 60 million (known) victims currently. That number is expected to increase with time.
- Hackers using Akira ransomware have begun targeting businesses using Cisco VPN. Akira is a relatively new ransomware that adversarial actors use to infect enterprise networks, encrypt the stolen data, and demand millions in ransom payment for its return.
- The NSA has graciously instructed their employees to treat people with "dignity & respect" while they are spying on them. Glad to know my feelings are being considered while my civil rights are violated on an unprecedented scale.
- The US government is increasingly using "child safety" as a thinly veiled excuse to collect more and more data from its citizens. We're not here to argue whether kids should have access to pornography - they shouldn't - but rather that any implementation of digital age verification systems comes with serious risks. If you're curious, this is already a topic we've covered previously.
So there you have it: a week's worth of doomporn clickbait. If anything, hopefully, you leave this article feeling a little bit more informed, better prepared to take on the world, and with a deep-seated resentment of surveillance capitalism.
On a more serious note, it's never too late to start improving your cybersecurity and privacy practices. The digital world is the new Wild West and anybody who doesn't agree with me has clearly never downloaded something off of LimeWire. Using a VPN like Windscribe is part of a comprehensive strategy to avoid becoming another statistic.
We'll be back next week with another round of stories and another round of memes. In the meantime, make sure to keep that Windscribe connection activated and browse safely - and if you don't have Windscribe already, then what are you waiting for? Sign up today!