Routers Behaving Badly
Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast
Navia Data Breach and Identity Risks
Kerry summarizes the Navia breach exposing 2.7 million people and urges credit freezes and monitoring.
The US is planning to ban all foreign-made or foreign-designed home WiFi routers… which is basically all routers. It’s true that many consumer routers are pretty crappy when it comes to security. TP-Link just fixed some bad vulnerabilities (which you need to patch ASAP). But what does this mean for anyone wanting to upgrade to a new router? I’ll try to explain.
In other news: Walmart is buying TV-maker Vizio to gain access to user data and ads; a company is turning public Zoom meetings into AI podcasts for profit (without permission); a health company suffers a data breach exposing millions of clients’ information; H&R Block’s latest business tax prep software commits an egregious security mistake; AI companies are rolling out dangerous automation features; macOS 26.4 appears to block ClickFix-style attacks; and Facebook and Google lose in a landmark legal case.
Article Links
- Walmart buying TV-brand Vizio for its ad-fueling customer data: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/walmart-buying-tv-brand-vizio-for-its-ad-fueling-customer-data
- This Company Is Secretly Turning Your Zoom Meetings into AI Podcasts: https://www.404media.co/this-company-is-secretly-turning-your-zoom-calls-into-ai-podcasts
- This Massive Data Breach Leaked 2.7 Million Social Security Numbers: https://lifehacker.com/tech/navia-data-breach-social-security-numbers
- These critical exploits just exposed a bigger problem with TP-Link routers: https://www.makeuseof.com/tp-link-critical-exploits-expose-bigger-security-concerns
- H&R Block’s Tax Prep Blunder: What You Must Know About the 2025 Certificate Vulnerability: https://twit.tv/posts/tech/hr-blocks-tax-prep-blunder-what-you-must-know-about-2025-certificate-vulnerability
- This New Claude Feature Can Automate Basically Everything on Your Mac, but It’s a Huge Security Risk: https://lifehacker.com/tech/claude-computer-use-impressions
- The United States router ban, explained: https://www.theverge.com/tech/899906/fcc-router-ban-march-2026-explainer
- macOS 26.4 warning about potentially malicious Terminal commands: https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/03/26/macos-264-warning-about-potentially-malicious-terminal-commands
- Meta, Google lose US case over social media harm to kids: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/jury-reaches-verdict-meta-google-trial-social-media-addiction-2026-03-25
Further Info
- Freeze Your Credit: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/credit-freeze-now-is-the-time/
- Security Now on H&R Block fiasco: https://youtu.be/JebKuiHu5mg?si=EuXRT9PeKLl1l3oT&t=701
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Table of Contents
- 0:00:07: Intro
- 0:01:03: News rundown
- 0:03:17: Walmart buys Vizio for ads, data
- 0:08:57: Public Zoom calls secretly turned into podcasts
- 0:17:24: Navia leaks millions of SSNs
- 0:20:28: TP-Link router vulnerabilities
- 0:36:25: H&R Block’s horrific tax software
- 0:45:41: New Claude Mac feature is too dangerous
- 0:48:22: macOS 24 blocks ClickFix?
- 0:50:44: Facebook, Google lose huge lawsuit
- 0:54:22: Patron podcast preview
- 0:54:58: Looking ahead
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