‘Nearly All’ AT&T Customers Hacked by Data Breach – Now What?
At least 109 million people living in the United States were hacked by UNC5537 after hackers from the group stole the call records of “nearly all” of AT&T’s mobile phone subscribers.
According to reports, not only were pretty much all of AT&T’s 109 million subscribers affected, but so were all of the people they interacted with between May 1 and October 21, 2022.
The hack specifically impacted AT&T’s Snowflake storage system, which facilitates large-scale data warehousing and analytics in the cloud. Snowflake is now under scrutiny for a number of security lapses in recent years, including multiple instances in which users’ credentials were stolen by hackers.
Security firm Mandiant is credited with outing UNC5537 as the culprit in the latest Snowflake breach. Snowflake has since implemented stricter security measures, including mandatory multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all administrators.
Reclaim the Net reported that the stolen data includes all call and text metadata transmitted through the AT&T system between the aforementioned dates. UNC5337 hackers stole said data between April 14 and April 25 of this year.
“This metadata encompasses telephone numbers, interaction counts, and aggregate call durations, affecting not only AT&T’s direct customers but also those of various mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs),” the watchdog reported.
(Related: Did you know that all of the major cellphone carriers in the United States allow Big Government to rig and steal elections?)
Be careful: It’s an ugly, dangerous world out there
Upon discovering the breach, AT&T is said to have taken immediate action. The carrier engaged with cybersecurity experts as well as contacted the FBI, which along with the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued an official statement about the matter.
Upon investigation, both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the DOJ determined that both national security and public safety were put at risk by the breach.
“We have taken steps to close off the illegal access points,” the two federal agencies announced. “We are working with law enforcement in its efforts to arrest those involved in the incident. We understand that at least one person has been apprehended.”
AT&T customers are encouraged to take “several proactive steps to protect their personal information and reduce potential risks.” Those steps include:
1) Paying close attention to suspicious calls and texts that could be phishing attempts.
“Customers should be cautious about unsolicited communications asking for personal information or urging them to click on suspicious links.”
2) Using MFA, which while required for administrators remains optional for everyone else.
“Avoid using text messages as a form of account verification. This is when a company sends you a code by text message that you have to use to access your account. It’s much safer to use a 2-factor authentication app.”
3) Stick with app-based calling and texting rather than standard phone calls and SMS text messaging.
“Phone carriers, by virtue of their central role in facilitating communications, inherently collect and store vast amounts of metadata related to phone calls and text messages. This metadata, which includes details such as call times, durations, and the numbers involved, can be highly sensitive. Despite its non-content nature, metadata can reveal intricate details about a person’s life, habits and social networks.”
Reclaim the Net recommends using what are known as E2EE (end-to-end encryption) apps that ensure all messages, calls and files are encrypted on the sender’s device, and that can only be decrypted on the recipient’s device.
“This means that no one in between, not even the service providers or potential interceptors, can read or listen to the content,” the watchdog says. “This is crucial when the metadata (like call logs and contact numbers) is exposed, as the content of the communications remains secure.”
By the way, if you are interested in purchasing a smartphone that is “Google-less” and encrypted at the operating system level, check out Above Phone.
More related news coverage can be found at CyberWar.news.
German Birthrate Plummets, Especially in One Region
Germany’s birth rate continues to crater, dropping 7 percent to 1.35 children per woman in 2023, according to the Federal Statistical Office, however, the eastern states are especially suffering.
A total of 692,989 children were born in 2023, which is 45,830 fewer than in 2022 when 738,819 babies were born and the birthrate was 1.46.
Therefore, 2023 marks the lowest number of children born since 2013, when 682,069 births were recorded, which was already close to the all-time record low.
✝️ Pope Francis: “There is no shortage of cats and little dogs. There is never a shortage of pets, there is a shortage of children.”
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) May 15, 2024
Francis warns Europe’s demographic collapse means ‘ugly future’ ahead
Many conservatives are at odds with Pope Francis, but his statements on… pic.twitter.com/C2HGlPnZnc
The German birth rate has been falling since 2017 on a straight line, except for 2021, when the only increase was recorded.
Notably, women with foreign citizenship, who comprise an ever-greater share of the population each year, have a much higher birth rate than German citizens, coming in at 1.74. Comparatively speaking, German citizens have a birth rate of 1.26. In 2022, foreign women had a birth rate of 1.88 and German citizens were at 1.36, which shows 2023 saw a fall in both categories.
Many German citizens have a foreign background as well but their foreign background is not recorded in the statistics.
The states with the lowest foreign populations are seen in the east of the country, and they also have seen the biggest birth rate crashes. For example, Saxony fell by a troubling 10 percent compared to 2022, while Mecklenburg-Vorpommern fell by 9 percent. In Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein, both states fell by 8 percent.
Precipitous crashes in births have been recorded across Europe, Already in 2021, Europe saw the fewest babies born in 80 years. Other nations saw record-low births last year, including Poland, which saw the fewest number of children born since the Second World War.
