Facebook has repaired a vulnerability in its Instagram social media platform, after a researcher found that it could be exploited to link users’ phone numbers to their account numbers, usernames and actual names. With the help a brute-force algorithm and a network of bots, malicious actors could have leveraged the flaw to bypass data security…
Executives from leading technology and social media firms convened with U.S. intelligence representatives yesterday to discuss ongoing efforts to shield their platforms and users from election interference campaigns. According to Bloomberg and additional news outlets, Facebook used its Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters to host the meeting, which was attended by Google, Microsoft, Twitter and members…
The Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General’s office today announced that Google and its subsidiary YouTube agreed to an unprecedented $170 million in fines for allegedly using cookies to harvest personal data from minors without parental consent and then serve behavioral ads based on this information. Such actions are in violation of the…
A number of new and old WordPress plugin vulnerabilities are being targeted in an attempt to redirect traffic from victims’ sites to a number of potentially harmful locations. WordFence’s Threat Intelligence team said users of the plugins under attack are protected by individual firewall rules or generic protections built into the plugin, however, two of…
Instagram is reportedly recruiting white-hat researchers to test the security of its new Checkout feature, which allows users to buy merchandise from select brands without ever having to leave the social media app. CNN this week reported that Facebook-owned Instagram is restricting the testing to only those individuals who have submitted high-quality research to its…
Someone hacked the Twitter account of actress and businesswoman Jessica Alba to post bigoted, racist, and homophobic tweets this past Sunday. The attacks came as a surprise for fans since Alba barely tweets anyway with her last tweet being about dinner with her husband and friends on July 20. The hacker also included a tweet…
At a time when securing the 2020 U.S. presidential election and election influence campaigns on social media are at the forefront of the news, Mozilla is claiming that a Facebook tool designed to examine campaign ads is not working as advertised. Mozilla said in a blog post that information that’s being released by Facebook through…
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission today announced that it has penalized Facebook $5 billion as punishment for what it described as deceptive privacy practices, and imposed new restrictions on the social media giant. Facebook likewise announced that it has agreed to the terms of the deal. In conjunction, the Department of Justice officially filed a…
Hackers reportedly stole 7.5 TB of data from a contractor for the Russian intelligence service FSB, and revealed details on several of its activities or prospective projects, including the collecting of information on users of social media services, Tor and P2P networks. The contractor, SyTech, has worked for FSB’s radio-electronic intelligence unit 71330 since 2009,…
An unofficial Telegram app is secretly loading malicious sites onto the devices of unsuspecting users and running other malicious services in the background without the users’ consent. Symantec researchers discovered the malicious app, named MobonoGram 2019 (detected as Android.Fakeyouwon) and advertised as an unofficial version of the Telegram messaging application with more features than the…
