Information Technology

Kaseya, an IT solutions developer for MSPs and enterprise clients, announced that it had become the victim of a cyberattack on July 2, over the American Independence Day weekend. 

It appears that attackers have carried out a supply chain ransomware attack by leveraging a vulnerability in Kaseya’s VSA software against multiple managed service providers (MSP) — and their customers. Also: Kaseya issues patch for on-premise customers, SaaS rollout underwayAccording to Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola, less than 0.1% of the company’s customers were embroiled in the breach — but as their clientele includes MSPs, this means that smaller businesses have also been caught up in the incident.  Present estimates suggest that 800 to 1500 small to medium-sized companies may have experienced a ransomware compromise through their MSP.  The attack is reminiscent of the SolarWinds security fiasco, in which attackers managed to compromise the vendor’s software to push a malicious update to thousands of customers. However, we are yet to find out just how widespread Kaseya’s ransomware incident will prove to be.  Here is everything we know so far. ZDNet will update this primer as we learn more. 

What is Kaseya?

Kaseya’s international headquarters is in Dublin, Ireland, and the company has a US headquarters in Miami, Florida. The vendor maintains a presence in 10 countries. Kaseya provides IT solutions including VSA, a unified remote-monitoring and management tool for handling networks and endpoints. In addition, the company provides compliance systems, service desks, and a professional services automation platform. The firm’s software is designed with enterprises and managed service providers (MSPs) in mind, and Kaseya says that over 40,000 organizations worldwide use at least one Kaseya software solution. As a provider of technology to MSPs, which serve other companies, Kaseya is central to a wider software supply chain. 

What happened?

On July 2 at 2:00 PM EDT, as previously reported by ZDNet, Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola announced “a potential attack against the VSA that has been limited to a small number of on-premise customers.”At the same time, out of an abundance of caution, Voccola urged clients to immediately shut down their VSA servers. “It’s critical that you do this immediately because one of the first things the attacker does is shut off administrative access to the VSA,” the executive said. Customers were notified of the breach via email, phone, and online notices. As Kaseya’s Incident Response team investigated, the vendor also decided to proactively shut down its SaaS servers and pull its data centers offline. By July 4, the company had revised its thoughts on the severity of the incident, calling itself the “victim of a sophisticated cyberattack.” Cyber forensics experts from FireEye’s Mandiant team, alongside other security companies, have been pulled in to assist. “Our security, support, R&D, communications, and customer teams continue to work around the clock in all geographies to resolve the issue and restore our customers to service,” Kaseya said, adding that more time is needed before its data centers are brought back online. Once the SaaS servers are operational, Kaseya will publish a schedule for distributing a security patch to on-prem clients. In a July 5 update, Kaseya said that a fix has been developed and would first be deployed to SaaS environments, once testing and validation checks are complete. “We are developing the new patch for on-premises clients in parallel with the SaaS Data Center restoration,” the company said. “We are deploying in SaaS first as we control every aspect of that environment. Once that has begun, we will publish the schedule for distributing the patch for on-premises customers.”

