Facebook scam, Snowden interview and other IT security news

A new Facebook scam has been found doing the rounds recently, and it is something we here at Quick Heal have experienced as well. Apart from this, we have a special interview with Edward Snowden, infamous NSA whistleblower from Wired magazine that anyone interested in cybersecurity and state surveillance should definitely read. Here is the weekly roundup of IT security news.

Austrian student sues Facebook, and gets 60,000 others to support him

Max Schrems, a law student from Vienna, Austria has sued Facebook for several privacy violations. He believes that Facebook is aiding the US National Security Agency in mining and extrapolating the personal details of its users. He is claiming damages up to 500 Euros per user. This amounts to around 660 Billion Euros. He has also been joined by 60,000 others who support his campaign on www.fbclaim.com. Read more on this story here.

Insightful interview from the ‘world’s most wanted man’ – Edward Snowden

Wired magazine has an amazing interview with Edward Snowden that everyone should read. He may be the most wanted American, but he has some revealing insights about the NSA’s surveillance methods and most notably, their defense mechanisms. He also shares details about his story and what led him to reveal close to 60 GB of confidential Government documents. Read the full interview here.

SBI accounts of IAF officers hacked in a large scale targeted attack

In July, some unfortunate IAF officers were in for a shock when their salary accounts were targeted by online attacks. SBI accounts of around 40 serving officers were found to be victims of online frauds ranging from Rs. 11,000 – Rs. 2 Lacs. Complaints have been filed with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) and the investigation is ongoing. Read more here.

New Facebook scam targets all your friends in a disturbingly personal manner

We have come across a new Facebook sharing scam that spreads to people on a victim’s friends list as soon as a video link is clicked. The shared status update appears on the News Feed with a message saying – “________ funny video”. The name of the person who has clicked the link is mentioned in the message. When you click the link, your friends will see the same message with your name in the message instead. Including the name of the person in the link itself is a new practice and is sure to trick many people into clicking the link.

Notable Hack Attacks from Recent Weeks:

# Hack of hospital chain leads to theft of up to 4.5 million users’ data

# Heartbleed may be the culprit in the aforementioned hack attack

# Nuclear regulator hacked 3 times in 3 years

# UPS store hacked in 24 different US states

Rahul Thadani