These are the four top news in the world of cybersecurity this past week.

Among the news of the week in terms of cybersecurity, the following stand out:

  • The FSB announced the hacking of thousands of Apple phones by US intelligence agencies.
  • Super VPN database with 360 million records leaked to the network.
  • The State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a law on the confiscation of property from hackers.
  • RaidForums user data appeared on a new darknet platform.

FSB Says 1,000 Apple Phones Have Been Hacked by US Intelligence Agencies

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) announced the exposure of a spying operation by US intelligence agencies, carried out by hacking thousands of Apple devices.

Among the victims are Russian subscribers, foreign diplomats based in the Russian Federation, the former Soviet republics, NATO countries, Israel, Syria, and China, as well as dozens of employees of the cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab.

Based on the results of the investigation, the FSB concluded that there was “close cooperation” between Apple and Apple. NSA did not provide evidence that the corporation was involved in or knew about the spying campaign.

Apple denied the allegations in an interview with Reuters. The NSA declined to comment.

Super VPN Database with 360 Million Records Has Been Filtered

The popular free service Super VPN accidentally exposed more than 360 million records of its users. Researcher Jeremy Fowler drew attention to this. The 133 GB database contained email addresses, source IP addresses, geolocation, and records of the VPN servers used. Among the leaked information were also secret keys, unique identifiers of the users of the application, and their numbers.

In addition, the database included payment information and links to sites visited by users. The combined number of Super VPN downloads on Google Play and the App Store exceeds 100 million.

After receiving a notification from the researcher, the service owners reconfigured the database. Officially, they did not comment on the incident.

The State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a law on the confiscation of property from hackers

On May 30, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a law on the confiscation of property obtained as a result of hacker attacks and other crimes in the field of computer information.

Several experts in a comment to RBC suggested that, in theory, cryptocurrencies could also fall within the scope of the law, since at the legislative level they are properly equated.

RaidForums User Data Appears on New Darknet Platform

One of the administrators of the Exposed Darknet forum, going by the nickname Impotent, published the personal data of 478,000 users of the now-closed hacker platform RaidForums. This event was reported by Bleeping Computer.

The SQL file contains registration information from March 20, 2015, to September 24, 2020, including usernames, email addresses, encrypted passwords, and registration dates. Some of the information has been removed from the dump by an unknown party.

The journalists noted that the database was most likely already available to law enforcement after the acquisition and liquidation of RaidForums in April 2022. However, this information may be useful to information security researchers who profile intruders.

By Audy Castaneda

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