Cyber, in brief

WhatsApp messages said to belong to Jonatan Urich, a close adviser to Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were leaked online on Sunday. [2]

Photos and videos said to come from the account of Yossi Shelley, Israel's ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, leaked the same day. [2]

Urich's lawyers said in a statement on X that he had been hacked. [1] They threatened legal action against anyone who publishes what was taken. [1]

Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, said it had verified the leak. [1]

The leak came after Haaretz reported a security hole in a news-tracking tool that Urich built for Netanyahu with Claude, an AI made by Anthropic. [2]

Semafor, a US news site, says Urich appears to have exposed sensitive information through that app, which was written with an AI's help. [1] Neither report shows exactly how the attackers got in.

The messages include talks between Urich and Amit Segal, the chief political analyst at Channel 12 News, Israel's leading TV news channel. [1] In them Segal gives advice on the campaign's videos and messages, Semafor reports. [1]

Segal said on Channel 12's news that the messages were part of a 'very delicate tango' between a journalist and the people he covers. [1]

Israel's privacy law bans republishing material that was obtained illegally. [1]

Semafor says Netanyahu's re-election campaign has been hit again and again by hacked and leaked documents before the vote on 27 October. [1]

Why it matters. Watch whether more accounts from Netanyahu's circle leak before Israel votes on 27 October, and whether anyone shows how the attackers got into Urich's WhatsApp. [1][2]

Daiichi Kosho, Japan's biggest karaoke company, says malware at a contractor exposed records on 8,631,000 customers and 93,000 employees. [3] Malware is harmful software, and it was found on one employee's computer at Nippon Columbia, a music and entertainment group that handles Daiichi Kosho's customer data. [3] Nippon Columbia told Daiichi Kosho on 5 October and cut the computer off the next day. [3] The records hold names, genders, birth dates, email addresses and phone numbers, but no passwords. [3] Daiichi Kosho says it has not confirmed that any data was stolen. [3]

Why it matters. Customers of Big Echo and five other chains it runs may be affected. [3] Daiichi Kosho is advising them to stay cautious, and BleepingComputer, a security news site, advises distrusting unexpected emails, texts or calls that ask for payment. [3]

Holland & Knight and Squire Patton Boggs, two large US law firms, told the attorney general of Vermont, a US state, on Thursday that Social Security numbers were exposed in break-ins. [4] A Social Security number is the ID number Americans use for tax and work. Holland & Knight says an attacker used tricks on people, called social engineering, to reach a firm computer from outside. [4] A day earlier another firm, Nelson Mullins, was sued; it says a gang that targets law firms copied documents from one user's laptop. [4] All three say the damage was limited. [4]

Why it matters. Law firms hold their clients' private papers, money records and personal details, which is why gangs go after them, Reuters reports. [4] Two other firms, WilmerHale and Weil Gotshal, have paid gangs after earlier break-ins, either a ransom or to keep stolen files quiet. [4]

A flaw in GoBalance, a tool many hidden websites use to stay online under attack, lets anyone work out the secret key behind a site's address from public information. [5] These sites run on Tor, a network that hides where a website is, and the key controls the address. [5] Searchlight Cyber, a security firm, disclosed it on 8 October. [5] Between 5 and 7 October both addresses of Dread, one of the biggest hidden forums, were taken over and pointed at a rival. [5] Its operators first blamed a slip, then the flaw. [5] No official fix exists yet. [5]

Why it matters. A patch cannot take back a key that has already leaked, so an affected site has to move to a new address, as Dread and a market called Omega have done. [5] Visitors to a hijacked address can be sent to a copy of the site, and Dread has told its users to change their passwords. [5]

Publica, the fund that runs pensions for Swiss federal employees, said on Thursday that its data had leaked. [6] The leak followed a cyber attack at the end of September on an outside company that supplies Publica's software. [6] Publica has not named the company. [6] The Swiss attorney general's office has opened an investigation. [6] Publica and the authorities are still working out how much data was affected. [6]

Why it matters. The people at risk are Swiss government workers and others whose pensions Publica manages. [6] Publica says no other federal body did business with the supplier. [6]

Italy's foreign ministry said on Thursday that its website had come under cyber attack. [7] It said its security systems stopped the threat, and its services kept running. [7] Italy's ministry named no suspects. [7] It is checking whether the websites of Italy's embassies and consulates abroad faced similar attacks. [7]

Why it matters. Italy's ministry did not say what kind of attack it was. [7] That leaves open whether anyone tried to take data, or only to knock the website over.

Anthony Sistilli, a Canadian software engineer, built a number-plate camera that records only police cars, Tom's Hardware, a technology news site, reports. [8] He made it as a protest against cameras like those of Flock Safety, a US company whose plate cameras police use to track ordinary drivers. [8] Two officers from Peel Regional Police visited his home in Brampton, Ontario, on 20 September to ask what he meant to do. [8] He posted a video about the visit on 7 October. [8]

Why it matters. In the video, Sistilli says one officer worried that people could learn where officers live and when their shifts start. [8] Sistilli says ordinary drivers have that worry about cameras that watch every car. [8] Several US cities, including Los Angeles, have suspended or cancelled their Flock contracts. [8]