Connor Jones

Manchester, United Kingdom

Cybersecurity Reporter at The Register

Cybersecurity Reporter @TheRegister. Ex-@ITPro. Send tips. I love tips. Be generous with them in my DMs (no PRs) or ask for Signal

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Articles

China swipes at NSA for alleged Asian Winter Games hack

1 week ago | theregister.com | Connor Jones

China's state-run press has taken its turn in trying to highlight alleged foreign cyber offensives, accusing the US National Security Agency of targeting the 2025 Asian Winter Games. The US Department of Justice does a good job of updating the Western world on all the alleged Chinese cyberattacks against its critical infrastructure, and the Harbin city police has now named three NSA agents supposedly involved in the digital assault. Via Weibo, Harbin police accused Katheryn A. Wilson, Robert J.
Hertz says personal, sensitive data stolen in Cleo attacks

1 week ago | theregister.com | Connor Jones

Car hire giant Hertz has confirmed that customer information was stolen during the zero-day data raids on Cleo file transfer products last year. A breach notification was issued on Monday on behalf of Hertz, Dollar, and Thrifty brands, suggesting customers of all three Hertz Corporation-owned car hire businesses were affected.
Green shoots for UK cyber despite ransomware hammering

1 week ago | theregister.com | Connor Jones

"[The board is] very involved, they don't give full autonomy to us to do whatever we want.
US sensor giant Sensata says ransomware borked operations

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Connor Jones

US sensor maker Sensata has told regulators that a ransomware attack caused an operational disruption, and that it's still working to fully restore affected systems. Sensata, which raked in $4 billion in revenue in 2023, said the ransomware attack took place on April 6 and has encrypted "certain devices" on its network. The biz offers sensors, "sensor-rich solutions," and electrical protection kits used in mission-critical systems, and it boasts it ships "over a billion" devices a year [PDF].
Operation Endgame says arrestees cooperated with cops

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Connor Jones

Following the 2024 takedown of several major malware operations under Operation Endgame, law enforcement has continued its crackdown into 2025, detaining five individuals linked to the Smokeloader botnet. In the first update for Operation Endgame since September, international police coordinated by Europol said today that "several" suspects detained opted to cooperate during questioning.
UK’s MoJ testing algorithms to uncover future killers

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Connor Jones

The UK's justice department has confirmed it is working on developing algorithms to predict which criminals will later become murderers. It was internally referred to as the Homicide Prediction Project, and was first discovered via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests filed by civil liberties group Statewatch, which uncovered the project. More recently, the study was dubbed "the murder prediction program" by The Guardian, which first reported the story.
UK's ICO begins recruitment drive amid declining performance

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Connor Jones

The UK's data protection watchdog is recruiting more warm bodies to tackle its red-rated backlog of unresolved complaints. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) publishes quarterly performance reports about its various objectives, one of which is to respond to 80 percent of data protection complaints within 90 days. The latest report, which came out on April 1, revealed it missed that target by the biggest margin on record.
SIM-swapper must repay $13.2M to 59 victims

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Connor Jones

Noah Michael Urban, 20, of alleged Scattered Spider infamy, has pleaded guilty to various charges and potentially faces decades in prison. Urban was one of five spiders scattered across the US and UK indicted in November 2024 for their alleged roles in various cyberattacks, most of which used the group's typical SIM-swapping MO. The indictment was unsealed in California. However, Urban was previously indicted alone in Florida, where he resided in Palm Beach.
Home Office loses plea to keep Apple ‘backdoor’ case secret

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Connor Jones

Details of Apple's appeal against the UK's so-called "backdoor order" will now play out in public after the Home Office failed in its bid to keep them secret on national security grounds. The confirmation comes after the Investigatory Powers Tribunal held a closed-door hearing on March 14, which was presumed to be related to Apple's appeal itself, rather than about whether the appeal itself would be heard in public, the details of which were released today.
UK convicts five scammers who preyed on widowed for £3.25M

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Connor Jones

Five romance scammers-turned-money launderers were convicted in the UK today after police shuttered a multimillion-pound fraud operation. Prosecutors said 40 individuals were confirmed as victims, although the real number is thought to be more than double that – 99 in total. Fawaz Ali, 27, Ebenezer Tackie, 42, and Michael Quartey, 28, were all found guilty of money laundering offences at a Guildford Crown Court trial on Friday.