Google says Apple employee found a zero-day, but did not report it

Google fixed a zero-day in Chrome that was found by an Apple employee, according to comments in the official bug report. While the bug itself is not newsworthy, the circumstances of how this bug was found and reported to Google are, to say the least, peculiar.

According to a Google employee, the bug was originally found by an Apple employee who was participating in a Capture The Flag (CTF) hacking competition in March. But that Apple employee did not immediately report the bug, which at the time was a zero-day — meaning Google wasn’t aware of the bug and no patch had been issued yet. The bug was instead reported by someone else who also participated in the competition, didn’t actually find the bug themselves and wasn’t even on the team that found the bug.

“This issue was reported by sisu from CTF team HXP and discovered by a member of Apple Security Engineering and Architecture (SEAR) during HXP CTF 2022,” the Google employee wrote.

After this story first published, TechCrunch viewed a Discord channel where someone claiming to be the Apple employee who originally found the zero-day explained their side of the story, particularly the reason why they didn’t report the bug immediately, in response to Sisu, the person who reported the bug to Google.

“It took me 2 weeks working on it full time to root cause, write [the] exploit [Proof of Concept] and writeup the issue such that it can be fixed,” the person, who goes by Gallileo, wrote on July 6.

“It was reported on June 5th, through my company. Yes it was late, there are multiple reasons for that. I first had to find the person responsible, the report had to be signed off by people and then the person responsible was OOO. It’s commendable that chrome decided to fix it asap, but I think there wasn’t any real urgency. Only you and my team was aware of it and the issue is likely not that great in a real world scenario (doesn’t work on Android, pretty visible since it freezes the Chrome GUI for a few seconds),” Gallileo wrote.

Gallileo and Sisu did not respond to a request for comment.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Google spokesperson Ed Fernandez told TechCrunch in an email that “our understanding is public in the bug.”

“We recommend reaching out to Apple for any further details,” Fernandez wrote.

It’s not uncommon for CTF teams and CTF players to find zero-days during competitions, especially in challenges of this type and competitions that are “high profile,” according to Filippo Cremonese, a researcher who participates in CTF competitions with the Italian team mhackeroni, which incidentally may be the best hacker team name ever.

What makes the story of this bug interesting is that it was apparently found by an Apple employee in a Google product, and — for some reason — that Apple employee decided not to report the bug at the time.

In the original report on March 26, the person who reported it said that the bug was found by someone on the team COPY during a CTF organized by the team HXP. The person, whose name is not disclosed in the report, said they decided to report it even if they didn’t find it themselves because they were “not 100% sure it was reported to the chromium team.”

“So I wanted to be safe,” the person wrote.

“Since you are the one disclosing this issue and there are no duplicates, it seems that the team that discovered this issue has chosen not to disclose it to us?” the Google employee wrote in another comment to the bug report.

The bug was fixed on March 29, according to the bug report. Google decided to award $10,000 as a bug bounty to the person who reported it, who, again, was not the one who found it.

UPDATE, July 20, 2:30 p.m. ET: This story was updated to include Discord messages posted by the person who claims to have found the bug originally.

UPDATE, July 24, 12:09 p.m. ET: Added clarification on twelfth paragraph.

UPDATE, July 24, 12:017 p.m. ET: On Friday, Sisu, who identified as Martin Radev, and is the person who first reported the bug to Google, published a timeline explaining his side of the story. Radev said that the Apple employee reported the bug in June. They also said they are in touch with the Apple employee to figure out what to do with the $10,000 bounty they received from Google. Radev wrote that “a donation is to be made.”

53% Of Women Surveyed Says They Get Lonely, Worser When They Climb Corporate Ladder

 

It’s often been said that it’s lonely at the top and now there’s new research to prove it. A recent survey of more than 600 men and women across the U.S. found that 53% of women in the workplace experience loneliness—and it only gets worse the higher they climb the corporate ladder.

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The study, which was conducted in February 2023 by TheLi.st, Berlin Cameron & Benenson Group, confirms what women in the workplace have long known—getting ahead is no easy feat and it’s not exactly a walk in the park once you get there.