Spain: Terrorist Arrests Increasingly Concentrated in Catalonia
In the first six months of this year, almost half of Spain’s police operations against islamist terrorism have taken place in Catalonia, as demonstrated by figures from the interior ministry and the International Observatory for the Study of Terrorism. The Objective calculates that this means 12 out of 28 of such known operations.
According to the International Observatory for the Study of Terrorism, the most recent raid took place early on Sunday morning, in the Catalan capital Barcelona and the nearby city of Badalona. WIth the investigation ongoing, details have not been released, but The Objective reports that sources close to the authorities point to the involvement of countries outside the European Union, all linked to the three people arrested in Catalonia.
As of mid-July, Spain’s police forces had arrested 50 people in Spain for jihad-related crimes: 19 in Catalonia, eight in Andalusia, two in Valencia, and two in Murcia. Madrid—which also had a relatively high number of arrests in anti-terrorism operations in the last decade—has not registered any jihadist operations so far this year. In 2023 in Madrid, 11 people were arrested on terrorist-related charges, putting the capital and its surrounding region just behind Catalonia in the number of jihadist operations prevented by police.
The figures from the first half of 2024 contrast sharply with those of 2023. Catalonia is possibly set to double the number of arrests of potential would-be terrorists, while Madrid has yet to register a single one. At the same time, the country’s overall total of terrorism-related arrests is on the rise. In 2023 there were 78 such arrests—the highest number since 2004—the year of the AlQaeda-linked bombings of commuter trains in Madrid that killed almost 200 people.
Catalonia, and Barcelona in particular, has become Spain’s security risk hotspot. Stemming recent rising crime levels was a major point in the regional election held last May.
Police sources told The Objective that the region continues to be one of the principal places in Spain where radicalization and subsequent recruitment into terror cells takes place. The details of two cases that demonstrate the dynamics of jihadist terrorism on European soil are as follows:
- One police operation in mid-June Spanish police was the culmination of an investigation that started five years ago, with the arrest of German Bagaev and Serhii Aniskovich. In 2019, both men had previously served prison sentences for terrorism charges and were caught again trying to cross the border into France. In their vehicle was a Serbian-made M-75 anti-personnel grenade. After several years of investigations, it was confirmed that Bagaev and at least four other people were buying weapons and materials for a terrorist attack they were planning.
- In March, a Spanish national studying mechanics was arrested for disseminating terrorist manuals from the Islamic State (ISIS), after they were found in the possession of four members of an Islamist cell. According to police, the five were arrested while preparing to attack Tyresö in Sweden.
Automated DUIs! New AI-Powered In-Vehicle Camera Technology will Assess Driver Intoxication
A tech startup is developing an artificial intelligence-powered in-vehicle camera that can assess a driver’s level of intoxication as soon as they get into the car.
The new system, which seeks to reduce drunk driving accidents, was presented in a paper published on April 9 at a joint conference by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Computer Vision Foundation.
According to the presentation, the in-development AI algorithm utilizes a single color camera to monitor variables such as gaze direction and head position. It incorporates 3D and infrared footage of the driver’s face, rearview videos showing driver posture, steering interactions, event logs and screen recordings of driving behavior.
The researchers, along with the South African software company MiX by Powerfleet, used video footage of drivers of various ages, drinking habits and driving experience, as well as simulators under three levels of intoxication: sober, low intoxication and severely intoxicated. The algorithm identified common visual cues of intoxication, such as bloodshot eyes, a flushed face, droopy eyelids and a dazed look to assess the driver’s intoxication level as soon as they get into the car.
(Related: Government developing AI-powered surveillance program that can keep an eye on people in smart cities.)
“Our system has the capability to identify intoxication levels at the beginning of a drive, allowing for the potential prevention of impaired drivers from being on the road,” said Ensiyeh Keshtkaran, a project contributor and doctoral student at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Perth, Western Australia.
As of now, the AI-powered in-vehicle camera can only assess with 75 percent accuracy. But Syed Zulqarnain Gilani, the project lead and a senior lecturer at ECU’s School of Science, said they are enhancing the resolution of the image data to improve the accuracy of the predictions.
“If low-resolution videos are proven sufficient, this technology can be employed by surveillance cameras installed on the roadside,” Gilani stated.
WHO: Driving under the influence of alcohol a major contributor to road traffic injuries
A recent World Health Organization (WHO) report has revealed that approximately 1.19 million people worldwide lose their lives each year due to road traffic crashes. Driving under the influence of alcohol and other psychoactive substances is a major contributor to road traffic injuries, with the risk of accidents rising considerably with higher blood alcohol concentrations in drivers.
In fact, a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration notes that even a small amount of alcohol can affect driving ability. In 2022, 2,337 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes where an offending driver had blood alcohol concentrations of between .01 to .07 grams per deciliter – below the benchmark of .08 grams per deciliter that is illegal in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the American territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
In 2022, a total of 13,524 people in the United States died from alcohol-impaired driving deaths, which amounts to 37 people per day, or one person every 39 minutes.