The ransomware attack, explained

The FBI described the incident succinctly: a “supply chain ransomware attack leveraging a vulnerability in Kaseya VSA software against multiple MSPs and their customers.”Huntress (1,2) has tracked 30 MSPs involved in the breach and believes with “high confidence” that the attack was triggered via an authentication bypass vulnerability in the Kaseya VSA web interface. According to the cybersecurity firm, this allowed the attackers to circumvent authentication controls, gain an authenticated session, upload a malicious payload, and execute commands via SQL injection, achieving code execution in the process. Kyle Hanslovan, CEO and co-founder of Huntress, told attendees of a webinar discussing the technical aspects of the attack on July 6 that the threat actors responsible were “crazy efficient.””There is no proof that the threat actors had any idea of how many businesses they targeted through VSA,” Hanslovan commented, adding that the incident seemed to be shaped more due to a “race against time.” “Some of the functionality of a VSA Server is the deployment of software and automation of IT tasks,” Sophos noted. “As such, it has a high level of trust on customer devices. By infiltrating the VSA Server, any attached client will perform whatever task the VSA Server requests without question. This is likely one of the reasons why Kaseya was targeted.”The vendor has also provided an in-depth technical analysis of the attack. Security expert Kevin Beaumont said that ransomware was pushed via an automated, fake, and malicious software update using Kaseya VSA dubbed “Kaseya VSA Agent Hot-fix”.”This fake update is then deployed across the estate — including on MSP client customers’ systems — as it [is] a fake management agent update,” Beaumont commented. “This management agent update is actually REvil ransomware. To be clear, this means organizations that are not Kaseya’s customers were still encrypted.”With a tip from RiskIQ, Huntress is also investigating an AWS IP address that may have been used as a launch point for the attack. On July 5, Kaseya released an overview of the attack, which began on July 2 with reports of ransomware deployment on endpoints. “In light of these reports, the executive team convened and made the decision to take two steps to try to prevent the spread of any malware: we sent notifications to on-premises customers to shut off their VSA servers and we shut down our VSA SaaS infrastructure,” the company says.According to the firm, zero-day vulnerabilities were exploited by the attackers to trigger a bypass authentication and for code execution, allowing them to infect endpoints with ransomware. However, Kaseya emphasizes that there is no evidence of the VSA codebase being “maliciously modified”. Wietse Boonstra, a Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) researcher, previously identified a number of vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2021-30116, which were used in the ransomware attacks. They were reported under a Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure pact.”Once Kaseya was aware of our reported vulnerabilities, we have been in constant contact and cooperation with them. When items in our report were unclear, they asked the right questions,” DIVD says. “Also, partial patches were shared with us to validate their effectiveness. During the entire process, Kaseya has shown that they were willing to put in the maximum effort and initiative into this case both to get this issue fixed and their customers patched. ” 

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Who has been impacted?

Over the weekend, Kaseya said that SaaS customers were “never at risk” and current estimates suggest that fewer than 40 on-prem clients worldwide have been affected. However, it should be noted that while a small number of Kaseya clients may have been directly infected, as MSPs, SMB customers further down the chain relying on these services could be impacted in their turn. According to reports, 800 Coop supermarket chain stores in Sweden had to temporarily close as they were unable to open their cash registers.Huntress said in a Reddit explainer that an estimated 1,000 companies have had servers and workstations encrypted. The vendor added that it is reasonable to suggest “thousands of small businesses” may have been impacted.”This is one of the farthest-reaching criminal ransomware attacks that Sophos has ever seen,” commented Ross McKerchar, Sophos VP. “At this time, our evidence shows that more than 70 managed service providers were impacted, resulting in more than 350 further impacted organizations. We expect the full scope of victim organizations to be higher than what’s being reported by any individual security company.”On July 5, Kaseya revised previous estimates to “fewer than 60” customers, adding that “we understand the total impact thus far has been to fewer than 1,500 downstream businesses.”Now, on July 6, the estimate is between 50 direct customers, and between 800 and 1,500 businesses down the chain. When it comes to SaaS environments, Kaseya says, “We have not found evidence that any of our SaaS customers were compromised.”In a press release dated July 6, Kaseya has insisted that “while impacting approximately 50 of Kaseya’s customers, this attack was never a threat nor had any impact to critical infrastructure.” The number of vulnerable Kaseya servers online, visible, and open to attackers dropped by 96% from roughly 1,500 on July 2 to 60 on July 8, according to Palo Alto Networks.

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Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola said that the attack, “for the very small number of people who have been breached, it totally sucks.” “We are two days after this event,” Voccola commented. “We have about 150 people that have probably slept a grand total of four hours in the last two days, literally, and that’ll continue until everything is as perfect as can be.” Less than 0.1% of the company’s customers experienced a breach. “Unfortunately, this happened, and it happens,” the executive added. “Doesn’t make it okay. It just means it’s the way the world we live in is today.”

