11/03/2021: Cybersecurity & Tech News Roundup

Welcome to our daily news overview – a place where we keep you up to date on the latest technology updates, cybersecurity news, and more. Here’s what’s going on in the tech world today:

Verkada security camera hack leads to breach of Tesla factory footage

Security camera provider Verkada has been hacked, and this is really bad news for schools, hospitals, and businesses alike. In total, up to 150,000 security cameras were breached, affecting businesses like Cloudflare, Virgin Hyperloop, and Tesla. On top of that though, feeds from prisons, clinics, psychiatric hospitals, and even Verkada’s own offices were hijacked.

Apparently, the attack was fairly unsophisticated, and involved taking hold of a super admin account in order to infiltrate the organisation. Verkada quickly responded by disabling all internal admin accounts to prevent any further unauthorised access.

Verkada told the press that it is “investigating the scale and scope of this issue,” and has also informed law enforcement and set up a customer support line. The hackers responsible also released a statement, explaining their reasons for the attack against the security firm: “lots of curiosity, fighting for freedom of information and against intellectual property, a huge dose of anti-capitalism, a hint of anarchism – and it’s also just too much fun not to do it.” Read more here.

Cyber attacks against three UK universities in the space of a week – could they be linked?

The University of Central Lancashire, Queen’s University Belfast, and The University of the Highlands and Islands were all targeted by cyber-criminals in the past week. As if students didn’t have enough to worry about, the attack left remote learners unable to submit their assignments.

The NCSC has launched an investigation into these incidents, but has not yet confirmed if the attacks were at all linked. UCLAN was able to rectify the issue within a few hours – thanks to a pre-designed robust incident response plan, but it’s concerning that attackers were able to breach the organisation in the first place. Read more here.

The FBI used Google location data to capture an alleged Capitol Hill rioter

Google location data has been used by the police to prove a suspect is guilty of a crime many times before, and the American authorities are employing this useful tool to capture criminals in the aftermath of the Capitol Hill riots.

The FBI was tipped off by an old schoolmate of the accused individual, who directed investigators to an Instagram story believed to have been created by the suspect, that included footage of the insurrection and the build-up beforehand. From there, the FBI obtained the suspect’s Instagram registration email – a Gmail address – and then ordered Google to provide location data for that user, which was quickly supplied. The data revealed that the suspect was indeed illegally at the Capitol on January 6th.

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