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US lawmakers demand urgent changes at Facebook after data breaches

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After weathering heated questions from two Senate panels, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to face more questions from a House committee about the social media platform’s transparency and user privacy.

Lawmakers want better protections after data breaches that affected tens of millions of users.

“There was clearly a breach of consumer trust and a likely improper transfer of data,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said.

“It was my mistake, and I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg said moments later.

Senators demanded action from the Facebook CEO.

“If you and other social media companies do not get your act in order, none of us are going to have any privacy,” the top Democrat on the Commerce Committee, Bill Nelson of Florida, said. “If Facebook and other online companies will not or cannot stop the privacy invasions, then we are going to have to — we, the Congress.”

Zuckerberg was called to testify after news emerged that the personal data of millions of Facebook users had been harvested without their knowledge by Cambridge Analytica, a British voter profiling company that U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign hired to target likely supporters in 2016.

Zuckerberg promised to better protect Facebook users. The social media mogul spoke with pride about Facebook’s ability to connect people for the common good but admitted the company has not been proactive in safeguarding its users from misuse of data or those sowing malign messages.

“I started Facebook, I run it. And I’m responsible for what happens here,” Zuckerberg said.

Earlier this week, Facebook began notifying 87 million users, most of them in the United States, whose personal data may have been mined by Cambridge Analytica.

Zuckerberg pledged Facebook will scrutinise and, when necessary, block other firms from gaining access to the platform and empower its 2.2 billion users to wall off their apps from third parties.

Senators also sought assurances that Facebook and other social media platforms are blocking fake profiles originating in Russia that spread divisive messages to sow discord during and after the 2016 U.S. election.

“We will be verifying the identity of any advertiser who’s running a political ad,” Zuckerberg said. “And we’re also going to do that for [Facebook user] pages … that will make it significantly harder for Russian interference efforts or other inauthentic efforts to spread misinformation through the network.”

Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy noted that misuse of Facebook extends far beyond the United States, saying that Facebook has been used to spread hate speech against Burma’s Rohingya minority.

“Recently U.N. investigators blamed Facebook for playing a role in inciting possible genocide in Myanmar, and there has been genocide there,” Leahy said.

“We’re working on this,” Zuckerberg responded. “We’re hiring dozens of more Burmese language content reviewers. Because hate speech is very language-specific, it’s hard to [detect] it without people who speak the local language, and we need to ramp up our effort there dramatically.”

Until now, social media companies have been largely self-regulating. Several senators said Congress must consider steps to protect users of the platforms.

“What do we tell our constituents, given what’s happened here, why we should let you self-regulate?” South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham asked.

“My position is not that there should be no regulation,” Zuckerberg said. “I think the real question, as the internet becomes more important in people’s lives, is: What is the right regulation?”

The Facebook CEO promised to submit proposals for regulating social media companies and work with lawmakers to craft legislation.

Facebook faces a backlash from some consumer groups. Members of #DeleteFacebook gathered outside Tuesday’s hearing on Capitol Hill.

“We knew that they had your data, but the extent of what is being breached is a concern for me. What do they know about my children and my grandchildren?” said a woman who identified herself as Alison.

Lawmakers pledged to hold separate hearings focusing on Cambridge Analytica in the near future. (VOA)

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inq.Digital Supports Payments Forum Nigeria [PAFON 1.0]

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PAFOn 1.0
PAFON SPEAKERS

Inq. Digital Nigeria Limited has been announced as a sponsor of Payments Forum Nigeria [PAFON 1.0] maiden edition holding this Thursday in Lagos.

inq. Digital Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of inq. Group is an emerging leading digital and cloud solutions provider that delivers simpler seamless solutions to complex business challenges.

With offices in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano, inq. provides reliable and affordable Intelligent Connectivity, SDN/NFV, Cloud and Digital services (including Edge –AI) for Nigerian businesses including those in the payment space.

Participation is FREE, however, pre-registration is required: https://bit.ly/4c4N19H.

Speaking ahead of Payments Forum Nigeria [PAFON 1,0] scheduled to take place at Oriental Hotel, Lekki Road, Lagos on Thursday, March 21, 2024 by 9am under the theme: “Payments: Trust, Security and Privacy in AI Era”, Mr. Chike Onwuegbuchi, the co-founder of TechCastle Foundation, the organisers, said the goal is to enable information exchange and knowledge sharing on key industry insights issues amongst key stakeholders, with the objective of ensuring a collaborative and proactive approach to push for policies that enable growth, tackling/mitigating fraud and limiting occurrences and losses.

Speakers

The following speakers are lined up for the Forum: Chibuzo Efobi, Director, Payments System Management, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); Festus Amede, Chairman, Committee of Chief Information Security Officers of Nigerian Financial institutions (CCISONFI; Dr. Adewale Peter Obadare, Chief Visionary Officer (CVO), Digital Encode Limited; Adetokunbo Omotosho, Chief Executive Officer, Cybervergent; Roosevelt Elias, Founder, Payble; Ikenna Ndugbu, chief compliance officer, Moniepoint MFB, and Peter Evbota, Sales Director at inq. Digital Nigeria Limited.

Payments Forum Nigeria is organised by TechCastle Foundation and sponsored by: inq. Digital Nigeria Limited, Cybervergent, Moniepoint, Digital Encode Limited, Payble with support from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

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S Mobile Tech Hub Opens Registration to Entrepreneurs in Southeast

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Kingsely Adonu, founder and CEO, S Mobile Group

•⁠ ⁠500 successful candidates to get starter-packs

•⁠ ⁠Rolls our Free Data, Airtime to Civil Servants, Students, others

S Mobile Tech Hub, an offspring of S Mobile Group has open applications to technology entrepreneurs in the Southeast Nigeria.