What is ransomware?

Ransomware is a type of malware that specializes in the encryption of files and drives. In what has become one of the most severe and serious security problems modern businesses now face, ransomware is used by threat actors worldwide to hijack systems and disrupt operations. Once a victim’s system or network has been encrypted, cyber criminals will place a ransom note on the system, demanding payment in return for a decryption key (which may, or may not, work). Today’s ransomware operators may be part of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), when they ‘subscribe’ to access and use a particular type of ransomware. Another emerging trend is double extortion, in which a victim will have their information stolen during a ransomware raid. If they refuse to pay up, they may then face the prospect of their data being sold or published online. Common and well-known ransomware families include REvil, Locky, WannaCry, Gandcrab, Cerber, NotPetya, Maze, and Darkside. Read on: What is ransomware? Everything you need to know about one of the biggest menaces on the webSee also:

Who is responsible?

Charlie Osborne | ZDNet

The cyberattack has been attributed to the REvil/Sodinikibi ransomware group, which has claimed responsibility on its Dark Web leak site, “Happy Blog.”In an update over the weekend, the operators, believed to have ties to Russia, claimed that more than “a million” systems have been infected. REvil has offered a decryption key, allegedly universal and, therefore, able to unlock all encrypted systems, for the ‘bargain’ price of $70 million in the bitcoin (BTC) cryptocurrency.REvil has been previously linked to ransomware attacks against companies, including JBS, Travelex, and Acer. 

What are the ransomware payment terms?

The ransomware note claims that files are “encrypted, and currently unavailable.” A file extension .csruj has reportedly been used. Operators are demanding payment in return for a decryption key and one ‘freebie’ file decryption is also on the table to prove the decryption key works. The operators add (spelling unchanged):”Its just a business. We absolutely do not care about you and your deals, except getting benefits. If we do not do our work and liabilities – nobody will not cooperate with us. Its not in our interests. If you will not cooperate with our service –for us, its does not matter. But you will lose your time and data, cause just we have the private key. In practice – time is much more valuable than money.”Sophos malware analyst Mark Loman shared a screenshot on Twitter of a ransomware note planted on an infected endpoint demanding $44,999. John Hammond, senior security researcher at Huntress, told ZDNet that the company has already seen ransom demands of up to $5 million. Kevin Beaumont says that, unfortunately, he has observed victims “sadly negotiating” with the ransomware’s operators. Fabian Wosar, CTO of Emsisoft, has also explained in a Twitter thread why using a key obtained by a single organization paying up is unlikely to be a viable path for unlocking all victims. “REvil absolutely has the capability of decrypting only a single victim without these purchased decryption tools being applicable for other victims hit by the same campaign public key,” the security expert noted.CNBC reports that the universal ransom demand has been reduced to $50 million in private conversations. However, as of July 7, the public demand for $70 million on the threat group’s leak site remains unchanged.

What are the reactions so far?

At the time of the breach, Kaseya notified law enforcement and cybersecurity agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).The FBI and CISA have released a joint statement on the security incident and are urging customers to run a tool provided by Kaseya to determine the risk of exploit, and to both enable and enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) on enterprise accounts, wherever possible.Kaseya has been holding meetings with the FBI and CISA “to discuss systems and network hardening requirements prior to service restoration for both SaaS and on-premises customers.”The White House is asking organizations to inform the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) if they suspect they have been compromised.On Saturday, US President Biden said he has directed federal intelligence agencies to investigate. “Targeting [an] MSP platform (that is managing many customers at once) was very well thought and planned,” Amit Bareket, CEO of Perimeter 81, told ZDNet. “What’s unique is that hackers are becoming more strategic and targeting platforms that will filtrate down to many companies with one shot. RMMs [remote monitoring and management] are basically keys to many many companies, which amount to the kingdom for bad actors.”The White House has attempted to strengthen its stance on cybercrime in light of this attack, warning Russian President Vladimir Putin that unless he deals with the problem in his own backyard, “we will take action or reserve the right to take action on our own.” 