“This research points to a workplace crisis, a mental health crisis and a pipeline crisis for women,” says Ann Shoket, CEO of TheLi.st, a private community of high-impact women in media, technology and entrepreneurship. “We did this research not to point out how lonely it is, but to point out the impact of that loneliness on their lives and their careers. It’s not that so many women are feeling lonely at their job, but they feel lonely because of their job.”

Almost 30% of senior-level women in the survey said they feel as if they don’t have anyone to talk to about work and that lack of support is taking a toll. Two-thirds of senior-level women say that work, combined with responsibilities at home, have left them feeling burned out, stressed and overwhelmed. One needs to look no further than the recent resignations of high-profile women in leadership positions, such as Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, to see a trend.

A recent study by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based executive outplacement firm, found that 167 people stepped down from CEO roles in February 2023, an 11% increase over the number of leaders who left in February 2022. For women, the reasons are varied, according to a report from McKinsey & Company and Lean In that saw women leaving leadership positions because they are likely to experience stronger headwinds than men; they’re overworked and underrecognized; and they desire a more flexible and diverse workplace culture.

“We think that loneliness and success go hand in hand—the idea of the lone wolf leader bearing all of the weight of the decisions on their own,” says Shoket. “And that is not conducive to success for women. Women feel unseen, unsupported and like they can’t be their authentic selves at work.”

What’s really at stake when it comes to loneliness

Beyond implications at work, loneliness is also linked to a number of physical and mental health issues, including higher risks of depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, trouble sleeping and dementia among others. In fact, a study from the National Institute on Aging found that prolonged isolation is the same as smoking 15 cigarettes per day.

The loneliness epidemic is so prevalent that at a lecture at Yale last fall, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy said, “It is both common and consequential, and that is one of the reasons why I wanted to raise the alarm that this is a public health issue.”

To help cope with the stress, nearly 92% of the senior-level women who reported being lonely in TheLi.st study said they turned to a negative coping behavior, such as alcohol, drugs, overexercising and overspending.

Loneliness is contributing to a pipeline problem for women leaders

In TheLi.st’s study, researchers found that nearly 60% of women say their feelings of loneliness or isolation have increased as their careers progressed and nearly 53% of women have declined a job, a promotion, quit or stopped working altogether because of the negative impact on their personal life.

“There’s a generation of women who are looking up the ladder at the women ahead of them and seeing what they’ve had to sacrifice, seeing how they’ve had to compartmentalize and they’re like, ‘no, thank you. I’m opting out of that,’” says Shoket.

Instead of opting out of leadership positions altogether, Denise Hamilton, CEO and founder of Watch Her Work, a digital platform for professional women, is encouraging a younger workforce to reimagine what success could look like on their terms.

“People aren’t aspiring to leadership roles the same way they used to, especially after a kind of value correction that happened during lockdown,” says Hamilton. “We had this Great Resignation, but I call it the Great Negotiation because literally everything is on the table. It’s all up for a repositioning and restructuring.”

To do that, Hamilton recommends taking into consideration what you need to succeed, and how a particular role or company may be able to support those goals.

“How are we articulating what we want in these environments instead of just stepping away from the table?” she asks. “It’s really important to be a part of the reimagining of the modern workforce.”

Loneliness is even worse for women of color

Not only is it lonely at the top, but it’s less diverse, too. The Lean In report found that only one in four people in the C-suite is a woman and only one in 20 is a woman of color. Meanwhile, TheLi.st study saw that feeling of loneliness is especially exacerbated for Black women and women of color, whose isolation is compounded by a lack of respect. Only one in five women of color strongly agree that they feel respected at work, compared to over a third of white women.

“We’re still only about one to two generations in where women have been allowed to work, let alone where they’re getting to the C-suite,” says Bea Arthur, therapist and founder of The Difference, an on-demand therapy service. “I can tell you from my own experience as an entrepreneur and working with high performers in general that if you see a woman or a person of color at the top, you know they’ve been through some shit to get there and to stay there.”

And it’s not necessarily any easier even when you’re your own boss, as Arthur can attest, recalling a time when she was the first and only Black woman and one of eight female founders at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator company, back in 2015. To help navigate her experience of often being the “first, only and different” as showrunner Shonda Rhimes once described it, Arthur leaned on the help of a coach.

