NEW: We have curated a list of people who are working, or are at least associated, with the Department Of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. There have been a few lists like these, and they are great. We have some new details here. https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/18/the-people-in-elon-musk-doge-universe/
NEW: Apple released a fix for a zero-day bug for iOS and iPadOS that “may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.” AFAIK this is the first time Apple uses "extremely sophisticated attack" in an official release. At this point, we don't know who abused the flaw, nor against whom.
TechCrunch
Apple fixes iPhone and iPad bug used in an 'extremely sophisticated attack' | TechCrunch
Unknown attackers may have exploited a zero-day bug to access data on locked phones, according to Apple.
NEW: We spoke to the Italian journalist who was targeted on WhatsApp with government spyware made by Paragon.  “I feel violated,” Francesco Cancellato told me. “It is actually quite strange for a journalist to be spied on in a Western democracy.” Cancellato is the director of Fanpage.it, which last year published a damning investigation on the youth wing of the current far-right government in Italy.  Full story, which includes the text of the notification he received from WhatsApp, here:
TechCrunch
Journalist targeted on WhatsApp by Paragon spyware: 'I feel violated' | TechCrunch
An Italian investigative journalist said he was the target of a spyware attack disclosed by WhatsApp.
NEW: WhatsApp says it has notified 90 victims, including journalists and members of civil society, that they were targeted with spyware made by Paragon. The company said the technique used in the campaign, which relied on malicious PDFs sent via chat groups, has now been fixed. This is the first time that Paragon is linked to alleged abuse of its products.
TechCrunch
WhatsApp says it disrupted a hacking campaign targeting journalists with Paragon spyware | TechCrunch
The Meta-owned company said the campaign was linked to Israeli spyware maker Paragon.
With iOS 18.3, Apple is switching Apple Intelligence on by default (for newer devices). Given how faulty it is, and maybe for other concerns (environment, ethical), you may want to switch it off. Here's how to do it:
TechCrunch
How to switch off Apple Intelligence on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac | TechCrunch
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to turn off and disable Apple Intelligence from your devices.
NEW: Facebook awarded a researcher $100,000 for finding a bug in an ad platform that gave access to FB's internal infrastructure. Ben Sadeghipour told TechCrunch that online advertising platforms make for juicy targets because, “there's so much that happens in the background of making these 'ads' — whether they are video, text or images."  "But at the core of it all it's a bunch of data being processed on the server-side and it opens up the door for a ton of vulnerabilities,” he said.
TechCrunch
Exclusive: Facebook awards researcher $100,000 for finding bug that granted internal access
A security researcher found a bug in a Facebook ad platform, which gave him access to the company’s internal infrastructure.
NEW: Cybersecurity experts, who work with human rights defenders and journalists, agree that Apple is doing the right thing by sending notifications to victims of mercenary spyware — and at the same time refusing to forensically analyze the devices. “These notifications have been a game changer for spyware accountability research," said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, who has been investigating government spyware for more than a decade.
TechCrunch
Apple sends spyware victims to this nonprofit security lab | TechCrunch
Cybersecurity experts, who work with human rights defenders and journalists, agree that Apple is doing the right thing by sending notifications to ...
NEW: Amnesty International has documented two cases where Serbian authorities used Cellebrite to unlock the phones of a journalist and an activist. And then they installed spyware on the devices. In a way, this is a return to the old days of government spyware, where remote attacks were rare and impractical, and cops needed to get their hands on target's computers.
TechCrunch
Serbian police used Cellebrite to unlock, then plant spyware on, a journalist's phone | TechCrunch
Amnesty said it found NoviSpy, an Android spyware linked to Serbian intelligence, on the phones of several members of Serbian civil society followi...
NEW: Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) says Russian government hackers are targeting the country's defense sector with phishing emails. The phishing emails were designed to look like they were invitations to a real conference.
TechCrunch
Ukraine says Russian hackers are targeting country's defense contractors | TechCrunch
Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) said in a report published over the weekend that a hacking group has been targeting the coun...
NEW: The U.S. government has announced charges against five alleged hackers who targeted several companies stealing millions of dollars in crypto, and corporate data. DOJ says the hackers are part of the infamous Scattered Spider cybercrime group, who "perpetrated a sophisticated scheme to steal intellectual property and proprietary information worth tens of millions of dollars and steal personal information belonging to hundreds of thousands of individuals.”
TechCrunch
US charges five accused of multi-year hacking spree targeting tech and crypto giants | TechCrunch
The five alleged hackers are accused of stealing millions of dollars in crypto, and corporate data from several victims all over the world.