News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Twitter Reactivates Trump’s Account Following Poll of 15 Million Users

“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk said in a post linking to the polling decision, using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”

The poll was open for 24 hours.

With more than 15 million votes tallied, the poll indicated that 51.8 percent of users wanted Trump to be allowed to post on Twitter, while a minority 48.2 percent wanted the former president to remain banned.
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It isn’t clear if Trump will return to Twitter. While past public statements indicate that the former president has no plans to return to Twitter, preferring his own social media platform Truth Social, some actions have implied a potential return.

Lawyers for the former president on Nov. 14 asked the appeals court to revive a lawsuit against Twitter challenging Trump’s permanent suspension.

In the lawsuit (pdf), the lawyers allege that government officials have used social media platforms as “cat’s paws” to suppress opinions “that turn out to be correct or at least debatable,” citing Hunter Biden’s laptop, the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2020 election integrity.

The action will no longer be needed.

CBS News Resumes Posting on Twitter Amid ‘Uncertainty’ Over Elon Musk

CBS News is back on Twitter after saying it halted activity on the platform due to “security concerns” due to the “uncertainty about Twitter” after Elon Musk’s takeover.
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About two days before that, on Nov. 18, CBS had said that “in light of the uncertainty around Twitter and out of an abundance of caution, CBS News is pausing its activity on the social media site as it continues to monitor the platform.”

Some local CBS affiliates such KPIX 5 in Dallas posted a similar message around the same time on Nov. 18.

CBS’s various accounts stopped posting on Twitter late on Friday. It came after Musk, who recently purchased the company for $44 billion, reportedly gave an ultimatum to work “extremely hardcore” or accept a severance package and leave the firm.

The Paramount Global-owned company’s statement announcing that it was resuming activity drew a response from Musk himself. He responded with an emoji of a face with a hand over its mouth.

Microsoft Warns of Hackers Using Google Ads to Distribute Royal Ransomware

A developing threat activity cluster has been found using Google Ads in one of its campaigns to distribute various post-compromise payloads, including the recently discovered Royal ransomware.
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The threat actor is known to rely on malvertising to point unsuspecting victims to malware downloader links that pose as software installers for legitimate apps like Adobe Flash Player, AnyDesk, LogMeIn, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom.

The malware downloader, a strain referred to as BATLOADER, is a dropper that functions as a conduit to distribute next-stage payloads. It has been observed to share overlaps with another malware called ZLoader.
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Alternatively, phishing links are shared through spam emails, fake forum pages, blog comments, and even contact forms present on targeted organizations' websites.
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Also utilized is a tool known as NSudo to launch programs with elevated privileges and impair defenses by adding registry values that are designed to disable antivirus solutions.