Our picksState-Backed Hacking Rising | Putin’s Internet | Bolstering Zomm Security, and more
· DHS Warns Pandemic “Stressors” Could Trigger Attacks on Houses of Worship
· Zoom Security Update Provides Tools to Fight Zoombombing
· Putin Takes Another Step in Bid to Control Russia’s Internet
· How Viktor Orbán Used the Coronavirus to Seize More Power
· Test Kit Materials Bound for Washington State Seized by Feds
· Lies about COVID-19 Might Be Deadly, but They’re Not Unique
· Russian Trolls Hype Coronavirus and Giuliani Conspiracies
· The Trump Administration Escalates the War on White Supremacist Terrorism
· State-Backed Hackers Using Virus to Increase Spying, U.K. and U.S. Warn
· Maryland Launches Page to Help Squash Coronavirus Rumors: “We Want to Separate Fact from Fiction”
DHS Warns Pandemic “Stressors” Could Trigger Attacks on Houses of Worship (Natasha Bertrand, Politico)
Officials have seen an increase in online hate speech.
Zoom Security Update Provides Tools to Fight Zoombombing (ADL)
As more of the world rightfully takes social distancing measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, the audience for the Zoom video conferencing app has expanded tremendously. As with all sudden rapid growth of digital social spaces, this expansion has revealed new platform vulnerabilities and opportunities for bad actors to take advantage of those vulnerabilities. ADL has been tracking the prevalence of “Zoombombing” over the last several weeks — where bad actors join public video calls and engage in disruptive and sometimes hateful and harassing behavior targeted against participants on a call.
Yesterday, Zoom released an update to their product responding to these concerns that ADL and others have raised.
Putin Takes Another Step in Bid to Control Russia’s Internet (Justin Sherman, Defense One)
One center of resistance to the Kremlin’s attempt to bring the country’s internet access under central control is being brought to heel.
How Viktor Orbán Used the Coronavirus to Seize More Power (Elisabeth Zerofsky, New Yorker)
Last Monday, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, went to the plenary session of the country’s parliament to pass the “Draft Law on Protecting Against Coronavirus.” Two weeks earlier, on March 11th, when the official count of covid-19 cases in Hungary stood at thirteen, and sixty-nine people were in quarantine, the country had declared a state of emergency that banned incoming travel from China, South Korea, Italy, and Iran and limited indoor gatherings to fewer than a hundred people. The new proposal sought to extend the state of emergency, and included a number of new measures that the Prime Minister now deemed necessary: the spread of “distorted truths” or breaking isolation orders would be punishable with prison time; the Prime Minister could suspend any existing laws or create any new ones as desired; and any of these new laws, so long as they were enacted while the emergency was in place, would receive the de-facto approval of parliament. (Cont.)
