We're kicking off today's report with some weird shit over in the UK. We'll also be taking a look at strategic beer reserves, Chinese police in Hungary, and more.
This is one of the stranger headlines we'll be reporting on this year (probably, who knows tbh). Here's a brief summary of what happened:
- Princess Kate of the UK releases her first post-surgery picture with her children
- Several news outlets retracted the photos out of fears that the photos were doctored
- Princess Kate states that she edited them herself
Honestly, this story is pretty sketchy. If I were a member of the royal family, I'd spend my day doing ACTUAL royal family stuff like polo or planning sieges, and definitely not subpar photoshopping. I think the truth is that one of her children has only 4 fingers and the royal family will do ANYTHING to keep that information from going public.
The world-famous Belgian brewery was hit with a ransomware attack last week, bringing its beer brewing production to a complete halt at its bottling facility. Before riots broke out across Belgium, Duvel reassured worried citizens that there was more than enough in stock to compensate for this loss in production time.
It's no secret that the Chinese government likes to flex its muscles outside of China and keep a close eye on its citizens abroad. Their ultimate aim is to keep the Chinese diaspora under ideological control, and they usually achieve this goal through means of intimidation. Hungary has pre-existing collaboratory agreements with its neighboring countries during peak tourist seasons, but this new type of joint venture represents a different motive. It's also worth noting that the Chinese government has a similar agreement with Serbia.
At this point, it's almost a weekly occurrence that there is a state-sponsored hacking or breach event. This particular event stands out because it's much larger than the initial expected scope. Midnight Blizzard, the same crew behind the Solarwinds attack, was able to successfully access Microsoft corporate email systems, source code repositories, and other internal systems. We'll likely be hearing more about this in the future as it plays out.