“My coach reminded me that respect comes from the Latin word respicere, which means to ‘look back at, or regard,’” she says. “And that’s the thing. It doesn’t matter how much I’ve done, they’ll never see me as valuable. The “not being seen” piece…that’s what loneliness is—feeling alone, feeling unsupported. It’s exactly what they say, being a brown person you have to work twice as hard to get half as far.”

How to combat loneliness in the workplace

In addition to coaching, Arthur has relied heavily on coworking spaces and community groups, such as TheLi.st, to help feel less alone.

“Being a member of a good coworking space that does programming, content and events where I could see other founders come and speak and meet other entrepreneurs has been such a game changer,” says Arthur. “Working from home has great flexibility, but every now and then it helps to be around other people.”

Hamilton suggests budgeting time and proactively reaching out to your friends and professional network to schedule lunch dates and coffee dates, whether they’re in-person or virtual. After all, friendships have been proven to improve our physical and mental health. But at the end of the day, it’s on companies and policies to provide better working conditions for women, especially those who are underrepresented in leadership positions.

“All the coaching we give women about how they can have better work-life balance, we have to cut that out. This is a systemic societal problem,” says Hamilton. “My advice is to be gentle with yourself and understand the challenge that’s in front of you. You don't get the promotion because you work hard. You get the promotion, because somebody above you, who has the authority to amplify you, thinks you work hard.”

Musk Says Telsa To Accept Bitcoin Again When Miners Use More Clean Energy

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the company will return to accepting bitcoin as payment when the cryptocurrency’s miners use more clean, environmentally friendly energy. The crypto-enthusiast and environmentalist has seen his core passions collide with one another.

“When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions,” he said on Twitter. According to Reuters, bitcoin rallied over 9% after the post.

CNBC said the billionaire was responding to pointed remarks from Magda Wierzycka, the CEO of South African asset manager Sygnia, who accused him of manipulating the price of bitcoin. Previously, Tesla bought US$1.5 billion (~RM6.2 billion) worth of bitcoin and later said it would accept the digital currency as payment for cars.

That policy was abruptly reversed last month with Musk declaring that the push for cryptocurrency “cannot come at great cost to the environment.” To be fair to the billionaire, even then, he maintained that Tesla will accept bitcoin transactions again when miners transition to “more sustainable energy.”

Of course, that statement as well as his latest one raise more questions than answers. Given the tremendous power demands of bitcoin mining, is that transition to cleaner energy even possible? Wouldn’t that require national-level, government-driven efforts to move away from ‘dirty’ energy sources like coal? Why seemingly put the onus on miners and how long would that transition take?

Finally, the billionaire-dollar question: Can enthusiasm for bitcoin be sustained until then?

Microsoft Says Russian Hackers Going After Govt Agencies, Think Tanks, NGOs

Microsoft said that the Russia-based hacker group designated Nobelium has this week targeted government agencies, think tanks, consultants, and non-governmental organisations. Nobelium is also blamed for the notorious SolarWinds cyberattacks that breached multiple departments of the US federal government last year.

In a blog post, the Redmond-based software giant revealed that the hackers went after 3,000 email accounts at over 150 different organisations in at least 24 countries – although the organisations in the US took the brunt of the cyberattacks. At least a quarter of the affected organisations worked on international development, humanitarian, and human rights issues.

The hackers apparently began their attacks by obtaining access to the Constant Contact account of USAID, the US government agency responsible for foreign aid and developmental assistance. Then they sent out phishing emails with a link that, when clicked, installs a backdoor that Microsoft calls NativeZone, which can be used for a variety of actions like stealing data or infecting other computers on a network.

Hackers backed by the Russian government have been blamed for quite a few high-profile breaches in the US. For example, they’re suspected to have stolen thousands of emails from the US State Department, and penetrating the National Nuclear Security Administration – which oversees the US nuclear weapons stockpile.

Earlier in the year, Microsoft blamed China-backed hackers for compromising its mail server software Microsoft Exchange in order to access email accounts. That breach was so serious that the FBI eventually decided to access private computers in the US to purge them of backdoors.

Kaspersky Says 2020 Most Productive Year For Ransomware 2.0 In Asia Pacific

It’s no surprise that you’ve been hearing about a lot more ransomware attacks lately. Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky confirmed a significant increase in Ransomware 2.0 attacks in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region last year.

