In addition to preventing Cherkasov from getting the position at the ICC and sending him back to Brazil, the Dutch intelligence service also published his long and detailed front-page story. That four pages of history, often known as the “legend” of a secret intelligence officer, describes the background to the “Ferreira” identity. “The threat posed by this intelligence officer is considered potentially very high,” Avid said in a statement.
Since the excursion “Ferreira”, several clues about his undercover life have emerged. Social media profiles belonging to “Ferreira” have been discovered by Bellingcat Investigation Unit, as well as a blog and online resume. He also studied at Trinity College Dublin and Johns Hopkins University. Eugene Finkel, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins, who says he taught “Ferreira,” tweeted: “I wrote a letter to him. A strong one, actually. Yes me. I wrote a reference letter to a GRU officer. I never get over this fact. I hate everything about GRU, him, this story. I’m so glad he was revealed. “
For years, it has been impossible to move backups off WhatsApp chats between Android and iOS, and the other way around. In August last year, WhatsApp announced that it was starting to roll out the ability for people to move their data between iPhones and Android devices. Now, this week, the Meta-owned company says that backups will also work in the other direction –from Android to iOS.
Processors from Intel and AMD are vulnerable to a new side channel attack called Hertzbleed. The attack could allow the theft of cryptographic keys and data, as reported by Bleeping Computer and DarkReading. Hertzbleed works by leveraging a common chip-saving feature called Dynamic Frequency Scaling (DVFS) that can allow an attacker to steal data. Frequency changes in DVFS may be correlated with information processed by chips, Intel say in a blog post. Despite this, neither Intel nor AMD seem to have plans to solve the problem. However, the risk to end users appears to be low at the moment. It says the team of researchers who found Hertzbleed regular users should probably not be worried.
Ever since Covid-19 began spreading in early 2020, technological systems have been developed to try to control the spread. In China, a mandatory health code system was created to monitor people’s health – people with a red code must isolate themselves, those with a green code must move freely. These health codes are tied to people’s phones. Now according to many reports, people in the Chinese province of Henan claim that their plans to protest have been blocked as their health code has turned red. Several people affected claim they have not been around any positives with Covid-19 and the change is abuse of power by officials.
Mozilla’s web browser may have struggled in recent years, but it’s still one of the most privacy-friendly browsers. This week, the company said Firefox enables its Total Cookie Protection feature by default for everyone who uses the browser. All cookies stored on your computer will only be available to the website that placed them there, Mozilla explains in a blog posts. “Instead of allowing trackers to link your behavior to multiple sites, they just get to see behavior on individual sites,” the company says, adding that it is “Firefox’s strongest privacy protection to date.”
In November 2021, the United States sanctioned the infamous Israeli spyware company NSO Group. The company’s Pegasus hacking tool has been used all over the world for spying on journalists and activists. This week it emerged that the US defense company L3Harris is interested in buying the technology behind Pegasus, as Financial Times reports. Any purchase of the technology by a US company would potentially put it at odds with the Biden administration, which blacklisted the NSO. The talk of the potential deal, which is said to be in the early stages, has given rise to criticism from the White House. “We are deeply concerned,” said a senior official Washington Post. They said the deal could cause security and counter-espionage problems for the United States.