Are there any recovery plans?

As of July 4, Kaseya says the company has now moved on from a root cause analysis of the attack to recovery and patch plans, consisting of:Communication of our phased recovery plan with SaaS first followed by on-premises customers.  Kaseya will be publishing a summary of the attack and what we have done to mitigate it.   Some lightly-used legacy VSA functionality will be removed as part of this release out of an abundance of caution. A specific list of the functionality and its impact on VSA capabilities will be outlined in the release notes.  There will be new security measures implemented including enhanced security monitoring of our SaaS servers by FireEye and enablement of enhanced WAF capabilities. We have successfully completed an external Vulnerability Scan, checked our SaaS Databases for Indicators of Compromise, and have had external security experts review our code to ensure a successful service restart.Data centers starting with the EU will be restored, followed by the UK, APAC, and then North American systems.  By late evening on July 5, Kaseya said a patch has been developed and it is the firm’s intention to bring back VSA with “staged functionality” to hasten the process. The company explained: The first release will prevent access to functionality used by a very small fraction of our user base, including: Classic Ticketing Classic Remote Control (not LiveConnect). User Portal Kaseya has now published an updated timeline for its restoration efforts, starting with the relaunch of SaaS servers, now set for July 6, 4:00 PM EDT and 7:00 PM EDT. Configuration changes to improve security will follow, including an on-premise patch, expected to land in 24 hours, or less, from the time SaaS servers come back online. “We are focused on shrinking this time frame to the minimal possible — but if there are any issues found during the spin-up of SaaS, we want to fix them before bringing our on-premises customers up,” the firm says. Additional security improvements include the creation of 24/7 SOCs for VSA, as well as a complimentary CDN with a web application firewall (WAF) for every VSA. Update July 7: The timeline has not been met. Kaseya said that “an issue was discovered that has blocked the release” of the VSA SaaS rollout. “We apologize for the delay and R&D and operations are continuing to work around the clock to resolve this issue and restore service,” Kaseya commented.In a service update, the vendor said it has been unable to resolve the problem.”The R&D and operations teams worked through the night and will continue to work until we have unblocked the release,” Kaseya added.July 7, 12 pm EDT: Kaseya hopes to resolve the SaaS systems rollout no later than the evening of Thursday, July 8. A playbook is currently being written up, due to be published today, which will provide guidelines for impacted businesses to deploy the upcoming on-prem VSA patch.

Current recovery status

As of July 8, Kaseya has published two run books, “VSA SaaS Startup Guide,” and “On Premises VSA Startup Readiness Guide,” to assist clients in preparing for a return to service and patch deployment. Recovery, however, is taking longer than initially expected. “We are in the process of resetting the timelines for VSA SaaS and VSA On-Premises deployment,” the company says. “We apologize for the delay and changes to the plans as we work through this fluid situation.”In a second video message recorded by the firm’s CEO, Voccola said:”The fact we had to take down VSA is very disappointing to me, it’s very disappointing to me personally. I feel like I’ve let this community down. I let my company down, our company let you down. [..] This is not BS, this is the reality.”The new release time for VSA is Sunday, in the afternoon, Eastern Time, in order to also harden the software and bolster its security ahead of deployment. July 12: Kaseya has now released a patch and is working with on-prem customers to deploy the security fix. Now, 100% of all SaaS customers are live, according to the company.”Our support teams continue to work with VSA on-premises customers who have requested assistance with the patch,” Kaseya added.

What can customers do?

