It was a throwback week in security, with Russia dominating most of the headlines. The consensus seems to be that Putin’s cyber squad was behind the DNC hack, while Donald Trump urged our former Cold War adversaries to find and release Hillary Clinton’s lost emails. Meanwhile, Wikileaks continued to show just how far from the moral high ground it has fallen.
There was non-Russia news aplenty as well. Researchers demonstrated that if you use a wireless keyboard, you should maybe stop unless you want your keystrokes logged. We took a look at how artificial intelligence sure is smart, but it too can make mistakes with serious security implications. And the same could arguably said of this gaggle of robots that law enforcement deploys around the world.
But there was more: Each Saturday we round up the news stories that we didn’t break or cover in depth at WIRED, but which deserve your attention. As always, click on the headlines to read the full story in each link posted. And stay safe out there.
WhatsApp Chats Stay Even If You Delete Them
While WhatsApp rightly deserves praise for implementing end-to-end chat encryption earlier this year, forensic security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski has made the troubling discovery that your chat records remain in the database, regardless of whether you delete or archive them. Zdziarski notes that this isn’t malicious on WhatsApp’s part, or even intentional. While it deletes the record of a chat, it still leaves “a forensic artifact that can be recovered and reconstructed back into its original form.”
The only way to make sure your chats are officially gone? For now, delete the app entirely.
Go Ahead and Tape Over That Web Cam
Well, here’s a new twist on an old problem. While ransomware continues to haunt hospitals and beyond, a gentleman in Australia has reportedly been victimized in a far more personal manner. Hackers emailed him a video, taken from his webcam, mid self-coitus. They asked him for $10,000, lest they release the footage to the man’s Facebook friends.
Technically this isn’t “ransomware” the way we typically think of it, which locks down computers and/or networks and demands money for the key. But since “blackmailware” hasn’t been coined yet, it’ll have to fall under that umbrella.
Ransomware Gang Warfare Helps Ransomware Victims
The enemy of your enemy is your friend, and the enemy of your ransomware perpetrator is your cybersecurity savior. That was the case this week when the developers behind Mischa released around 3,500 decryption keys for ransomware rival Chimera, which should help a lot of people unlock their devices. Now if Chimera would just access and release Mischa’s keys, we’d really be getting somewhere.
Sarah Silverman Hacked After DNC Address
Sarah Silverman delivered one of the most blunt assessments of the Bernie or Bust crowd at this week’s DNC, calling them “ridiculous” in front of a large television audience. At least one industrious hacker did not appreciate this! The next morning, Silverman’s Twitter account was hacked, with interlopers posting an anti-Hillary video and a call to join the hacking crew Anonymous. The takeover didn’t last long; Silverman was back tweeting as herself within a few hours.
Clinton and Trump National Security Briefings Begin Soon
As is customary at this point in an election year, the Republican and Democratic nominees for president will begin receiving classified security briefings. That should go perfectly fine, don’t you think?