Federal contracting records reveal that the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is moving from testing small drones to employing them in standard surveillance practices, potentially expanding their already significant surveillance reach beyond U.S. land borders. Concurrently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is set to broaden cybersecurity contracts, aiming to enhance employee surveillance and monitoring amidst rising leak investigations.
In alarming cybersecurity news, a hacker collective known as ShinyHunters has stolen over 200 million user records from PornHub, specifically targeting premium users. The data breaching appears to have occurred through a previous analytics partnership with MixPanel and includes sensitive user information that could potentially be used for extortion.
The situation escalated as PornHub revealed it had received extortion emails from the hackers, sparking concern among users who hope that the site will take action to safeguard their personal data.
On another front, Venezuela’s state oil firm, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), claims that a cyberattack affected its administrative systems just as U.S. military operations seized a tanker containing Venezuelan crude. While PDVSA asserts that operations remained intact, it has accused the U.S. of orchestrating the attack to undermine the country’s energy sector.
Additionally, Cisco is grappling with a critical unpatched vulnerability in its Secure Email Gateway that has reportedly been exploited by hackers linked to the Chinese government since late November. Cisco has yet to develop a patch for this zero-day exploit, raising concerns among customers.
Lastly, two former employees from cybersecurity firms Sygnia Consulting and DigitalMint pleaded guilty to running their own ransomware campaign, demonstrating the dark allure of illicit activities within the cybersecurity realm.
