#FactCheck - Viral Video of Argentina Football Team Dancing to Bhojpuri Song is Misleading

Overview:

In today’s digital landscape, safeguarding personal data and communications is more crucial than ever. WhatsApp, as one of the world’s leading messaging platforms, consistently enhances its security features to protect user interactions, offering a seamless and private messaging experience

App Lock: Secure Access with Biometric Authentication

To fortify security at the device level, WhatsApp offers an app lock feature, enabling users to protect their app with biometric authentication such as fingerprint or Face ID. This feature ensures that only authorized users can access the app, adding an additional layer of protection to private conversations.

How to Enable App Lock:

1. Open WhatsApp and navigate to Settings.
2. Select Privacy.
3. Scroll down and tap App Lock.
4. Activate Fingerprint Lock or Face ID and follow the on-screen instructions.

Chat Lock: Restrict Access to Private Conversations

WhatsApp allows users to lock specific chats, moving them to a secured folder that requires biometric authentication or a passcode for access. This feature is ideal for safeguarding sensitive conversations from unauthorized viewing.

How to Lock a Chat:

1. Open WhatsApp and select the chat to be locked.
2. Tap on the three dots (Android) or More Options (iPhone).
3. Select Lock Chat
4. Enable the lock using Fingerprint or Face ID.

Privacy Checkup: Strengthening Security Preferences

The privacy checkup tool assists users in reviewing and customizing essential security settings. It provides guidance on adjusting visibility preferences, call security, and blocked contacts, ensuring a personalized and secure communication experience.

How to Run Privacy Checkup:

1. Open WhatsApp and navigate to Settings.
2. Tap Privacy.
3. Select Privacy Checkup and follow the prompts to adjust settings.

Automatic Blocking of Unknown Accounts and Messages

To combat spam and potential security threats, WhatsApp automatically restricts unknown accounts that send excessive messages. Users can also manually block or report suspicious contacts to further enhance security.

How to Manage Blocking of Unknown Accounts:

1. Open WhatsApp and go to Settings.
2. Select Privacy.
3. Tap to Advanced 
4. Enable Block unknown account messages

IP Address Protection in Calls

To prevent tracking and enhance privacy, WhatsApp provides an option to hide IP addresses during calls. When enabled, calls are routed through WhatsApp’s servers, preventing location exposure via direct connections.

How to Enable IP Address Protection in Calls:

1. Open WhatsApp and go to Settings.
2. Select Privacy, then tap Advanced.
3. Enable Protect IP Address in Calls. 

Disappearing Messages: Auto-Deleting Conversations

Disappearing messages help maintain confidentiality by automatically deleting sent messages after a predefined period—24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days. This feature is particularly beneficial for reducing digital footprints.

How to Enable Disappearing Messages:

1. Open the chat and tap the Chat Name.
2. Select Disappearing Messages.
3. Choose the preferred duration before messages disappear.

View Once: One-Time Access to Media Files

The ‘View Once’ feature ensures that shared photos and videos can only be viewed a single time before being automatically deleted, reducing the risk of unauthorized storage or redistribution.

How to Send View Once Media:

1. Open a chat and tap the attachment icon.
2. Choose Camera or Gallery to select media.
3. Tap the ‘1’ icon before sending the media file.

Group Privacy Controls: Manage Who Can Add You

WhatsApp provides users with the ability to control group invitations, preventing unwanted additions by unknown individuals. Users can restrict group invitations to ‘Everyone,’ ‘My Contacts,’ or ‘My Contacts Except…’ for enhanced privacy.

How to Adjust Group Privacy Settings:

1. Open WhatsApp and go to Settings.
2. Select Privacy and tap Groups.
3. Choose from the available options: Everyone, My Contacts, or My Contacts Except

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Conclusion

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WhatsApp continuously enhances its security features to protect user privacy and ensure safe communication. With tools like App Lock, Chat Lock, Privacy Checkup, IP Address Protection, and Disappearing Messages, users can safeguard their data and interactions. Features like View Once and Group Privacy Controls further enhance confidentiality. By enabling these settings, users can maintain a secure and private messaging experience, effectively reducing risks associated with unauthorized access, tracking, and digital footprints. Stay updated and leverage these features for enhanced security.

