Cybersecurity

Court Records Breach Exposes Confidential Records


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Sealed court records should, by their very nature, be kept secret. But as security researcher Jason Parker has found, they’re often accidentally left open and sometimes even scrapable, meaning bots and other automated agents could collect data from them.

Over the last year, Parker has found weaknesses across online records systems, potentially exposing millions of sealed, confidential records in more than 50 states and municipalities. Some systems could even be manipulated to open new criminal cases.

The federal government has since worked with Parker and system vendors to fix the vulnerabilities. But one of the affected counties in Florida has accused Parker of breaking the law.

Read the full story by ForbesEmily Baker-White here.

Got a tip on surveillance or cybercrime? Get me on Signal at +1 929-512-7964.

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The Pentagon ran an anti-vaccine disinformation campaign across social media, designed to deter people from using Chinese-made treatments, a Reuters investigation found. Started under the Trump administration, it continued under Biden, though the White House eventually stopped it and a Defense Department internal investigation was initiated.

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In the U.K., train stations are using “emotion detection” CCTV cameras, powered by Amazon software. According to its operators, the AI can detect whether people are “happy, sad, and angry” as they pass through ticket barriers, though it’s been criticized for being unreliable and intrusive.

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Tile, the location tracking company, was hacked, 404 Media reports, gaining access to user data and internal tooling. They could not, however, see where users’ Tile tracking devices were located.

404 also reported that hackers had embedded malware in a Stable Diffusion extension hosted on GitHub, targeting people generating AI images in order to protest “art theft.”

Winner of the Week

Anyone using Amazon Web Services’ cloud servers can now avail themselves of more multi-factor authentication (MFA) options. That includes the use of hardware-based passkeys. Amazon is also going to require more customers to use MFA, according to its blog post.

Loser of the Week

Two men – 38-year-old Thomas Pavey and 28-year-old Raheim Hamilton – were charged with operating Empire Market, a dark web drug bazaar. According to the Justice Department, the site generated $430 million in sales. They now face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

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