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A Florida family has shared footage of the moment their Ring security system was accessed without permission and used to spew racial slurs last weekend. The incident occurred on Sunday in Cape Coral, with the culprit forcing a loud alarm to blare throughout the home before verbally taunting two parents, NBC-2 reported. The hacker, who sounds young, makes references to their son despite him not appearing in the frame. Source: News Week

Google is upping its efforts to safeguard users against phishing scams with a new real-time alert system. In a blog post on Tuesday, Google said it will expand on its current system that checks a reference list of flagged sites against URL's the a users has visited once every 30 minutes. According to the tech giant, while the standard has worked to mitigate many phishing scams, which involve using phony web pages and online forms to hoover users'...

The key, only one-third the length of most commercial encryption keys, took more than 35 million compute hours to break. How safe is "safe"? That's the question at the heart of research into breaking encryption keys — research that has led a team in France to the most complex encryption algorithm to date. At 240 characters long, the new record bests the old decryption record by 8 characters, though it still falls far short of...

Researchers discovered a new Snatch ransomware strain that will reboot computers it infects into Safe Mode to disable any resident security solutions and immediately starts encrypting files once the system loads. Encrypting the victim's files is possible because most security tools are automatically disabled when Windows devices boot in Safe Mode as the Sophos Managed Threat Response (MTR) team and SophosLabs researchers found. Source: Bleeping Computer

The city of Pensacola is struggling to recover from a cyber attack that hit its computer network over the weekend. Some services are still affected but no critical ones. Few details are available but the attack prompted the city to disconnect much of its network until a solution for the problem was found. Source: Bleeping Computer

Due to recent changes in the Ryuk Ransomware encryption process, a bug in the decryptor could lead to data loss in large files. Ryuk is a ransomware infection known to target the enterprise or govt agencies by gaining access to their networks and then encrypting as many computers as possible. The attackers then demand large ransoms, sometimes in the millions, in order to receive a decryptor for their files. Source: Bleeping Computer

A walkie talkie toy and two karaoke devices have been found to be potentially hackable, consumer group Which? has claimed. The toys' Bluetooth connections were tested by Which? and cyber-security firm NCC Group. They found a nearby stranger could potentially talk to children via them. Vtech, which made the walkie talkie, said new connections could not be made if a parent's device had already been paired with the toy. Source: BBC

A ransomware attack has spread from a Colorado MSP (managed IT services provider) through remote access software more than 100 dentistry practices, KrebsOnSecurity reports. The ransomware attack apparently hit Complete Technology Solutions of Englewood, Colorado, though the MSP has not commented about the situation, and MSSP Alert has not independently confirmed the report. The attack apparently involved remote access software that did not have two-factor authentication (2FA) activated. Black Talon Security of Katonah, New York has been assisting some of the dental...

Phishing scams that infect a computer and potentially allow hackers to invade bank and other accounts are highly preventable, but it takes eternal vigilance. NEW YORK – The e-mail looked legitimate, so Danielle Radin clicked on the link it contained, expecting to have her products included in a holiday gift guide. “I instantly regretted it,” says Radin, owner of Mantra Magnets, a website that sells wellness products. “It took me to some random website that looked...

Anyone with a little money can buy access to Moscow's surveillance system of tens of thousands of cameras along and check footage stored over the previous five days. Sellers on forums and messenger groups that trade illegal data also provide facial recognition lookup services. Source: Bleeping Computer