Security News This Week: The Privacy Danger Lurking in Push Notifications

Just days after an international law enforcement operation disrupted LockBit, the ransomware group reemerged with a new dark-web site where it threatened to release documents stolen from Fulton County, Georgia, where Donald Trump and 18 codefendants stand accused of a conspiracy to overturn the 2024 election. But by the time the deadline for Fulton County to pay arrived, all mention of the leak had mysteriously disappeared. Fulton County says it didn’t pay LockBit’s ransom, suggesting that the group may be bluffing. If there is a leak, however, it could wreak havoc on an already chaotic US presidential election, the security of which is already under threat.

Regardless of what’s going on with the Fulton County leak, it’s become clear that ransomware groups are getting faster at rebounding after law enforcement crackdowns. Around two months after the FBI disrupted the ransomware gang known as Blackcat or AlphV, the group successfully attacked Change Healthcare earlier this month, causing ongoing delays at pharmacies around the United States.

US fears over international threats were front and center this week. First, the White House announced a new executive order that aims to prevent “countries of concern,” including China, North Korea, and Russia, from purchasing sensitive data about Americans—a plan that may or may not work. Then the Biden administration said it is launching an investigation into national security threats posed by vehicles imported from China. And the US Department of Commerce imposed sanctions on Canada-based Sandvine, a company whose web-monitoring tech has been used by authoritarian governments to censor the internet.

A study released this week found that Russia has likely launched more than 200 attacks on Ukraine’s power grid since its 2022 full-scale invasion, 66 of which researchers at the Conflict Observatory have confirmed. These attacks are in addition to the blackouts caused by Russia’s military intelligence hacking unit known as Sandworm. In the UK, the interior ministry has been tracking the locations of migrants with GPS devices—a practice ruled illegal by a British court this week.

Meanwhile, the UK version of Pornhub tested a