Tuesday Newsday Dec 12 - Dec 18: Fake Marketing Agencies, MongoDB compromised, Ubiquiti turned spycam, & More!

Graham C -

In what will be the last edition of Tuesday Newsday™ for 2023, the internet chefs have prepared an end-of-year special. This week we'll be sampling a varied array of internet mishaps, data breaches, and all-around government nonsense. Let's jump right in!

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The US Navy Purchases Surveillance Data Through a Government Honeypot

A recent report from 404 Media uncovered that the Navy has been paying for access to tools that give US intelligence services "global surveillance data via an adtech company that is owned by a U.S. military contractor." In other words, they made a fake marketing company to collect data, and now they sell that data...to themselves. If that's not the American tax dollars hard at work, I don't know what is.

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MongoDB Admits to Leak of Customer Data

Mongo Database? More like Mongo DataBREACH...am I right? Jokes aside, the company stated that its systems were hacked on December 13th and that customer metadata was exposed to the cyber attackers. The investigation is still ongoing with more info likely to come out after the new year.

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Ubiquiti Bug Creates Unintentional Spycam Situation

A bug in the UniFi Protect application connected live feeds of cameras to completely unrelated accounts. According to the company, they swiftly rolled out an update to the UniFi Cloud Infrastructure, but they offered no further comment as to what happened.

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TikTok Introduces Some... Interesting Language in Their ToS

TikTok's new quietly updated ToS includes a clause that has users "forever waive" their right to sue over past harms. The company also significantly shortened the amount of time complaints can be filed, effectively nullifying any complaints over 1 year old. There is doubt that these terms will stand up to legal challenges, but that remains to be seen.

TL;DR

  • The US Government made a fact marketing company to get data, and they sell it to themselves
  • MongoDB has customer data exposed, the outcome is yet to be determined
  • Ubiquiti accidentally turned your neighbor's camera into a spycam
  • TikTok already owns your soul and now it won't even let you complain

What a year 2023 has been. Breach after breach, hack after hack, kerfuffle after kerfuffle. It just goes to show you, the internet can be a scary place sometimes. One of the most important things you can do to protect yourself and your data is to have a proactive and comprehensive privacy strategy. That's where Windscribe steps in to do the heavy lifting for you.

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