Kaseya has released a tool, including Indicators of Compromise (IoC), which can be downloaded via Box. There are two PowerShell scripts for use: one on a VSA server, and the other has been designed for endpoint scanning. The self-assessment scripts should be used in offline mode. They were updated on July 5 to also scan for data encryption and REvil’s ransom note.However, the scripts are only for potential exploit risk detection and are not security fixes. Kaseya will release patches as quickly as it can, but in the meantime, customers simply have to wait until Sunday. Kaseya intends to bring customers back online on July 11, at 4 PM EDT. “All on-premises VSA Servers should continue to remain offline until further instructions from Kaseya about when it is safe to restore operations,” the firm said. “A patch will be required to be installed prior to restarting the VSA.”Cado Security has provided a GitHub repository for responders, including malware samples, IoCs, and Yara Rules. Truesec CSIRT has also released a script on GitHub to identify and mitigate damage on infected systems. Kaseya has also warned that scammers are trying to take advantage of the situation. “Spammers are using the news about the Kaseya Incident to send out fake email notifications that appear to be Kaseya updates. These are phishing emails that may contain malicious links and/or attachments.Do not click on any links or download any attachments claiming to be a Kaseya advisory.”

Are REvil still active?

After Biden made his stance clear to Putin on ransomware gangs, the REvil ransomware group’s leak site was seized and taken down by law enforcement. The takedown included REvil’s payment site, public domain, helpdesk chat platform, and the negotiation portal. While the intention was to secure some form of control over the group, it should be noted that ransomware operators often close down sites, rebrand, and regroup. A side effect of the takedown is that the removal of negotiation and the possibility of purchasing a decryption key have left victims with unrecoverable systems. One victim who paid up for a decryption key — which ended up not working — is now out of pocket and unable to secure assistance from the cybercriminals. 

Kaseya attack More

An investigation into leaked data allegedly connected to NSO Group has resulted in claims that its software is being used to target journalists, activists, and government figures. 

As reported by The Guardian, an investigation into a data leak apparently connected to the Israeli spyware vendor implies that “authoritarian” governments are using NSO Group’s Pegasus software to compromise mobile devices belonging to human rights activists, political dissidents, lawyers, journalists, and politicians.  Pegasus is a spyware tool with remote access capabilities that is able to extract handset information, harvest conversations taking place over apps including WhatsApp and Facebook, monitor email clients and browser activity, record calls, and spy on victims through their microphone and camera.  Based in Israel, NSO Group markets its products as intended for governments to detect and “prevent a wide range of local and global threats,” as well as a way to tackle criminal and terrorist activity.  However, a probe launched by non-profit Forbidden Stories, Amnesty International, and a number of media outlets alleges that the software is being abused to monitor innocents.  According to the publication, a leaked list of phone numbers accessed by Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International revealed over 50 000 numbers believed to have been “of interest” to NSO Group clients and “selected for targeting” since 2016. While the existence of a phone number does not mean that a handset has been compromised, the consortium’s investigation — dubbed the Pegasus project — says that infection was confirmed: “in dozens of cases.”

The project says:”NSO Group contends that its Pegasus software is meant only to help legitimate law enforcement bodies go after criminals and terrorists, and that any other use would violate its policies and user agreements.The Pegasus Project did find numbers belonging to suspected criminal figures on the leaked list. However, of over 1,000 numbers whose owners were identified, at least 188 were journalists. Many others were human rights activists, diplomats, politicians, and government officials. At least 10 heads of state were on the list.”In response, the Israeli firm slammed the project’s claims as full of “wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories” and has denied any wrongdoing. “Their sources have supplied them with information which has no factual basis, as evident by the lack of supporting documentation for many of their claims,” the NSO Group says. “In fact, these allegations are so outrageous and far from reality that NSO is considering a defamation lawsuit.” According to the company, the data used to back up the Pegasus project’s claims is likely based on “accessible and overt basic information” gleaned from services such as HLR Lookups and are not related to “the customers’ targets of Pegasus or any other NSO products.” “Such services are openly available to anyone, anywhere, and anytime, and are commonly used by governmental agencies for numerous purposes, as well as by private companies worldwide,” NSO Group says. “The claims that the data was leaked from our servers is a complete lie and ridiculous since such data never existed on any of our servers.” The company repeated that its technologies are only sold to vetted governments, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies.  In 2019, Facebook filed a lawsuit against the software vendor, alleging that the company was responsible for the sale and deployment of a zero-day vulnerability in WhatsApp to target over 1,400 devices owned by government employees, political dissidents, journalists, activists, and more.  Tech giants including Microsoft, Google, and Cisco later filed an amicus brief in support of the court case.  Last year, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched an investigation into the NSO Group amid suspicions that US citizens and organizations may have been targeted for cyberespionage.  Previous and related coverage Have a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0 More

