Officials in Greece say an investigation has cleared the country's security agencies of involvement in an international spyware scandal that triggered U.S. sanctions earlier this year. Supreme Court prosecutor Georgia Adilini said Tuesday the two-year probe found no evidence linking Greece’s National Intelligence Service and other agencies to the use of Predator spyware, which opposition groups alleged was used against government critics. Opposition parties called the findings a cover-up. U.S. authorities say Predator spyware can infect electronic devices through so-called “zero-click attacks,” requiring no user interaction. Once infected, it enables secret data extraction, geolocation tracking, and access to applications and personal information.
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Pakistan has developed and successfully tested a government messaging app for secure communication among officials, even as it restricts social media use and regularly shuts down internet and mobile phone networks to prevent dissent. Baber Majid, the CEO at the National Information Technology Board, said on Tuesday that should the government approve it, the platform could eventually be available to millions of citizens. He said “beep” has already successfully undergone trial runs since 2023 and is "now ready for launch.” Ordinary Pakistanis are struggling to access X, which authorities blocked ahead of the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections, a vote that was overshadowed by violence, an unprecedented shutdown of all mobile phone services and allegations of vote rigging.
“Move fast and break things,” a high-tech mantra popularized 20 years ago by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, was supposed to be a rallying cry for game-changing innovation. It now seems more like an elegy for a society perched on a digital foundation too fragile to withstand a defective software program that was supposed to help protect computers. The worldwide technology meltdown unleashed late last week by a flawed update installed by cybersecurity specialist CrowdStrike illustrated the digital pitfalls looming in a culture that takes the magic of technology for granted until it implodes into a horror show exposing our ignorance.
U.S. House leaders are calling on CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify to Congress about the cybersecurity company’s role in sparking the widespread tech outage that grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and affected services around the world. CrowdStrike said this week a “significant number” of the millions of computers that crashed on Friday, causing global disruptions, are back in operation as its customers and regulators await a more detailed explanation of what went wrong. Republicans who lead the House Homeland Security committee said Monday they want those answers soon.
As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and even CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz warned about phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees offering to assist those recovering from the outage. Meanwhile, Microsoft said 8.5 million devices running its Windows operating system were affected by the faulty cybersecurity update Friday that led to worldwide disruptions.
Transport providers, businesses and governments are rushing to get all their systems back online after long disruptions following a widespread technology outage. The biggest continuing effect has been on air travel. Carriers canceled thousands of flights and now have many of their planes and crews in the wrong place, while airports are facing continued problems with checking in and security on Saturday. At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to scores of companies worldwide. The company says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, noting that the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.
A global technology outage grounded flights, knocked banks offline and media outlets off air after a faulty software update disrupted companies and services around the world and highlighted their dependence on just a handful of providers. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the trouble with the update it issued that was affecting computers running Microsoft Windows was not a security incident or cyberattack. It said a fix was on the way. But hours later, the disruptions continued. Long lines formed at airports in the U.S., Europe and Asia as airlines lost access to check-in and booking services at a time when many travelers are heading away on summer vacations. Hospitals and doctors' offices had problems with their appointment systems, and canceled surgeries.
Much of the world has faced online disarray as a widespread technology outage affected companies and services across industries — grounding flights, knocking banks and hospital systems offline and media outlets off air. At the heart of Friday's massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows — with the company noting that the issue was not a security incident or cyberattack. Scores of companies rely on CrowdStrike for their security needs. That makes the consequences of a faulty update, like the one CrowdStrike cited, all the more far-reaching.
Delayed travelers wait in lines at Minneapolis/St. Paul International airport after software issues delayed flights globally, Friday, July 19, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
A Crowdstrike office is shown in Sunnyvale, Calif., on Friday, July 19, 2024. An overnight outage was blamed on a software update that cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike sent to Microsoft computers of its corporate customers including many airlines. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)