@lorenzofb.bsky.social
Real-time historian of the late cyber capitalist era @TechCrunch, writing about the intersection of hackers, human rights, and spies. Also writing a book about Hacking Team and the history of government spyware. ☎️ Signal: +1 917 257 1382
I’m not sure I understand what’s the public interest in knowing the real identity behind an artist, no matter how influential and rich they are.
If you have to ask yourself: to dox, or not to dox? Then you already have the answer.
Infosec right now:
Tal Dilian, asked by 🇬🇷TV network Mega who #Intellexa’s clients were in Greece & whether he had worked with state services, Greek authorities, private actors or any Greek official:
➡️“We provide technology only to governments & law enforcement agencies.”
[Full statement below translated from Greek]
NEW: The FBI is looking for a hacker who published several video games on Steam that were laced with malware in the last two years.
The bureau is aslo looking for gamers who fell victim and installed these games on their computers.
NEW: A global law enforcement operation took down a botnet allegedly used to facilitate ransomware, DDoS attacks, the distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and other cybercrimes.
The botnet was made of more than 369,000 hacked routers and IoT devices, according to Europol.
In a statement, CISA's acting director Nick Andersen said the agency is investigating the attack. "We are working shoulder-to-shoulder with our public and private sector partners as we continue to uncover relevant information and provide technical assistance."
techcrunch.com/2026/03/11/s...
FWIW, Triangulation report is from June 2023, Hexacon was October of that year.
securelist.com/operation-tr...
2023.hexacon.fr/conference/a...
Scoop: Here’s the bonkers story of how a foreign hacker inadvertently (?) broke into an evidence server holding FBI Epstein material in 2023 and then threatened to call in law enforcement when they found it was full of CSAM.
www.reuters.com/world/us/for...
NEW: The pro-Iran hacktivists Handala claim to have hacked U.S. medical tech giant Stryker. Some company systems have been wiped, causing disruptions and outages worldwide.
The hakctivists said the attack was "in retaliation for the brutal attack on the Minab school," which killed dozens of kids.
NEW: A hacker broke into a server at the Child Exploitation Forensic Lab in the FBI’s New York Field Office in 2023 and compromised files related to the Epstein investigation, as first reported by Reuters.
“The FBI contained the affected network,” the FBI said in a statement.
From Flock's nationwide surveillance to ICE tools, we are being watched. Is there anyway to go back now?
"Police love telling each other about the new capabilities and tools that they've acquired, so this tech can spread from city to city very quickly."
A 404 Media guide to surveillance in 2026:
Also great joke here by @thegrugq.bsky.social.
I see some people are speculating that this was Trenchant winking that they were the ones behind Operation Triangulation, or at least pretending to be (as @patrick.risky.biz said in the latest pod episode.)
NEW: A former DOGE employee allegedly stole Americans' personal data from two large databases at the Social Security Administration, according to a new report.
The former employee allegedly put the databases on a thumb drive and wanted to use them at their new contractor job.
I forgot to point out that Trenchant's own logo is two triangles.
x.com/TrenchantARC
Thank you 🙏
Looks like John predicted pretty much what happens with L3Harris and Coruna.
Thank you!
As per its stated policy, Kaspersky did not attribute Operation Triangulation.
Instead the company winked that it knew who made the tools when it chose the name and logo of the hacking campaign.
techcrunch.com/2026/03/09/a...
There's been a lot of speculation about this, and all signs pointed in this direction. But we now have former L3Harris Trenchant employees telling us that they recongnized some of the artifacts and codenames published by Google.
One of them also told us Coruna was used in Operation Triangulation.
SCOOP: The iPhone mass hacking toolkit used by Russian spies was developed at U.S. military contractor L3Harris, former employees said.
The Coruna toolkit was used against Ukrainians and by Chinese cybercriminals, according to Google. But the toolkit was initially developed for Western governments.
I just learned that Trend Micro re-branded to TrendAI...uhm, OK.
If anyone is wondering, I will not be at RSA. And god willing I won't be at RSA next year either, nor the year after that, nor the year after that, nor the year after that, nor the year after that, nor the year after that, nor the year after that, nor the year after that, nor the year after that, no
NEW: Dutch intelligence services are warning of new hacking campaigns against Signal and WhatsApp users, including government and military officials, and journalists worldwide.
The social engineering techniques used are not new, but the fact that the Dutch are warning against them means they work.
AI companies are more worried about their chatbot’s mental health than that of their users, who can actually have psychosis induced by those chatbots, leading some of them to take their own lives.
I love this future.
Thank you so much
NEW: The FBI said it is investigating a hack on its networks.
The breach affected the FBI's systems to manage wiretaps and surveillace requests, according to CNN.
techcrunch.com/2026/03/05/f...
NEW: Italian prosecutors confirm that the phone of journalist Francesco Cancellato was hacked with Paragon spyware at the same time as the phones of two immigration activists.
The Italian government admitted the hack on the activists, but said it wasn't behind Cancellato's hack. So who was?
NEW: Google said that last year, and for the first time, it found more zero-days used by spyware makers (15) rather than government-backed espionage groups (12) in the wild.
The shift demonstrated “a slow but sure movement in the landscape” of how governments hack targets, the company said.