Security researchers have shown how they were able to bypass Windows 10’s Windows Hello biometric authentication with just a single infrared frame of the target. Researchers at security firm Cyber Ark have detailed the Windows Hello authentication bypass and how an attacker could exploit it. 

The attack is quite elaborate and would require planning, including being able to acquire an infrared (IR) image of the target’s face and building a custom USB device, such as a USB web camera, that will work with Windows Hello. The attack exploits how Windows 10 treats these USB devices and would require the attacker to have gained physical access to the target PC.SEE: Windows 10 Start menu hacks (TechRepublic Premium)But with those pieces in place, an attacker could gain access to sensitive information on the target’s Windows 10 PC – and potentially information stored in Microsoft 365 cloud services.”With only one valid IR frame of the target, the adversary can bypass the facial recognition mechanism of Windows Hello, resulting in a complete authentication bypass and potential access to all the victim’s sensitive assets,” Cyber Ark researcher Omer Tsarfati explained in a blogpost. The attacker could capture an IR frame of the target or convert a regular RGB frame into an IR frame. 

The apparent weakness lies in how Windows Hello processes “public” data, such as the image of the person’s face, from a USB device, so long as the device meets Windows Hello requirements that the camera has both IR and RGB sensors. The researchers discovered that only the IR camera frames are processed during authentication, so an attacker just needs a valid IR frame to bypass Windows Hello authentication. The RGB frames can contain anything. During tests, Tsarfati used an RGB frame of SpongeBob and the bypass still worked. Tsarfati argued it would be fairly simple to get an IR frame of the target. For example, walking by the person with an IR camera or placing it where the target will likely walk through, such as an elevator. The image could even be snapped at a distance with higher-end infrared sensors.Tsarfati noted that Microsoft addressed the vulnerability last week and has tagged it as CVE-2021-34466.    SEE: Ransomware: Paying up won’t stop you from getting hit again, says cybersecurity chiefMicrosoft said that the attacker would need physical access and that it is a complex attack to pull off. Microsoft noted it is an important patch to apply, but its description suggests it’s nothing an admin should lose sleep over. “A successful attack depends on conditions beyond the attacker’s control. That is, a successful attack cannot be accomplished at will, but requires the attacker to invest in some measurable amount of effort in preparation or execution against the vulnerable component before a successful attack can be expected,” Microsoft noted. “For example, a successful attack may require an attacker to: gather knowledge about the environment in which the vulnerable target/component exists; prepare the target environment to improve exploit reliability; or inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim in order to read and/or modify network communications (e.g., a man in the middle attack).” More

Facebook has addressed comments made by US President Biden over social media and the spread of fake COVID-19 information, saying it is time to move past “finger pointing.”

Since the start of the pandemic, social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook have become melting pots of coronavirus-related misinformation, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories, some of which may have increased vaccine hesitancy in some groups.  Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other tech giants have been fighting the spread.  On Friday, Biden was asked by a reporter what his message would be to social media platforms, like Facebook, in light of COVID-19 misinformation and anti-vaccination content.  In a blunt fashion, Biden said, “they’re killing people.” “I mean, they’re really — look — the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated,” Biden said. “And they’re killing people.” On July 17, Facebook published a blog post responding to these accusations, penned by Guy Rosen, Facebook VP of Integrity. 

