California Bans Deepfakes in Elections, Porn

California has passed a law that bans the use of deepfake technology in political speech, and for non-consensual use in adult content. Deepfakes are a manipulation of images and recordings, created by artificial intelligence technology, that make it appear as if an individual is doing or saying...

Former Yahoo Employee Admits Hacking into 6000 Accounts for Sexual Content

An ex-Yahoo! employee has pleaded guilty to misusing his access at the company to hack into the accounts of nearly 6,000 Yahoo users in search of private and personal records, primarily sexually explicit images and videos. According to an press note released by the U.S. Justice Department, Reyes...

California Passes Bill to Ban Police Use of Facial Recognition

The California Senate has passed a bill in a 22-15 vote that would ban the use by law enforcement of body cams that use facial recognition. The move will send AB 1215, already passed by the California Assembly back in May on a 45-17 vote, to the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom to be signed into law. Th...

Understanding CCPA: It's Time to Action a Plan for Compliance

Notice to all procrastinators: The final countdown to the California Consumer Privacy Act CCPA has begun. On January 1, 2020, companies or organizations that do business in California will be required to comply with the state's strict new privacy legislation that establishes a legal and enforceab...

Default Password for GPS Trackers

Many GPS trackers are shipped with the default password 123456. Many users don't change them. We just need to eliminate default passwords. This is an easy win. EDITED TO ADD 9/12: A California law bans default passwords starting in 2020...

License Plate "NULL"

There was a DefCon talk by someone with the vanity plate "NULL." The California system assigned him every ticket with no license plate: $12,000. Although the initial $12,000-worth of fines were removed, the private company that administers the database didn't fix the issue and new NULL tickets ar...

Bluetana App Quickly Detects Hidden Bluetooth Card Skimmers at Gas Pumps

In recent years, gas stations have become one of the favorite targets for thieves who are stealing customers' credit and debit card information by installing a Bluetooth-enabled payment card skimmers at gas stations across the nation. The media has also reported several recent crimes surrounding...

Meet Bluetana, the Scourge of Pump Skimmers

"Bluetana," a new mobile app that looks for Bluetooth-based payment card skimmers hidden inside gas pumps, is helping police and state employees more rapidly and accurately locate compromised fuel stations across the nation, a study released this week suggests. Data collected in the course of the...

This Week in Security News: Ransomware Campaigns and Cryptocurrency Miners

Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. This week, learn about continuing cybersecurity attacks targeting small governments. Also, read how XDR, Trend Micro’s newest solution, is more...

Changing California’s privacy law: A snapshot at the support and opposition

This month, the corporate-backed, legislative battle against California privacy met a blockade, as one Senate committee voted down and negotiated changes to several bills that, as originally written, could have weakened the state’s data privacy law, the California Consumer Privacy Act. Though the...

Threat Source newsletter (July 18, 2019)

Newsletter compiled by Jonathan Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s Threat Source newsletter — the perfect place to get caught up on all things Talos from the past week. A group we’re calling “SWEED” may be behind years of Agent Tesla attacks. This week, we uncovered everything we know about this...

Facebook Faces Lawsuit Over Massive 2018 Data Breach

Facebook lost a key court ruling last week and now must face a lawsuit tied to a data breach of its platform disclosed in 2018, which impacted nearly 30 million of its users. The data breach, first disclosed by Facebook in September 2018, directly impacted the access tokens of 30 million accounts...

Amazon Alexa Secretly Records Children, Lawsuits Allege

A federal lawsuit is alleging that Amazon is recording children who use its Alexa devices, without their consent or knowledge. Alexa is the built-in voice assistant shipped with devices like Amazon Echo, Amazon Dot, Fire TV and some third-party gadgets. “Alexa routinely records and voiceprints...

Student uses Snapchat’s gender filter to bust pervert cop

By Uzair Amir The cop thought he was talking to an underage girl but it was a grown-up man using Snapchat’s gender filter. A 20-year old student from California’s San Francisco Bay Area used the much-criticized gender-swapping filter of Snapchat to catch a 40-year old police officer. According to...

Millions of Golfers Land in Privacy Hazard After Cloud Misconfig

Finding cloud databases with sensitive information left open to the internet has become par for the course these days – as a new exposure of millions of sensitive data points for the users of a golf app demonstrates. Millions of golfer records from the Game Golf app, including GPS details from...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I'm speaking at the Code for America Summit in Oakland, California on May 30, 2019. I'm speaking on "Securing a World of Physically Capable Computers" at Oxford University on Monday, June 17, 2019. The list is maintained on this pa...

The top six takeaways for corporate data privacy compliance

For nearly two months, Malwarebytes Labs has led readers on a journey through data privacy laws around the world, exploring the nuances between “personal information” and “personal data,” as well as between data breach notification laws in Florida, Utah, California, and Iowa. We explored the risk...

CyberAegis Aether Competition Team Reflects Bright Future for Young Women in STEM & Cybersecurity

I am always excited to get involved in conversations around getting more young women into STEM earlier. Recently, I was able to catch up with the members of the CyberAegis Aether team, an all-girls, middle school cybersecurity competition team. Here is what they had to say: Tell us a little bit...

First Hacker Convicted of 'SIM Swapping' Attack Gets 10 Years in Prison

A 20-year-old college student who stole cryptocurrency worth more than $5 million by hijacking victims' phone numbers has pleaded guilty and accepted a sentence of 10 years in prison. Ortiz was arrested last year on charges of siphoning millions of dollars in cryptocurrency from around 40 victims...

The California Consumer Privacy Act: Will It Apply to Your Organization?

In August 2018, California issued a revised version of a new consumer privacy law--the California Consumer Privacy Act CCPA. This statute goes into effect on January 1, 2020 and provides broad privacy protections to California consumers. This statute will have wide-ranging effects outside of...