Visit FutureTech.news for more stories on how artificial intelligence is shaping the world.
Cardinal Once Jailed by Communists Criticizes Vatican’s ‘Silence’ About China’s Persecution of Catholics
PRAGUE (LifeSiteNews) — A Czech cardinal who was once imprisoned by communists publicly criticized the Vatican under Pope Francis for ignoring Communist China’s human rights abuses and persecution of Catholics.
“Just as silence and complicity with the communist regime damaged my country and made it easier for the government to imprison dissidents, the Church’s silence in the face of human rights abuses by Communist China harms Catholic life in China,” Cardinal Dominik Duka, O.P, the archbishop emeritus of Prague, said in a recent article.
“Hudson Institute scholar Nina Shea has documented that eight Catholic bishops are now believed to be detained indefinitely without trial in China,” he noted. “We know that the great Cardinal Joseph Zen was arrested in 2022 and is now being watched and monitored by the state.”
READ: Pope refuses to defend Cdl. Zen ahead of trial in Communist China, calls for ‘dialogue’
“Jimmy Lai, a Catholic convert and newspaper owner, has been held in solitary confinement in Hong Kong for more than three years,” the cardinal added.
“Václav Havel (the famous Czech writer and statesman), with whom I once shared a cell, wrote that the only way to fight totalitarian power is for each of us to have the courage to choose to live the truth in our own lives, no matter what,” he continued. “Today, we are again facing totalitarian dictatorships and ideologies. Once again, courageous individuals are paying the price for standing up to them.”
“Strengthened by such modern witnesses, whether known or unknown, Vatican diplomacy must regain and raise its voice to join them in defending the human person and in defending the Gospel. The time of courage has come once again,” he declared.
Cardinal Duka, ordained a priest in 1970, was banned from ministering as a priest by the communist government of what was then Czechoslovakia, though he continued secretly preaching and teaching seminarians. In 1981, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison for “religious activities.”
The prelate compared the Vatican’s diplomacy with China under Francis to the policy of Ostpolitik employed by Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, in which “the struggle for freedom and human dignity had begun to be set aside in favor of the politics of détente, which was mainly supported by the political left and communist states.”
The “quiet diplomacy” of Ostpolitik “was skillfully overcome under Pope St. John Paul II, who strengthened underground and dissident information networks to raise his voice and extend his reach,” Cardinal Duka recalled. “He insisted that the Gospel of Jesus Christ be made public, no matter what.”
The Czech cardinal also criticized “attempts to exclude the Church — and the truths of the human person — far from the public square” across the West, as well as threats against schools and teachers who resist transgenderism and the firing of people for upholding “the good of marriage and the value of all human life.”
Pope Francis and China
Pope Francis, and the Vatican during his papacy, have faced widespread criticism for their lenient – and even admiring – approach to totalitarian left-wing regimes, particularly China.
China’s Communist government has oppressed the Catholic Church for decades but has significantly intensified its persecution of Catholics and other religious groups under current dictator Xi Jinping.
In recent years, Chinese Communists have arrested and tortured Catholics and other Christians, demolished Catholics shrines, and implemented a surveillance system for clergy. Human rights organizations and Chinese Christian leaders have called the wave of persecution the worst attack on religion in the country since the Cultural Revolution.
Since 2014, the Chinese government has also interned more than one million ethnic and religious minorities in China’s Xinjiang province, reportedly killing some prisoners and subjecting thousands of women to forced abortions, systematic sexual abuse, and involuntary sterilization.
However, despite his normal outspokenness, Pope Francis has rarely mentioned China’s abuses and has downplayed religious oppression in the country, saying that, “In China, the churches are full.”
READ: Vatican silent as Chinese communists arrest Catholic publisher in Hong Kong
Pope Francis has also been heavily criticized for his Vatican-China deal, which experts and human rights organizations, including the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, have said has exacerbated the persecution of Chinese Catholics.
The secretive agreement, signed in 2018 and renewed in 2020 and 2022, is understood to allow the Chinese Communist government to select bishops and reportedly recognizes the Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), the schismatic, state-backed Catholic “church” in China. As part of the deal, the Vatican recognized seven illegitimate “bishops” installed by the CPA and pushed two bishops of the faithful underground Chinese Church out of their dioceses, replacing them with CPA “bishops.”
Cardinal Zen, the revered former bishop of Hong Kong, has condemned the Vatican-China deal as a “complete surrender” and called for the resignation of Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin over the agreement.
Pope Francis himself has admitted that underground Catholics “will suffer” under the deal. “There is always suffering in an agreement,” he said in 2018.
But the Argentine pope, who has expressed sympathy for communists, has nevertheless described the deal as “going well,” and Parolin has announced that the Vatican and China intend to renew it again this fall.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid Compares Biden Getting COVID to Trump Being Nearly Assassinated
MSNBC’s Joy Reid says Joe Biden getting COVID is just as bad as Trump surviving an assassination attempt. The White House announced yesterday that fully jabbed Biden has contracted the virus and was suffering with […]
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