“At a time when COVID-19 cases are rising in America, the Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies,” Rosen said. “While social media plays an important role in society, it is clear that we need a whole of society approach to end this pandemic. And facts — not allegations — should help inform that effort.” According to reports, vaccine hesitancy remains high in some US states at a time when the Delta variant is thought to be behind a spike in cases in areas including Florida. However, Facebook says that hesitancy in its US user base continues to decline, and 85% of Facebook users in the country either have had or want a COVID-19 vaccine.  “President Biden’s goal was for 70% of Americans to be vaccinated by July 4,” the company says. “Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed. In fact, increased vaccine acceptance has been seen on and off Facebook, with many leaders throughout the US working to make that happen.” The social media giant has published a set of rules for content relating to COVID-19 and vaccines. For example, the company prohibits posts designed for the “active and deliberate spread of communicable diseases,” meet-ups encouraging participants who have COVID-19 or organized in order to disrupt vaccination programs, and content that denies the existence or severity of the disease.   Facebook says that since the start of the pandemic, over 18 million “instances” of COVID-19 misinformation have been removed, and over 167 million pieces of content have been labeled by fact-checkers as fake or potentially misleading.  “The Biden Administration is calling for a whole of society approach to this challenge,” Rosen added. “We agree. As a company, we have devoted unprecedented resources to the fight against the pandemic, pointing people to reliable information and helping them find and schedule vaccinations. And we will continue to do so.” Previous and related coverage Have a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0 More

A Swedish man has been sentenced to 15 years behind bars for operating a cryptocurrency scam that claimed to pay investors based on the price of gold reserves.  

Roger Nils-Jonas Karlsson pleaded guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering in March this year after being prosecuted in the United States following his arrest in Thailand in 2019. He was later extradited.The 47-year-old was charged with operating Eastern Metal Securities (EMS), a company that claimed to operate an investment service based on cryptocurrency. Investors who participated in EMS from 2012 to 2019 were offered plans in which shares, purchased for under $100, would eventually realize a return equivalent to 1.15 kilograms of gold.In 2019, 1.15kg in gold was worth over $45,000. Today, its value would be over $58,000.  In order to join the scheme, investors were asked to purchase shares through cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).  Furthermore, traders were told that in the ‘unlikely’ event that the shares would not reach their promised value, participants would have 97% of their initial investment returned.  Karlsson made sure EMS operated for as long as possible by frequently rebranding, issuing updates, and providing asset statements. 

He also falsely claimed that paying out a vast sum all at once would have a negative impact on global financial systems, and also said the company was working with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to explain away payment delays.  However, as is often the case when extreme returns on investments are offered, the promise was too good to be true. Investors saw no returns, and instead, Karlsson — who also used online aliases including Steve Heyden, Euclid Deodoris, and Joshua Millard — siphoned the cryptocurrency and used the cash to purchase homes and a resort in Thailand.  US prosecutors estimate that investors were swindled out of over $16 million.  “Karlsson admitted he had no way to pay off the investors,” the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said. “Karlsson’s fraud targeted financially insecure investors, causing severe financial hardship for many of them.” Alongside the 15-year sentence, Karlsson has been ordered to forfeit the resort in Thailand, other properties, accounts, and has received a monetary judgment of  $16,263,820. Prosecutors also hope to secure restitution for past EMS investors and an order is expected in court within 90 days.  Previous and related coverage Have a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0 More

