In January 2021, Telegram surpassed 500 million monthly active users.[21] It was the most downloaded app worldwide in January 2021[22][23] with 1 billion downloads globally as of late August 2021. Research suggests that the Telegram surge in January 2021 was driven partly by the deplatforming of Parler by big-tech firms.[24]In June 2022, Telegram surpassed 700 million monthly active users.[25][26] The same month, Telegram Premium, an optional paid subscription with several extra features, was introduced.
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On 2 August 2016, Reuters reported that Iranian hackers compromised more than a dozen Telegram accounts and identified the phone numbers of 15 million Iranian users, as well as the associated user IDs. Researchers said the hackers belonged to a group known as Rocket Kitten. Rocket Kitten's attacks were similar to ones attributed to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The attackers took advantage of a programming interface built into Telegram. According to Telegram, these mass checks are no longer possible because of limitations introduced into its API earlier in 2016.[288]
On 30 March 2020, an Elasticsearch database holding 42 million records containing user IDs and phone numbers of Iranian users was exposed online without a password. The accounts were extracted from not Telegram but an unofficial version of Telegram, in what appears to be a possibly government-sanctioned fork. It took 11 days for the database to be taken down, but the researchers say the data was accessed by other parties, including a hacker who reported the information to a specialized forum.[303][304][305]
The jolt also reignited security and privacy scrutiny over messaging apps more widely. Among the top players currently dominating download numbers, there are some commonalities. All are mobile apps available in the Google Play store and App Store that support cross-platform messaging, have group chat features, offer multifactor authentication and can be used to share files and multimedia. They all also provide encryption for texting, voice and video calls.
On the security front, WhatsApp's encryption is the same as Signal's, and that encryption is secure. But that encryption protocol is one of the few open-source parts of WhatsApp, so we're being asked to trust WhatsApp more than we are Signal. WhatsApp's actual app and other infrastructure have also faced hacks, just as Telegram has.
Jeff Bezos' phone was famously hacked in January of 2020 through a WhatsApp video message. In December of the same year, Texas' attorney general alleged -- though has not proven -- that Facebook and Google struck a back-room deal to reveal WhatsApp message content. A spyware vendor targeted a WhatsApp vulnerability with its software to hack 1,400 devices, resulting in a lawsuit from Facebook. WhatsApp's unencrypted cloud-based backup feature has long been considered a security risk by privacy experts and was one way the FBI got evidence on notorious political fixer Paul Manafort. To top it off, WhatsApp has also become known as a haven for scam artists and malware purveyors over the years (just as Telegram has attracted its own share of platform abuse, detailed above).
Despite the hacks, it's not the security aspect that concerns me about WhatsApp as much as the privacy. I'm not eager for Facebook to have yet another piece of software installed on my phone from which it can cull still more behavioral data via an easy-to-use app with a pretty interface and more security than your regular messenger.
January 2023. Latvian officials claimed that Russia-linked hackers launched a cyber espionage phishing campaign against its Ministry of Defense. The Latvian Ministry of Defense stated this operation was unsuccessful.
January 2023. CISA, the NSA, and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center released a joint advisory warning of an increase in hacks on the federal civilian executive branch utilizing remote access software. This follows an October 2022 report on a financially motivated phishing campaign against multiple U.S. federal civilian executive branch agencies.
January 2023. Russia-linked hackers deployed a ransomware attack against the UK postal service, the Royal Mail. The attack disrupted the systems used to track international mail. It took 20 days for the Royal Mail to fully restore international mail services.
January 2023. Iran-linked hackers executed ransomware attacks and exfiltrated data from U.S. public infrastructure and private Australian organizations. Australian authorities claim that the data exfiltrated was for use in extortion campaigns.
January 2023. Hackers launched a series of cyber-attacks against Malaysian national defense networks. Malaysian officials stated that the hacking activities were detected early enough to prevent any network compromise.