Ransomware 2.0 refers to the hacker shift from locking data to stealing data and holding it for ransom. “2020 was the most productive year for ransomware families who moved from hostaging data to exfiltrating data, coupled with blackmailing,” said Kaspersky Lead Malware Analyst Alexey Shulmin.

He added, “In APAC, we noticed an interesting re-emergence of two highly-active groups, REvil and JSWorm. Both resurfaced as the pandemic raged in the region last year and we see no signs of them stopping anytime soon.”

REvil, in particular, has achieved quite a bit of infamy in the last few months. The hacker group reportedly claimed they breached Acer and demanded from the company the largest known ransom ever of US$50 million (~RM205.6 million). Separately, it was reported that REvil ransomware can apparently change Windows passwords and then automate a system’s file encryption via Safe Mode.

Kaspersky noted that, back in 2019, REvil hackers mostly targeted victims in the Asia Pacific – particularly in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea. Last year, however, the cybersecurity firm detected the group’s presence in almost all countries and territories.

According to Kaspersky, the biggest chunk of REvil’s industrial targets falls under the Engineering and Manufacturing category (30%) followed by Finance (14%) and Professional and Consumer Services (9%).

IBM Boss Says Chip Shortage Could Continue For A Few Years

IBM President Jim Whitehurst said it could be a “few years” before the global chip shortage eases. His remarks put him in general agreement with other industry players, who also believe that the crisis won’t be ending any time soon.

Speaking to BBC World Business News, Whitehurst pointed to the time gaps between when a “technology” is developed, when a chip factory is constructed, and when the chips finally come out.

“So frankly, we are looking at couple of years… before we get enough incremental capacity online to alleviate all aspects of the chip shortage,” he said.

Taiwanese manufacturing giants TSMC and Foxconn both see the chip shortage possibly extending into 2022. The crisis has already caused havoc across tech industries. Apple has warned of iPad and Mac shortages, while Sony doesn’t expect to keep pace with the spectacular demand for its Playstation 5 through next year.

The COVID-19 pandemic crippled worldwide chip production and also coincided with a breakdown in US-China relations, leading to chip-hoarding by China and a growing chip-making race between the two countries.

Elon Musk Says That Tesla Cars Are Now Payable By Bitcoin

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced by a tweet that the company is now accepting vehicle purchases made with Bitcoin. On social media, the maverick entrepreneur has long been a passionate promoter of cryptocurrencies.

Accordingly, he declared that Bitcoin paid to Tesla would be retained as is and not converted to (traditional) fiat currency. When it comes to processing payments, he said “Tesla is using only internal and open source software, and operates Bitcoin nodes directly.”

Right now, only Tesla’s US customers are allowed to pay with the aforementioned cryptocurrency. Musk also noted that the (Bitcoin) payment option would be expanded outside the US sometime later this year. However, he didn’t provide further details.

Last month, Tesla bought US$1.5 billion (~RM6.2 billion) worth of bitcoin and indicated then that it planned to accept the cryptocurrency as payment for its cars. Now, unsurprisingly, the former’s fortunes may be irrevocably entwined with the latter.

According to CNBC, over the last 12 months, Tesla share prices rose from about US$100 (~RM413) to over US$600 (~RM2,478), while bitcoin jumped from about US$7,000 (~RM28,907) to over US$55,000 (~RM227,123).

In another Tesla-related news, Musk recently denied claims that cameras on Tesla cars were used to spy on the Chinese government. He said the company would “get shut down” if it used cars that way.

Apple AirPods 3 Will Only Enter Production In Q3, Analyst Says

The Apple AirPods 3 has been the subject of many rumours for the past month. Images claiming to represent the TWS buds appeared last month, with accompanying rumours that it will launch sometime this month. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, on the other hand, has said that they won’t even be made until the third quarter of this year.

According to AppleInsider, Kuo said that Apple has scheduled for the production of the AirPods 3 for the aforementioned time window. This also serves as a retraction to a previous prediction he made, when he thought that the new AirPods will launch in the first half of 2021. That being said, he did not explain the reason behind the later-than-expected production of the TWS buds.

If this is accurate, then that’s one less thing to expect in the rumoured upcoming Apple event next week. Naturally, if the Apple AirPods 3 will only enter production in Q3, an announcement next week would be too early. Instead, it would probably be showing up with the iPhone 13, assuming it remains a year-end announcement.

