Attacks on financial institutions in Africa, dodgy free mobile VPN apps, and Facebook shutters multiple “inauthentic” accounts

Published: Jan. 24, 2019, 2 p.m.

On this week’s Cyber Security Brief podcast, Symantec threat researcher Stephen Doherty joins us to discuss our recently published research into a wave of attacks against financial institutions in West Africa. We also discuss some new research that found that many free mobile VPNs could actually compromise people’s privacy, a hitman who was convicted thanks to evidence found on his smartwatch, and an embarrassing compromise of the ATLAS MMO game. Also this week, Russia is back in the headlines again, with the DNC revealing it was targeted once again by a spear-phishing campaign originating in Russia in November last, while Facebook also removed a number of “inauthentic” accounts that it says were based in Russia and involved in spreading misinformation on the social media platform.