December 2022. A U.S. lawmaker predicted spyware hacks of U.S. government employees could be in the hundreds, including diplomats in multiple countries. This follows a probe into how many devices spyware are affected in the U.S. government.
November 2022. Microsoft attributed cyberattacks aimed at transportation and related logistics industries in Ukraine and Poland to a Russian GRU hacking group. The campaign began in late September 2022.
November 2022. Iranian government-sponsored hackers compromised the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, exploiting the log4shell vulnerability as early as February 2022. After breaching the network, hackers installed cryptocurrency-mining software and deployed malware to obtain sensitive data.
November 2022. An Indian-based hacking group targeted Pakistani politicians, generals and diplomats, deploying malware that enables the attacker access to computer cameras and microphones.
November 2022. State-sponsored hackers with possible ties to the Chinese government targeted multiple Asian countries in an espionage operation since March 2022, compromising a digital certificate authority in one country.
November 2022. Hackers disabled digital services of the Vanuatu government in a cyberattack. The attack affected all government services, disabling emails, websites, and government systems, with only partial access restored a month later. Australian sources stated the hack was a ransomware attack.
November 2022. Indian hackers targeted Pakistani government entities, including the military, and companies since April 2020. The attacks enabled hackers to infiltrate systems and access computer controls.
November 2022. Suspected Chinese-linked hackers carried out an espionage campaign on public and private organizations in the Philippines, Europe, and the United States since 2021. The attacks used infected USB drives to deliver malware to the organizations.
October 2022. Hackers targeted a communications platform in Australia, which handles Department of Defence data, in a ransomware attack. The government believes hackers breached sensitive government data in this attack.
October 2022. A Ukrainian newspaper published hacked data claiming to be sensitive information from Russian defense contractors. The hackers responsible are part of an anti-Putin group in Russia.
August 2022. Hackers used phishing emails to deploy malware in government institutions and defense firms throughout Eastern Europe in January 2022. A report by Russian-based company Kaspersky linked the campaign to a Chinese hacking group.
July 2022. Hackers targeted the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in a spearfishing campaign to deploy malware and obtain sensitive files. Pakistani and Chinese organizations claimed the attack came from Indian-linked hackers.
June 2022. The FBI, National Security Agency (NSA) and CISA announced that Chinese state-sponsored hackers targeted and breached major telecommunications companies and network service providers since at least 2020.
June 2022. Hackers targeted Norwegian public institutions with DDoS attacks, disrupting government websites. The Norwegian NSM security authority attributed the attack to pro-Russian hackers.
May 2022. A Chinese hacking group stole intellectual property assets from U.S and European companies since 2019 and went largely undetected. Researchers believe the group is backed by the Chinese government.
May 2022. Russian hackers hit Italian websites with a DDoS attack, including the Senate, the Ministry of Defence and the National Health Institute. The group states its goal was to target NATO countries and Ukraine.
April 2022. The Romanian National Directorate of Cyber Security said that multiple public and private sector websites were hit with DDoS attacks. The victims included the ministry of defense, border police, national railway company, and the OTP Bank. A group claiming credit for the attack said on Telegram that it hacked the websites because Romania supported Ukraine since the Russian invasion of the country.
April 2022. Cybersecurity researchers identified a new campaign by Russian-linked hackers that started in January and targets diplomats and embassy officials from France, Poland, Portugal, and other countries. The hacks started with a phishing email to deliver a malware-laden file to the target.
April 2022. Russian hackers targeted the Costa Rican Ministry of Finance in a cyberattack, crippling tax collection and export systems. The newly elected President of Costa Rica declared a national emergency as a result of the attack and the group asked for $20 million in ransom or it plans to leak the stolen data.
April 2022. Hamas-linked cyber actors used a network of fake Facebook and Twitter profiles to surveil members of the Israeli security establishment. The actors also used WhatsApp to grow trust with their targets, then requesting them to download an app with malware. 2ff7e9595c
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