Cyber Threats, Government Investments, and Gift Card Frauds

The chapter delves into industry news about cyber threats, government investments, and gift card frauds. It discusses the disparity between government funds allocated for tackling cybercrime and criminal profits, highlighting vulnerabilities in gift card systems and a complex fraud operation by group Storm-0539 involving social engineering. The episode also touches on the pitfalls of AI responses, misinformation spread by AI algorithms, and humorous discussions about AI misinterpretations and setting up for celebrations.

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Episode notes

This week in InfoSec (11:36)

With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield

17th May 2015: CNN published their article on a statement Cybersecurity Consultant, Chris Roberts had publicly made on Twitter a month earlier. There were lots of accusations made regarding Chris Roberts' actions hacking into computer systems while a passenger on multiple airline flights. Did he actually cause a plane to fly sideways? Maybe? But it's not like he made it fly upside down.

FBI: Hacker claimed to have taken over flight’s engine controls

https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1791214444980080724

26th May 1995: Gates Declares Internet "Most Important Single Development"

Realising his company had missed the boat in estimating the impact and popularity of the Internet, Microsoft Corp. CEO Bill Gates issued a memo titled, "The Internet Tidal Wave," which signaled the company's renewed focus on that arena. In the memo, Gates declared that the Internet was the "most important single development" since the IBM personal computer -- a development that he was assigning "the highest level of importance”.

https://1995blog.com/2020/05/25/25-years-on-bill-gates-internet-tidal-wave-memo-a-seminal-document-of-the-unfolding-digital-age/

Rant of the Week (18:00)

Giving Windows total recall of everything a user does is a privacy minefield

Microsoft's Windows Recall feature is attracting controversy before even venturing out of preview.

Like so many of Microsoft's AI-infused products, Windows Recall will remain in preview while Microsoft refines it based on user feedback – or simply gives up and pretends it never happened.

The principle is simple. Windows takes a snapshot of a user's active screen every few seconds and dumps it to disk. The user can then scroll through the archive of snapshots to find what were doing some time back, or query an AI system to recall past screenshots by text.

Billy Big Balls of the Week (28:58)

Hacker Breaches Scam Call Center, Warns Victims They've Been Scammed

A hacker claims to have breached a scam call center, stolen the source code for the company’s tools, and emailed the company’s scam victims.

The hack is the latest in a long series of vigilante actions in which hackers take matters into their own hands and breach or otherwise disrupt scam centers. A massively popular YouTube community, with creators mocking their targets, also exists around the practice.