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To look at the headline numbers, Ericsson’s second quarter was steady on a revenue front and saw decent earnings growth. For the quarter ended June 30, the Swedish telco equipment manufacturer reported revenue dropped 1% to just under SEK55 billion, earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) jumped 51% to SEK5.8 billion, and net income increased by the same percentage to SEK3.9 billion. The worry for the company is its numbers from China, which saw sales plummet from SEK4.1 billion last year to SEK1.5 billion. Ericsson said its networks segment was steady with revenue at SEK40 billion and EBIT growing 65% to SEK8.6 billion. The impact from China on the segment was SEK2 billion. For digital services, despite being down 8% to SEK7.9 billion in revenue, the company said that number was adjusted for “comparable units and currency”, and it was another stable result. China was responsible for the loss of SEK0.5 billion. In EBIT terms, the segment dropped from last year’s second quarter SEK0.7 billion loss to a loss of SEK1.6 billion. “There is a high risk regarding future market share in [core networking] in Mainland China and the company has made a write-down of -SEK0.3 billion for pre-commercial product investments for the Chinese market,” it said. Managed services saw a 8% drop in sales compared to last year to SEK5.1 billion, while EBIT increased 58% to SEK0.4 billion.

For the emerging business segment, sales jumped 29% to SEK2.1 billion, while the EBIT loss stretched from SEK1 billion in the hole to SEK1.7 billion. “EBIT was negatively impacted by -SEK0.8 billion in the quarter, as a result of the Nokia settlement related to the 2019 resolution with the US authorities,” Ericsson said, referring to the 2019 imposition of $1 billion in fines from the US. The company said increases in its sales and margin for the emerging business segment was due to its Cradlepoint acquisition. In May, Ericsson warned it might be collateral damage from strained relations between Stockholm and Beijing after Sweden banned Chinese 5G equipment. “The geopolitical situation can have consequences on the entire industry, with an increased likelihood of further industry split, separation of global value chains, and separation of global standards for mobile telecommunications,” it said at the time. Meanwhile in the Pacific, Telstra confirmed reporting from Nine newspapers in Australia that it was in discussions over potentially picking up Digicel Pacific. “Telstra was initially approached by the Australian government to provide technical advice in relation to Digicel Pacific which is a commercially attractive asset and critical to telecommunications in the region. If Telstra were to proceed with a transaction it would be with financial and strategic risk management support from the government,” the telco said on Monday. “In addition to a significant government funding and support package any investment would also have to be within certain financial parameters with Telstra’s equity investment being the minor portion of the overall transaction. “Digicel Pacific enjoys a strong market position in the South Pacific region generating EBITDA of $235 million in calendar 2020 with a strong margin, as well as extensive network coverage.” It was reported Canberra was turning to Telstra to keep the assets out of Chinese hands. Digicel Pacific has networks in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Nauru, Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu. In 2018, Canberra decided to use around AU$200 million of its foreign aid budget to lock Huawei out of building a subsea cable to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. Instead of Huawei, Vocus eventually picked up a AU$137 million contract to build the cable. Related Coverage More

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keeps is your location data. Doing a Google search or using Google Maps gives the company your location to pinpoint accuracy. Why does Google want this? To serve you more relevant ads and search results and so on, but for some people, that’s an unacceptable privacy tradeoff.Here’s how to stop handing over your location data to Google.Must read: These three simple tips will keep your iPhone safe from hackersFire up your browser, and go to Google.com.Click on your profile pic and sign into your account.Click on your profile pic followed by Manage your Google AccountFrom Privacy & Personalization, select Manage your data & personalizationGo to Activity controls and select Manage your activity controlsGo to Web & App Activity and switch the toggle to offOn the screen that follows (a screen explaining the downsides to turning this feature off), click PausePhew! That was a long trip!But what about all the location data Google has collected? That’s still stored, but if you want to delete it, here’s how (we have to retrace some of our steps!):Fire up your browser, and go to Google.com.Click on your profile pic followed by Manage your Google AccountFrom Privacy & Personalization, select Manage your data & personalizationGo to Activity controls and select Location HistorySelect Manage activity to go to your Google TimelineClick on the settings icon to the left of a button marked Map, and from the pop-up select Delete all Location HistoryConfirm that you do indeed want to delete location data, and click Delete Location History More