{"id":57214,"date":"2022-02-05T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-05T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=57214"},"modified":"2025-09-04T10:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T07:34:08","slug":"apple-lands-in-russia-google-unveils-updated-chrome-and-other-cybersecurity-developments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/apple-lands-in-russia-google-unveils-updated-chrome-and-other-cybersecurity-developments\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple lands in Russia, Google unveils updated Chrome, and other cybersecurity developments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have gathered the most important cybersecurity news of the week.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-text-wrappers-keypoints article_keypoints\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Apple and Spotify have landed in Russia, opening their local offices.<\/li>\n<li>Google released an updated version of Chrome with fixes for vulnerabilities.<\/li>\n<li>The FBI acknowledged acquiring Pegasus spyware, but said it never used it in investigations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The FBI confirmed the purchase of Pegasus spyware<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The U.S. FBI confirmed that it purchased Pegasus spyware from the Israeli company NSO Group. The Guardian reports.<\/p>\n<p>The agency said it had acquired a &#8216;limited license&#8217; to access the product &#8216;only for testing and evaluation&#8217; and never used it in investigations.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier reports indicated that <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/media-report-governments-use-of-spyware-to-monitor-journalists\">Pegasus was used for surveillance<\/a> of human rights defenders, journalists and politicians around the world through hacking of iPhone and Android devices.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A disruption hit several Runet services<\/h2>\n<p>On Friday, 4 February, Rostelecom users reported problems accessing the Internet. Later, VKontakte reported outages, <a href=\"https:\/\/tass.ru\/ekonomika\/13623973\">suspended trading<\/a> at the SPB Exchange. Problems also affected MTS, Instagram, WhatsApp and other services.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"ru\" dir=\"ltr\">Some users may experience issues loading VKontakte, but we are already restoring service.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 VKontakte (@vkontakte) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/vkontakte\/status\/1489631866160402432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 4, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Outages were recorded by the Downdetector service. After some time, VKontakte&#8217;s service was restored. <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Pavel Durov again criticises WhatsApp security<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Telegram founder Pavel Durov commented on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/thomasbrewster\/2022\/02\/01\/billionaire-facebook-investor-peter-thiel-secretly-funded-a-cyber-warfare-startup-that-hacked-whatsapp\/?sh=7b3fb9295600\">Forbes article<\/a>, which reported that Boldend, a startup, was developing tools to hack WhatsApp.<\/p>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/telegram.org\/js\/telegram-widget.js?15\" data-telegram-post=\"durov\/178\" data-width=\"100%\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Since WhatsApp&#8217;s creation, there has hardly been a moment when it was secure: every few months researchers discover a new security flaw in the app,<\/p>\n<p> wrote Durov.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Google unveils updated Chrome<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The Google team <a href=\"https:\/\/chromereleases.googleblog.com\/2022\/02\/stable-channel-update-for-desktop.html\">released<\/a> an updated Chrome 98. It fixes 27 vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n<p>Eight of these were rated as high severity by the developers.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Apple and Spotify open offices in Russia under the &#8216;landing&#8217; law<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Apple Distribution International has met all the requirements of the so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/site-owners-with-a-daily-audience-of-more-than-500-000-russians-to-be-required-to-open-representative-offices-in-russia\">&#8216;landing&#8217;<\/a> law, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/236-fz.rkn.gov.ru\/agents\/list\">Roskomnadzor&#8217;s list<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Apple opened an office in Russia, created a form for submitting appeals and a personal account on the Roskomnadzor site.<\/p>\n<p>Another company that opened an office and registered an account on the agency&#8217;s page was Spotify.<\/p>\n<p>Google, Meta, Telegram, Zoom, Viber and other services listed by Roskomnadzor have not yet established offices in Russia.<\/p>\n<p>This week, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma committee on information policy, information technology and communications Anton Gorelkin <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/deputy-urges-nft-marketplaces-to-establish-offices-in-russia\">expressed his view<\/a> that the largest NFT marketplaces should also fall under the <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/site-owners-with-a-daily-audience-of-more-than-500-000-russians-to-be-required-to-open-representative-offices-in-russia\">&#8216;landing&#8217;<\/a> law.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Sberbank tests potential cut-off from Microsoft and Oracle<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Sberbank conducted technological drills in which it simulated disconnecting its infrastructure from reliance on foreign software vendors, including Microsoft, Nvidia, VMware, SAP, Oracle and Intel. The source is Kommersant.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, Russia <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/dmitry-medvedev-says-russia-could-be-cut-off-from-the-global-internet\">often speaks<\/a> about a possible disconnection from the global Internet. Authorities say the safeguards under the sovereign Runet law are meant to protect against this.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Telegram pays 11 million rubles in fines for failing to delete prohibited content in Russia<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Telegram paid fines totaling 11 million rubles for failing to delete prohibited content in Russia, Interfax reports.<\/p>\n<p>In December, the company also settled a debt on penalties of 15 million rubles.<\/p>\n<p>As noted, Russian courts regularly <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/vkontakte-and-telegram-fined-for-failing-to-delete-prohibited-information\">fine<\/a> various services for failing to remove prohibited content. Since February 1 of last year, amendments to Russia&#8217;s legislation governing the dissemination of information on social networks have taken effect.<\/p>\n<p>Also on ForkLog:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Hackers drained more than $319 million from the Wormhole cross-chain bridge pool <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/hackers-drain-more-than-319-million-from-wormhole-cross-chain-bridge-pool\">.<\/li>\n<li>OpenSea <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/opensea-reimbursed-users-affected-by-a-vulnerability-to-more-than-1-9-million\">reimbursed affected users<\/a> with over $1.9 million due to a vulnerability.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/over-90000-btc-moved-from-bitfinex-hack\">More than 90,000 BTC moved<\/a> from Bitfinex&#8217;s stolen funds.<\/li>\n<li>Hackers <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/hackers-steal-nfts-worth-about-2-7-million-from-collector-larry-loulit\">stole NFT tokens<\/a> from an NFT holder worth $2.7 million.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What to read this weekend?<\/h2>\n<p>Many trends that emerged in the online space last year are clearly set to continue developing in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>We recall the main events and trends of 2021 related to human rights in the digital world, cybersecurity and privacy.<\/p>\n<p>Read ForkLog&#8217;s bitcoin news in our <a href=\"\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\" target=\"\u201c_blank\u201d\" rel=\"\u201cnofollow\u201d noopener\">Telegram<\/a> \u2014 crypto news, prices and analytics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have gathered the most important cybersecurity news of the week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1238,1233],"class_list":["post-57214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-cybersecurity-digest","tag-industry-digests"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"12","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57216,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57214\/revisions\/57216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}