S Mobile Tech Hub was recently conceived by Mr. Kingsley Adonu, a visionary entrepreneur and CEO/Founder S Mobile Group, who aims to manifest the Group’s deliberate programmes towards building a dynamic and vibrant startup ecosystem in eastern region of the country.

APPLY by visiting www.smobilegroup.com to register.

Speaking against this backdrop, Mr. Adonu, said that even against tremendous challenges faced by the youth in the Southeast, they must be actively engaged in digital skills development in order to eschew social vices and make positive contributions towards maintaining peace and progress in the region.

“Unfortunately, a lot of our young people are facing numerous barriers to participating in formal and informal sectors today. In December 2015, the United Nations Security Council adopted UNSCR 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security. The resolution was the first to recognise the important role young people can play in preventing conflicts, and sustaining peace.

“It is on this premise and more that S Mobile is thinking out of the box by extending digital skills programmes to empower the youth to be more economically relevant. This will also go a long way in supporting the efforts of the Governors in the Southeast who are not resting on their oars until we have crime-free society with less poverty index.

“S Mobile Tech Hub has been positioned as a platform for entrepreneurs to leverage trends to accelerate their skills and innovation especially in the areas of artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, etc., which have become embedded in our daily lives.

“We are rolling out free data and airtime to civil servants, students, farmers and other entrepreneurs, for connecting with MTN Nigeria services.

Also during the cohort 1 of S Mobile Tech Hub programme 500 successful technology entrepreneurs across the Southeast region will be sponsored with the starter-tools to live their dreams.

“Together, let’s turn technology into your personal pathway to empowerment, growth, and societal well-being. Don’t just dream about a brighter tomorrow; let’s build it together today!”, the company said on Wednesday.

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2024 Sophos Threat Report: Cybercrime on Main Street Details Cyberthreats Facing SMBs

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Sophos Launches Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
  • Data and Credential Theft Malware are Top Two Threats Against SMBs in 2023, Accounting for Nearly 50% of All Malware Sophos Detected Targeting this Market Segment
  • Ransomware Still the Biggest Threat to SMBs; Business Email Compromise on the Rise, Along with More Sophisticated Social Engineering Tactics

Sophos, a global leader in innovating and delivering cybersecurity as a service, today released its annual 2024 Sophos Threat Report, with this year’s report detailing “Cybercrime on Main Street” and the biggest threats facing small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs*).

According to the report, in 2023, nearly 50% of malware detections for SMBs were keyloggers, spyware and stealers, malware that attackers use to steal data and credentials.

Attackers subsequently use this stolen information to gain unauthorized remote access, extort victims, deploy ransomware, and more.

The Sophos report also analyses initial access brokers (IABs)—criminals who specialize in breaking into computer networks.

As seen in the report, IABs are using the dark web to advertise their ability and services to break specifically into SMB networks or sell ready-to-go-access to SMBs they’ve already cracked.

Sophos
Above: Discovered by Sophos X-Ops: a sample of a dark web forum post advertising access to a small U.S. accounting firm. Additional examples of cybercriminal forum ads targeting SMBs, by industry and country, are in the 2024 Sophos Threat Report.

“The value of ‘data,’ as currency has increased exponentially among cybercriminals, and this is particularly true for SMBs, which tend to use one service or software application, per function, for their entire operation. For example, let’s say attackers deploy an infostealer on their target’s network to steal credentials and then get hold of the password for the company’s accounting software. Attackers could then gain access to the targeted company’s financials and have the ability to funnel funds into their own accounts,” said Christopher Budd, director of Sophos X-Ops research at Sophos. “There’s a reason that more than 90% of all cyberattacks reported to Sophos in 2023 involved data or credential theft, whether through ransomware attacks, data extortion, unauthorized remote access, or simply data theft.”

Ransomware Still the Biggest Cyberthreat to SMBs

While the number of ransomware attacks against SMBs has stabilized, it continues to be the biggest cyberthreat to SMBs. Out of the SMB cases handled by Sophos Incident Response (IR), which helps organizations under active attack, LockBit was the top ransomware gang wreaking havoc. Akira and BlackCat were second and third, respectively. SMBs studied in the report also faced attacks by lingering older and lesser-known ransomware, such as BitLocker and Crytox.

Ransomware operators continue to change ransomware tactics, according to the report. This includes leveraging remote encryption and targeting managed service providers (MSPs).

Between 2022 and 2023, the number of ransomware attacks that involved remote encryption—when attackers use an unmanaged device on organizations’ networks to encrypt files on other systems in the network—increased by 62%.

In addition, this past year, Sophos’s Managed Detection and Response (MDR) team responded to five cases involving small businesses that were attacked through an exploit in their MSPs’ remote monitoring and management (RMM) software.

Attackers Sharpen Their Social Engineering and Business Email Compromise (BEC) Attacks

Following ransomware, business email compromise (BEC) attacks were the second highest type of attacks that Sophos IR handled in 2023, according to the Sophos report.

These BEC attacks and other social engineering campaigns contain an increasing level of sophistication. Rather than simply sending an email with a malicious attachment, attackers are now more likely to engage with their targets by sending a series of conversational emails back and forth or even calling them.

In an attempt to evade detection by traditional spam prevention tools, attackers are now experimenting with new formats for their malicious content, embedding images that contain the malicious code or sending malicious attachments in OneNote or archive formats.

In one case Sophos investigated, the attackers sent a PDF document with a blurry, unreadable thumbnail of an “invoice.” The download button contained a link to a malicious website.

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