Notices by Graham Cluley (gcluley@mastodon.green)

Russian disinformation is being designed to be invisible to humans - but highly visible to AI.

This new report from Demos reveals how a sanctioned Russian propaganda operation (the "Foundation to Battle Injustice") deliberately crafted websites to *avoid* appearing prominently in Google search results, while maximising how much AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude would extract their text and parrot it out.

Definitely worth a read...

https://demos.co.uk/research/geo-for-geopolitics-what-happens-when-ai-and-information-warfare-collide/

Most extortion gangs hide behind a keyboard. Silent Ransom Group will phone your staff pretending to be IT support - and if that fails, send someone to your office in person to plug in a USB stick.

https://www.fortra.com/blog/silent-ransom-group-what-you-need-know

Equifax got hacked. Nearly 150 million people's data stolen. And the executives' first move was to quietly sell their shares. 🤦

This is The Facepalm Files.

Check out my podcast "Smashing Security" for more stories like this.

#facepalm #cybersecurity #equifax #databreach #infosec #hacking

There has been a huge backlash after Amazon Ring advertised its dystopian surveillance feature "Search party" (dressed up as a way to find lost dogs).

Now a $10,000 award has been offered for anyone who can find a way to run Ring doorbell cameras locally, cutting off the flow of video data to Amazon's servers.

Read more in my article on the Bitdefender blog: https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/10-000-bounty-hack-ring-cameras

#cybersecurity #surveillance #ring #doorbell #privacy

DEF CON has banned a number of people from attending its hacking conference in Las Vegas, after they were named in the Epstein files.

Vincenzo Iozzo, Joichi Ito, and Pablos Holman have been added to the conference's public ban list. None of them have been charged by US authorities with offences, although documents released by the Department of Justice indicate they were in contact with Jeffrey Epstein.

The conference has not alleged criminal conduct, and the individuals have not been charged.

Being referenced in the documents does not equate to involvement in Epstein’s crimes.

More details:

https://www.nextgov.com/people/2026/02/def-con-bans-hackers-technologists-named-epstein-documents/411502/

The Swiss government has ended its contract with American analytics company Palantir, after federal agencies in the country rejected Palantir at least nine times over seven years. The reason? Security concerns that should make other countries think carefully:

- Risk of US intelligence gaining access to sensitive data
- Potential loss of national sovereignty
- Dependence upon foreign specialists in crisis situations

Swiss authorities won't touch their software with a bargepole.

1/2

Imagine the scene. It's a cold Monday morning in Moscow. You walk out to your car, coffee in hand, ready to face the day. You press the button to unlock your car, and ... nothing happens. You try again. Still nothing. The alarm starts blaring. You can't turn it off.

That's what just happened to cars across Russia. Learn more in my article on the Fortra blog about what happened: https://www.fortra.com/blog/hacking-attack-leaves-russian-car-owners-locked-out-their-vehicles

I don't understand how the UK government (and indeed many firms) can continue to maintain a presence on Elon Musk's deepfake porn site (formerly known as Twitter), rather than jumping ship to the likes of Mastodon and Bluesky.

Their continued association with X/Twitter isn't just a bad look, it's an endorsement of a site that behaves in a disgusting, degrading way, and has been churning out sexualised images of real-life women and young girls.

Is it just to avoid the wrath of Elon Musk?

After crime-fighting agencies disrupted three major malware platforms (the Rhadamanthys infostealer, VenomRAT remote access trojan, and Elysium botnet) earlier this month, they released a video.

Lovely work by Europol et al.

https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/operation-endgame-disrupts-rhadamanthys-information-stealing-malware

Workers escaping from a scam compound in Bavet, Cambodia...

Worth remembering that there are many victims of the scammers...

#cybersecurity #scam #cybercrime

Proof positive that companies are covering up the capabilities of their robots...

(Turn your sound on for the full err.. impact)

#AI #robotics #coverup

Great to be joined by Scott Helme on episode 440 of the "Smashing Security" podcast, where we looked at a different kind of insider threat - a Romanian prison inmate who found a way to game the system.

Then we head to the checkout aisle to ask why JavaScript on online payment pages went feral, and how new PCI DSS rules are finally muzzling Magecart-style skimmers.

https://www.smashingsecurity.com/440

Folks, it's happened. AI has become *so* smart that it knows how to intentionally sabotage a live product demos by Mark Zuckerberg and leave him helplessly flailing...

#meta #metaai #AI #artificialintelligence

This kind of thing would put me off my dinner…

Police have struck a blow against the DiskStation ransomware gang which targets Synology NAS devices, and arresting its suspected ringleader.

Make sure that you have properly hardened the security of your Network Access Storage devices to reduce the chances of your data being locked up by a ransomware attack.

Read more in my article on the Fortra blog: https://www.fortra.com/blog/police-dismantle-diskstation-ransomware-gang

Denmark’s Ministry of Digital Government is phasing out its use of Microsoft Office.. to switch to open source alternatives like LibreOffice instead.

Why? Because relying too heavily on a US tech giant for your nation’s digital infrastructure is starting to feel a bit... well, risky.

Denmark's relationship with the US is under strain, following Donald Trump's clearly stated ambition to seize control of Greenland, and recent reports of increased spying by the States on Greenland and Denmark.

Cybercriminals are exploiting the growing interest in open source AI models by disguising malware as a legitimate installer for DeepSeek.

Victims are unwittingly downloading the "BrowserVenom" malware designed to steal stored credentials, session cookies, etc and gain access to cryptocurrency wallets.

How are the bad guys spreading the malware? By buying Google ads... sigh... which point to a fake DeepSeek download page.

The EU wants to stop feeding your DNS queries to Silicon Valley.

DNS4EU is the European Commission’s attempt to build a sovereign DNS resolver infrastructure that doesn’t route all your web lookups through the likes of Google, or Cloudflare.

DNS4EU aims to bring DNS resolution under EU oversight and privacy rules.

So, if you want 🇪🇺-backed ad-blocking and child protection, you may want to give it a try.

Check out DNS4EU here: https://www.joindns4.eu/for-public

21 million employee screenshots leaked in bossware breach blunder.

https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/21-million-employee-screenshots-leaked-in-bossware-breach-blunder