But at any rate, Apple has yet to say anything about the upcoming event, or indeed the AirPods 3. If an event is indeed being planned for next week, we should hear about it pretty soon.

Microsoft Study Says More Malaysians Are Facing Negative Online Interactions

Microsoft recently released results from the latest edition of its annual Civility, Safety, and Interactions Online study which includes a metric that the company has formulated as the Digital Civility Index (DCI).

The study involved 16,000 people in 32 geographies with 500 of them were from Malaysia and this particular instalment of the survey was conducted from April to May 2020. Each participant was asked about their experiences and encounters with different online risks.

According to the results, Malaysia’s DCI score worsened from 59 in 2019 to 63 in 2020, indicating that more Malaysians are experiencing negative online interactions or encountering online risks and Microsoft has noted that this is Malaysia’s least favourable DCI score over the past five years.

So, what’s causing this? Microsoft said that the percentage of people facing hate speech; hoaxes, scams, and frauds; and discrimination online are at all-time highs. For example, in 2020, 4% more Malaysians encountered hoaxes, scams, and frauds than in the previous year, bringing the overall percentage up to 24% of Malaysian users.

You can refer to this infographic for more figures:

The fact that we have more scams around these days is pretty much confirmed by the news. Still, 37% of Malaysian respondents said online civility improved during the COVID-19 pandemic versus 17% who disagreed.

Also, Malaysia performed better in the survey as compared to much of the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Our DCI score of 63 is better than the 66 attained by the APAC region as a whole.

Tony Fernandes Says AirAsia Ready To Help With Vaccination Efforts

AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes said the company is looking forward to playing an “active role” in vaccination efforts. He also expressed optimism for the airline industry’s recovery after Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin today became the first person in the country to be vaccinated.

Fernandes said AirAsia’s logistics arm, Teleport, was ready to assist in any way, including by transporting vaccines from China and Russia when they’re available, and distributing them in countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and India.

He also offered the services of AirAsia pilots and cabin crew for the vaccination campaign, noting their first aid training and the fact that they haven’t been able to fly as much as before. “They can surely provide valuable help to the frontliners and this is what being unconventional is about,” he said.

Fernandes urged the public to embrace vaccination so that recovery is made possible for the tourism industry. He said the campaign provided the clearest, most tangible indication of when the pandemic will be brought under control and normalcy will return.

Eager to have AirAsia in the skies again, he foresees “an international air travel reset in the very near future” – thanks to global vaccination efforts, better education and testing, digital health passports, and other factors.

The AirAsia boss said that he intends to get vaccinated himself, and asked the public to trust scientists and experts, while rejecting misinformation about the vaccines.

Singapore pastor says girls should cover up to spare men from ‘lustful thoughts’

Singaporean pastor Joanne Chow, who ministers to youth in Pasir Panjang, has drawn criticism for preaching the old misogynist gospel that women lead men astray by how they dress.

Critics on Sunday were slamming Chow for pinning responsibility for one gender’s spiritual well-being on the other’s “skintight dress” and “bikini photo” in a recent blog post arguing that girls can help guys avoid sin by dressing modestly. 

“Can I also make a special appeal to the girls? Let’s help our brothers by not dressing in a revealing or provocative way. Of course you don’t have control over their lustful thoughts, and it may not be a sin to wear that skintight dress or post that bikini photo, but if we can help our brothers, why not?” read her Friday post on Christian website Thir.st.

The 38-year-old pastor, who is a mother of two girls, is a member of the Pasir Panjang Hill Brethren Church.

She had neither responded publicly to the criticism nor an email requesting comment as of publication time. 

Her comments came after it came out that an internationally famous evangelical leader who died last year was tainted by sexual scandal due to what seems an appetite for young women.

Thir.st staff wrote in social media comments yesterday that the blog post was published in the wake of the sexual abuse allegations that have come out against Canadian evangelist Ravi Zacharias, who was recently accused of sexually exploiting massage therapists and soliciting hundreds of photos from young women. He died of cancer last May at 74. 

In comments on social media, someone from the publication wrote that, despite the apparent victim-blaming comments, Chow was writing about “the need for repentance of sin, accountability and ministry to victims who have been abused.”

