This Week in Getting Hacked: Are We Still Talking About Ashley Madison Edition?

All aboard the cybersecurity train! CHOOO CHOOOO! Each week we bring you the greatest and most terrifying cybersecurity and hacking-related news on the web. This is….THIS WEEK IN GETTING HACKED!

On to the links…

This is an AMAZING article about one of New York’s most iconic skyscrapers: the NSA’s windowless 29-story monolith that sticks out like a dark sore thumb in NYC’s illuminated night sky. Twenty-nine stories, no windows, 3 basement levels, and enough food to feed 1,500 people for two weeks.

Early model of the entrance of 33 Thomas Street as designed by John Carl Warnecke & Associates. Still from “Project X” – Credit linked above

DEFINITELY NOTHING SUSPICIOUS GOING ON THERE NOPE. DEFINITELY NOT A GOVERNMENT USING IT TO SPY ON ITS CITIZENS, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

Apple is collecting your phone call logs secretly. Hope they enjoy my talks with my mom.

The election of real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump to the Highest Office in the Land has resulted in a serious spike in sign-ups for encrypted email services.

ProtonMail new user signups doubled immediately after Trump’s election victory – Photo Credit linked above

I guess that’s smart, since we all know how he feels about emails.

Who’s getting hacked this week? You, if you go to Office Depot for computer diagnostics. Office Depot has sales goals to meet, and if everyone is using quality anti-virus software and taking the necessary security precautions online, then their support team really doesn’t have much to do. That’s why they’ve been diagnosing customer’s computers with non-existent viruses so they can reach their sales goals, and the general non-tech savvy populace is none the wiser.

If we’ve learned anything from the Ashley Madison debacle is that people that provide services that allow you to cheat on your spouse definitely don’t consider security to be a priority, nor do they care if there is a breach. That’s why swinger-cum-adulterer website Adult Friend Finder—yes, THAT Adult Friend Finder, the one that has been around since 1997—has been breached to the tune of 412 million accounts.

Photo Credit linked above

Even deleted accounts. Listen, if you’re dumb enough to think that sexy, local singles want to discreetly meet with you because an ad on a porn website said so, you’re probably deserving of anything that results.

Google senior security engineer Darren Bilby says antivirus tools are about as helpful as a dead canary in a coal mine.

And finally…

The UK has passed what experts are calling ‘the most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy’, which includes forcing every Internet provider to record every Internet user’s top-level web history in real time for a year, and forces companies to decrypt their data on demand, among other things.

Photo Credit: linked above

That’s just the tip of the 1984-esque iceberg. I wouldn’t be surprised if the UK’s baby brother *COUGH COUGH* THE USA *COUGH COUGH* to follow suit.

See you next week! Stay safe out there!