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Introduction

Meta is the leader in social media platforms and has been successful in having a widespread network of users and services across global cyberspace. The corporate house has been responsible for revolutionizing messaging and connectivity since 2004. The platform has brought people closer together in terms of connectivity, however, being one of the most popular platforms is an issue as well. Popular platforms are mostly used by cyber criminals to gain unauthorised data or create chatrooms to maintain anonymity and prevent tracking. These bad actors often operate under fake names or accounts so that they are not caught. The platforms like Facebook and Instagram have been often in the headlines as portals where cybercriminals were operating and committing crimes.

To keep the data of the netizen safe and secure Paytm under first of its kind service is offering customers protection against cyber fraud through an insurance policy available for fraudulent mobile transactions up to Rs 10,000 for a premium of Rs 30. The cover ‘Paytm Payment Protect’ is provided through a group insurance policy issued by HDFC Ergo. The company said that the plan is being offered to increase the trust in digital payments, which will push up adoption.

Meta’s Cybersecurity

Meta has one of the best cyber security in the world but that diest mean that it cannot be breached. The social media giant is the most vulnerable platform in cases of data breaches as various third parties are also involved. As seen the in the case of Cambridge Analytica, a huge chunk of user data was available to influence the users in terms of elections. Meta needs to be ahead of the curve to have a safe and secure platform, for this Meta has deployed various AI and ML driven crawlers and software which work o keeping the platform safe for its users and simultaneously figure out which accounts may be used by bad actors and further removes the criminal accounts. The same is also supported by the keen participation of the user in terms of the reporting mechanism. Meta-Cyber provides visibility of all OT activities, observes continuously the PLC and SCADA for changes and configuration, and checks the authorization and its levels. Meta is also running various penetration and bug bounty programs to reduce vulnerabilities in their systems and applications, these testers are paid heavily depending upon the scope of the vulnerability they found.

‍CyberRoot Risk Investigation

Social media giant Meta has taken down over 40 accounts operated by an Indian firm CyberRoot Risk Analysis, allegedly involved in hack-for-hire services along with this Meta has taken down 900 fraudulently run accounts, these accounts are said to be operated from China by an unknown entity. CyberRoot Risk Analysis was responsible for sharing malware over the platform and used it to impersonate themselves just as their targets, i.e lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, and industries like – cosmetic surgery, real estate, investment firms, pharmaceutical, private equity firms, and environmental and anti-corruption activists. They would get in touch with such personalities and then share malware hidden in files which would often lead to data breaches subsequently leading to different types of cybercrimes.

Meta and its team is working tirelessly to eradicate the influence of such bad actors from their platforms, use of AI and Ml based tools have increased exponentially.

‍Paytm CyberFraud Cover

Paytm is offering customers protection against cyber fraud through an insurance policy available for fraudulent mobile transactions up to Rs 10,000 for a premium of Rs 30. The cover ‘Paytm Payment Protect’ is provided through a group insurance policy issued by HDFC Ergo. The company said that the plan is being offered to increase the trust in digital payments, which will push up adoption. The insurance cover protects transactions made through UPI across all apps and wallets. The insurance coverage has been obtained by One97 Communications, which operates under the Paytm brand.

The exponential increase in the use of digital payments during the pandemic has made more people susceptible to cyber fraud. While UPI has all the digital safeguards in place, most UPI-related frauds are undertaken by confidence tricksters who get their victims to authorise a transaction by passing collect requests as payments. There are also many fraudsters collecting payments by pretending to be merchants. These types of frauds have resulted in a loss of more than Rs 63 crores in the previous financial year. The issue of data insurance is new to India but is indeed the need of the hour, majority of netizens are unaware of the value of their data and hence remain ignorant towards data protection, such steps will result in safer data management and protection mechanisms, thus safeguarding the Indian cyberspace.

Conclusion

cyberspace is at a critical juncture in terms of data protection and privacy, with new legislation coming out on the same we can expect new and stronger policies to prevent cybercrimes and cyber-attacks. The efforts by tech giants like Meta need to gain more speed in terms of the efficiency of cyber safety of the platform and the user to make sure that the future of the platforms remains secured strongly. The concept of data insurance needs to be shared with netizens to increase awareness about the subject. The initiative by Paytm will be a monumental initiative as this will encourage more platforms and banks to commit towards coverage for cyber crimes. With the increasing cases of cybercrimes, such financial coverage has come as a light of hope and security for the netizens.