“She acknowledged that everyone is ultimately responsible for their own thought life,” its statement said. “However, she also suggested that girls could help the guys by dressing modestly. Both statements can be true at the same time and are not necessarily in conflict.”

In Chow’s post, she recounted struggling with a “whole new level of temptation” after agreeing with her boyfriend-turn-husband that they would avoid premarital sex. She also suggested that everyone unfollow explicit accounts on Instagram and TikTok, and activate explicit content filters for YouTube while also reaching out to other Christians with struggling with their sexual desires. 

“Sounds extreme? That’s a small price to pay if we’re serious about protecting ourselves. It’s better to be inconvenienced occasionally than to leave ourselves open to temptation,” she wrote.

Critics, some Christians themselves, bashed Chow online for a classic case of blame-the-victims.

“Excuse you, it’s not the women’s fault for wearing what they want. It’s these boys who [can’t] seem to understand what self control is and thinks it is okay to assault someone like that. Stop victim blaming and start calling people out for their mistakes instead,” @Celestia_cq wrote on Instagram yesterday.

“[I]t’s [already] sad that girls [got to] dress less [provocatively] in order to look out for their own safety, and now this post is saying we gotta do it so we make the lives of the men easier?????” another named Arikenna said. 

Huawei CEO Says Will Never Sell Its Smartphone Business, Welcomes Call From Biden

Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said the company would never sell off its smartphone business. He also said he would welcome a phone call from U.S President Joe Biden, and expressed hope for better relations under the new U.S administration.

Due to the U.S sanctions, Huawei’s smartphone unit has undergone a drastic decline. The company already sold off its HONOR brand of smartphones, and there was recent talk that its Mate and P lineups would go the same way. But according to AFP, Ren said, “We have decided we absolutely will not sell off our consumer devices, our smartphone business.”

He also praised the iPhone 12 as “the world’s best smartphone”, the South China Morning Post reported. “Since [Huawei] doesn’t have premium handsets any more, Apple’s phones have helped us prove that Huawei’s 5G technology is the best,” he said.

Saying he’d be willing to speak to Biden, Ren made a plain appeal to American self-interest. He said, “If Huawei’s production capacity can be expanded, that would mean more opportunities for U.S. companies to supply too. I believe that’s going to be mutually beneficially. I believe that (the) new administration would bear in mind such business interests as they are about to decide their new policy,” according to another report by CNBC.

Despite those remarks, BBC has pointed out that Ren isn’t confident Huawei would be dropped from the US Department of Commerce blacklist. BBC’s report also noted that he has apparently warned Washington that blocking Huawei and China could lead to “an unexpected outcome,” although all in all, Ren has generally adopted a conciliatory tone in his latest remark regarding the U.S.

Google Says North Korea Hackers Are Targeting Cybersecurity Research Via Social Media

Google recently made a startling discovery revolving around North Korean hackers and cybersecurity researchers. According to the search engine’s Threat Analysis Group, the former is targeting the latter and going after them via a variety of social media platforms.

The alleged hackers supposedly work their con by posing as researchers, while also created several fake social media profiles on platforms that include Twitter and LinkedIn. If that wasn’t enough, they also set up fake blogs that they then get the unsuspecting researcher to write guest posts about software bugs that they’ve encountered.

The deception doesn’t stop there either. Once enough trust has been gained, the hacker would then make the step to ask the researcher if they would work together. If they agreed, the hacker would then share “collaboration tools” with them; unbeknown to the researcher, those tools actually contain malicious codes that, once opened, installs malware on to the researcher’s system.

Google says that one likely reason behind North Korea’s decision to target cybersecurity researcher is also one of the most obvious: it’s so that the country and its team of hackers can gain insight into security vulnerabilities and then exploit them for their own nefarious purpose.

It goes without saying and we’re sure that you all know, that this isn’t North Korea’s first time both under the spotlight and on the cybersecurity stage. The company has proven its cyber prowess in the past, the most prominent case in recent memory being the hacking of Sony Pictures in 2014. Because of the movie, The Interview, which featured a satirical adaptation of Kim Jong Un, the current communist dictator and ruler of the country.

The country has also been known to engage in cyber thievery, the most common among them having been the alleged theft of Bitcoin over the past several years.