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Cybersecurity news: here's what happened in the cyber world last week. US TikTok user’s data may have been accessed in China. Another Russian botnet went down. The New York Times reported on China’s tracking practices. And finally, Meta promised its next ad-targeting algorithm won't discriminate against people.
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Contents of the video:
00:00 Intro
00:22 US TikTok user data accessed in China
01:09 Russian botnet taken down
01:45 China’s unprecedented surveillance state
02:45 Meta’s next algorithm won’t discriminate against people
03:13 Outro
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US users' TikTok data has been repeatedly accessed from China. BuzzFeed News reviewed recordings from multiple leaked meetings where China-based TikTok employees mentioned accessing the nonpublic data of US TikTok users.
These recordings contain multiple revealing statements from nine different TikTok employees. For example, TikTok's Trust and Safety department member said: "Everything is seen in China."
TikTok recently stated: "Today, 100% of US user traffic is being routed to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. We still use our US and Singapore data centers for backup." It promised to delete US user private data from its data centers and fully pivot to US-located servers in the near future.
The US authorities, in collaboration with European partners, took down a Russian botnet, according to The Hacker News. The botnet, known as RSOCKS, had infected millions of internet-connected devices.
According to the Department of Justice press release: "The RSOCKS botnet offered its clients access to IP addresses assigned to devices that had been hacked."
The botnet has exploited several large public and private entities: a university, a hotel, a television studio, and an electronics manufacturer.
The New York Times has released an amazing and terrifying report on the newest surveillance practices employed by the Chinese government. Cameras with facial recognition capabilities have populated streets, squares, and other public places in China.
They detect faces and store these images in huge databases. The police authorities also installed phone trackers all over the country to monitor the population without people's knowledge. Some trackers imitate strong cellular signals to lure the phone's connection and capture its identifying data. Others can intercept and analyze the phone's outbound communications.
The Chinese government is also collecting voiceprints, iris scans, and DNA samples on a massive scale. It makes it possible for the authorities to create a profile of any person living in China and track or locate them.
The DOJ accused Meta of creating an ad-targeting tool that let advertisers select and exclude Facebook users based on race, gender, or religion. Meta will have to retire its current algorithm and build a new one.
"As technology rapidly evolves, companies like Meta have a responsibility to ensure their algorithmic tools are not used in a discriminatory manner," said a DOJ representative.
We hope you enjoyed this cybernews round-up.
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