Executive Summary:

On July 4, 2024, a giant password dump,  “RockYou2024” was posted on a cybercrime marketplace containing 9,948,575,739 plain-text credentials. This blog explains the technical aspects of this leakage and its consequences in the sphere of information security. 

RockYou2024 is a list of passwords obtained from different data breaches ranging over the course of more than twenty years. It integrates older passwords with the lexical database with the additional passwords from the recent hacks, thereby, cumulating the database of genuine and existing passwords. The compilation is said to contain data from more than 4,000 databases putting the tool in the hands of potential attackers. RockYou owns the name to this type of attack since a data breach attacked a social media company named , “RockYou'' and released  3.2 million users’ passwords as a .txt file. Since then, the term gained a common meaning connected with mass password data breaches. 

Technical Implications:

• Credential Stuffing Attacks: The RockYou2024 list comprises a great number of actual passwords that increases the likelihood of credential stuffing attacks. With this, the attackers help themselves with an opportunity to try to gain unlawful access into several online accounts that a user may have, particularly ones where an individual re-uses the same password. 

• Brute-Force Attacks: The collection is extensive for brute force attack on systems that have no protection against such exercise. This is especially the case for devices and services that are exposed to the internet and which may use either weak or factory-set alphanumeric codes. 

• Password Cracking: Web compilations that include such lists are often employed by security specialists and penetration testers who use John the Ripper or Hashcat to check the password’s strength or the system’s susceptibility to attacks. 

• Machine Learning Models: The dataset could be used to create machine learning models for password prediction or analysis, which would only lead to further better methods to be used in the attacks. 

Countermeasures / Mitigation:

Below are the technical risk/process operating proposed to reduce the risks associated with RockYou2024: 

• Password Hashing: It is necessary to ensure that all the passwords required to be saved should be encrypted in one of the most secure algorithms like bcrypt, Argon2, or PBKDF2 along with a reasonable number of iterations. 

• Salt and Pepper: The features for both salting and peppering should also be enabled to complicate the cracking of passwords even after the hashed password databases have been procured. 

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Ensure the usage of complex passwords in addition to deploying MFA across all the technological systems and services within the company. 

• Password Strength Policies: Adhere to  password policies for features  like the length, strength of the passwords and the change in password frequency. 

• Rate Limiting and Account Lockouts: Inactivity methods must be used on consecutive attempts to log in and to the temporary lock out after so many attempts in a bid to discourage brute force attacks. 

• Monitoring and Alerting: There should be measures in place to monitor for any violations such as login tappings or a form of credential stuffings and there should be alerts, where securities risks are likely to arise, in real time. 

• API Security: The following proper API security measures that will result in the prevention of the following attacks; rate limiting, input validation, and token. 

• Web Application Firewalls (WAF): To defend against threats from the internet for potential credential stuffing or brute-forcing the authentication process, utilize WAFs to operate at the application layer. 

Analyzing the Impact:

To understand the potential impact of RockYou2024, organizations should assess the possible effects of RockYou2024, such as: 

• Conduct Password Audits: LeakYou2024 scan current passwords database with RockYou2024 (in ethical and safe methods) and see which accounts have been compromised. 

• Implement Continuous Monitoring: If this is a monthly or weekly event then there must be new information on data breaches and act on it concerning new security changes. 

• Educate Users: Continued security consciousness training, regarding the effective protection of an individual’s password in combination with a password generator. 

• Perform Penetration Testing: It is suggested to conduct penetration testing at least twice a year to find out if there are vulnerabilities in the systems and applications in the current use. 

Conclusion:

The RockYou2024 leaked password database is a serious security risk; it contains almost 10 billion account credentials. This unprecedented leak further increases the exposure to credential stuffing, brute force and password cracking attacks. To deal with these threats, organizations need to have measures that include password hashing, multi-factor authentication, password strengthening and password audit. Patching, user awareness, bandit activities are imperative to prevent future invasions and strengthen the cyber security posture.

References :

• https://statanalytica.com/blog/rockyou-2024-txt-password/
• https://dig.watch/updates/rockyou2024-password-leak-exposes-nearly-10-billion-unique-passwords
• https://complexdiscovery.com/rockyou2024-leak-nearly-10-billion-passwords-exposed-heightening-cybersecurity-risks-for-businesses/

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