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Tech News
CISA, the FBI and international partners published a joint advisory this month titled 'Communicating Under Pressure: Best Practices for Service Providers,' addressing poor communication during IT and OT outages. The guidance calls on companies to move away from PR-driven messaging and instead give users transparent, actionable updates about root causes and expected impacts during disruptions.
Oleksii Oleksiyovych Lytvynenko, 44, was sentenced to four years in prison for participating in the Conti ransomware conspiracy as an intruder and malware developer. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, admitting he controlled stolen data from 12 victim companies, sent extortion notes, and coded a loader tool used to launch attacks between 2020 and 2022. He was arrested in Ireland in 2023 and extradited to the U.S. to face charges.
Cybercriminals are selling digital scans of over 153 million U.S. and Canadian driver's licenses, along with medical and residence cards, through a new dark web service called Nexus. The FBI's New Orleans office has opened an inquiry after security researcher Krebs on Security verified the data's authenticity, including his own license. The breach reportedly stems from a Louisiana-based identity verification company whose clients include Hertz, Target, FedEx, and Caesars Entertainment.
A newly launched dark web marketplace called Nexus is offering digital scans of more than 153 million drivers licenses from people in the U.S. and Canada, along with millions of ID cards, travel documents, and medical cards. Investigators suspect the data was siphoned from a Louisiana-based identity verification firm, and the FBI's New Orleans field office has opened an inquiry into the source of the leaked images.
Federal investigators say Daejon Labrayae Love, posing as an injured San Francisco 49ers receiver or a wealthy Swiss developer, and 18-year-old accomplice Taylor Jamie Chan, who claimed to be his financial advisor, met victims on dating apps and convinced them to invest in fake opportunities. The FBI alleges the two swindled at least 26 women across four states out of roughly $1.3 million, with some victims taking out loans to fund the fake investments. When suspicious victims searched online, Google's AI Overviews reportedly echoed Love's fabricated social media claims, lending false credibility to his identity.
According to CBS News sources, the FBI has quietly relaxed vetting standards for new hires, now permitting candidates with a history of paying for sex up to three times and even those with juvenile incidents of bestiality or animal cruelty, provided they occurred before age 18. The bureau says such allowances are limited to narrow cases, including childhood sexual abuse involving animals, but sources say no distinction is made between willing and coerced acts.
A ZDNET contributor describes tackling a Google Photos library of more than 22,000 photos and videos accumulated since 2016 by breaking the task into manageable daily habits rather than one huge sorting session. The approach relies on features like Google Photos' and Apple Photos' 'On This Day' memory notifications to review small batches of images regularly instead of trying to sort the whole archive at once.
Special Master Jose Linares has denied the Justice Department's motion to reconsider his earlier ruling allowing Apple to obtain documents from 14 federal agencies, including the CIA, FBI, NSA and Department of Defense. The DOJ had argued Linares used the wrong legal standard and that Apple's requests were overly burdensome and only marginally relevant, but Apple countered that these objections failed on every point, and Linares agreed.
Meta has settled child-safety-related claims for $18 billion, according to a roundup of risk and compliance news. The same briefing notes Florida's governor voicing concern over Flock surveillance cameras and the FBI dismantling a large China-linked hacking network.
The Justice Department seized domains tied to two tools, QTRouter and QScan, that a Chinese hacking group called QTFY used to route attacks through hijacked IoT devices and commercial proxy services. Prosecutors say the network, allegedly linked to Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company and used by China's Ministry of State Security and PLA, enabled breaches at NASA, the Senate, the Federal Reserve, HHS, NIH, and the DOJ itself since at least 2018.
The FBI dismantled infrastructure belonging to a 'quartermaster' service that supplied reconnaissance, proxy relays, and routing tools to Chinese state-linked hackers. Lumen Technologies' Black Lotus Labs had spent a year tracking the system, identifying four components—QScan, Fast Labyrinth, QTRouter, and QTProxy—that worked together to profile targets and hide malicious traffic.
The Telegraph reported that a small UK power generator was taken offline for four days in July after being hit by a cyberattack tied to Iranian hackers. UK officials would not confirm attribution or name the affected facility, but stressed the incident was isolated and posed no threat to the broader national grid. The disclosure follows separate US warnings this year about Iran-linked actors targeting water infrastructure across several states.