A TikTok ‘Car Theft’ Challenge Is Costing Hyundai $200 Million

But wait, there’s more. Each week, we round up the security stories we haven’t covered in depth ourselves. Click on the titles to read the full stories. And stay safe there.

Most of the TikTok challenges you hear about are fake. This one, however, is deadly serious. Automaker Huyandai this week agreed to pay around $200 million to customers whose vehicles were stolen following a viral TikTok challenge that exposed a major security flaw in some Hyundai and Kia vehicles.

The challenge began after user “Kia Boys” posted a video on TikTok showing that it was possible to hot-wire vulnerable vehicles using a USB cable. According to Engadget, at least 14 accidents and eight deaths have been linked to the challenge. Hyundai will pay affected customers up to $6,125 for stolen vehicles and up to $3,375 to cover the cost of damage caused by those who took advantage of the flaw. The company also has a “anti-theft update» available for the vehicles concerned. Check if your vehicle is impacted here.

The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court released an April 2022 opinion yesterday that reveals the FBI’s widespread misuse of the so-called Section 702 database, a vast trove of records electronic communications used by the bureau and the National Security Agency. The court found that the FBI improperly interrogated the database, established under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, more than 287,000 times in 2020 and 2021. FBI include January 6 protesters, people arrested while protesting the police killing of George. Floyd in Minneapolis, and some 19,000 American political donors to an unidentified US Congressional campaign.

Section 702 gives the US government the power to collect communications from overseas targets. Communications from Americans can be scanned into the database when communicating with someone outside the United States. An audit released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence late last year revealed several similar cases of FBI misuse of Section 702 database to conduct research on U.S. citizens, including US Congressman Darin LaHood. Following the ODNI audit and this week’s release of the court’s opinion, the FBI said the abuse was the result of a “misunderstanding” and swore it had fixed the problem. Either way, Section 702 will expire at the end of the year without further authorization from Congress, which repeated and widespread FBI abuses could jeopardize.

The US Department of Justice on Tuesday announcement charges against a former Apple engineer accused of stealing the company’s source code related to its self-driving car technology. Weibao Wang allegedly stole the “sensitive” documents in the final days of his employment with Apple in April 2018. Wang left Apple five months after signing an agreement to work for a US subsidiary of a China-based company, according to the Department of Justice. After US law enforcement raided his Mountain View, California home in June 2018, Wang, 35, fled to China, according to the Justice Department. If convicted, Wang faces up to 10 years in prison and fines.

Everyone knows how much data can be collected about you whenever you are online. But a bigger concern may be what someone can collect on you anytime, anywhere. This is the warning in a new research paper, who discovered that it is possible to collect ‘environmental DNA’ – traces of genetic material floating in the air or in liquids, also known as eDNA – which can be linked to a person’s medical or ancestral details. . The legal experts who spoke with the The New York Times warn that if police or other government authorities start collecting eDNA, as animal scientists have been doing for a decade, it could create widespread violations of privacy and civil liberties.