Day: July 5, 2024

It’s not Biden or Trump. Here’s the most important person in the 2024 election | STAFF COMMENTARY  Baltimore Sun

Trump challenges Biden to ‘no holds barred’ debate  The Hill

The threat actor Sp1d3rHunters leaked valid Taylor Swift ’s ERAS Tour barcodes threatening to leak more data and blackmailing Ticketmaster.

A threat actor that goes online with the moniker Sp1d3rHunters leaked 170,000 valid barcodes for Taylor Swift’s ERAS Tour for free. The bar codes are valid for the upcoming concerts of Taylor Swift in Miami, New Orleans, and Indianapolis.

The threat actor demanded a $2 million ransom from Ticketmaster to avoid leaking 30 million more event barcodes and information on 680 million users.

The leaked barcodes are valid for upcoming concerts in Miami, New Orleans, and Indianapolis. Sp1d3rHunters plans to release tickets for other concerts and events of other celebrities, including tickets for P!nk and Sting concerts, and sports events (F1 Formula Racing, MLB, and NFL games).

Next week the threat actor will leak data associated with the events of another celebrity.

In May, ShinyHunters, the administrator of BreachForums, claimed the hack of Ticketmaster and offered for sale 1.3 TB of data, including full details of 560 million customers, for $500,000. Stolen data includes names, emails, addresses, phone numbers, ticket sales, and order details.

Ticketmaster owner Live Nation confirmed the data breach that compromised the data of 560 million customers.

The stolen data were offered for sale on the dark web a week later.

Threat actors had access to the database hosted on the infrastructure of the cloud storage and analytics company, Snowflake. The company discovered the intrusion on May 20, 2024, and immediately launched an investigation with industry-leading forensic investigators.

“On May 20, 2024, Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (the “Company” or “we”) identified unauthorized activity within a third-party cloud database environment containing Company data (primarily from its Ticketmaster L.L.C. subsidiary) and launched an investigation with industry-leading forensic investigators to understand what happened.” reads the form 8-K filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

“On May 27, 2024, a criminal threat actor offered what it alleged to be Company user data for sale via the dark web.”

“As of the date of this filing, the incident has not had, and we do not believe it is reasonably likely to have, a material impact on our overall business operations or on our financial condition or results of operations. We continue to evaluate the risks and our remediation efforts are ongoing.”

Snowflake said it had informed a “limited number of customers who we believe may have been impacted” by attacks “targeting some of our customers’ accounts.” However, Snowflake did not provide details about the cyberattack it has suffered.

The website cyberexpress.com correctly recommends fans to stay alert and follow official updates. Ticket holders should verify their tickets through Ticketmaster’s official processes to avoid fraud.

Pierluigi Paganini

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Taylor Swift)

Uptake of COVID-19 vaccination among community-dwelling individuals receiving healthcare for substance use …  Frontiers

Covid hospital admissions in Scotland exceed last winter  BBC.com

The Lib Dems gained a record number of seats. That’s thanks to their leader’s fusing of policy with eye-catching, daring stunts

There is a remarkably thin line between novel and novelty. In the past six weeks, Ed Davey, a serial political campaigning rule violator who just happens to be the leader of the freshly triumphant Liberal Democrats, appears to have used that thin line as a conduit for electoral success.

The bare necessities to be taken seriously in the political establishment in Britain apparently include: a navy blue overgarment, white shirt, received pronunciation, Churchillian references and a reasonably photogenic (or at least elusive) spouse. But Davey has shown us an alternative way.

Continue reading…

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranians voted Friday in a runoff presidential election between a hard-line former nuclear negotiator and a reformist lawmaker, with both men trying to convince a skeptical public to cast ballots after years of economic woes and mass protests roiling the Islamic Republic.

The race between hardliner Saeed Jalili and Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime member of parliament, comes after a first round of voting saw the lowest turnout ever for an Iranian election, leaving turnout Friday a major question.

Meanwhile, wider tensions have gripped the Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. In April, Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel over the war in Gaza, while militia groups that Tehran arms in the region — such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — are engaged in the fighting and have escalated their attacks.

Iran also continues to enrich uranium at near weapons-grade levels and maintains a stockpile large enough to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to do so. And while Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remains the final decision-maker on matters of state, whichever man ends up winning the presidency could bend the country’s foreign policy toward either confrontation or collaboration with the West.

A heavy security presence could be seen on the streets of Tehran on Friday, as crowds appeared light at dozens of polling places. State television broadcast scenes of modest lines at polling centers around the country.

Jalili and Pezeshkian voted in southern Tehran, home to many poor neighborhoods, in a bid to boost turnout. Although Pezeshzkian came out on top in the first round of voting on June 28, Jalili has been trying to secure the votes of people who supported hard-line parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who came in third and later endorsed the former negotiator.

One voter, 27-year-old Yaghoub Mohammadi, said he voted for Jalili in both rounds.

“He is clean, without depending on powerful people in the establishment,” Mohammadi said. “He represents those who have no access to power.”

Voter Samira Sharafi, the 34-year-old mother of a toddler, said she voted for reformist Pezeshkian, despite having voted for Qalibaf in the first round. She described him as “more experienced” than Jalili.

There have been calls for a boycott, including from imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, although potential voters in Iran appear to have made the decision not to participate last week on their own as there’s no widely accepted opposition movement operating within or outside of the country.

State television broadcast images of modest lines at select polling places around the country as polls opened Friday.

As has been the case since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women and those calling for radical change have been barred from the ballot while the vote itself will have no oversight from internationally recognized monitors.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, who is in charge of overseeing the election, announced all the polls had opened at 8 a.m.

Khamenei cast one of the election’s first votes from his residence, television cameras and photographers capturing him dropping the ballot into the box.

“I have heard that people’s enthusiasm is more than before,” Khamenei said. “God willing, people vote and choose the best” candidate.

However, Khamenei on Wednesday said that those who didn’t vote last week weren’t against the country’s Shiite theocracy.

“There are reasons behind this matter which should be examined by sociologists and those involved in politics,” he said.

More than 61 million Iranians over the age of 18 are eligible to vote, with about 18 million of them between 18 to 30. Elections are scheduled to end at 6 p.m., but traditionally get extended until midnight to boost participation.

Friday’s election marks Iran’s second presidential runoff since 1979. The first came in 2005, when hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bested former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Under Ahmadinejad, Iran faced international sanctions over its advancing nuclear program, as well as the 2009 Green Movement protests and the crackdown that smashed them.

Pezeshkian’s supporters have been warning Jalili will bring a “Taliban”-style government into Tehran, while Jalili has criticized Pezeshkian for running a campaign of fearmongering.

The election comes after 63-year-old President Ebrahim Raisi died in a May 19 helicopter crash that also killed the country’s foreign minister and others. He was seen as a protege of Khamenei and a potential successor as supreme leader. Still, many knew him for his involvement in the mass executions that Iran conducted in 1988, and for his role in the bloody crackdowns on dissent that followed protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by police over allegedly improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

Сеть кинотеатров “Киномакс” отменила все показы шоу “Подземелья Чикен Карри” после обращений зрителей, региональных властей и “патриотических организаций”.

Biden’s debate flop raises more questions about his often perplexing Gaza policy  The Times of Israel

Zelensky U-turns as he invites Russia to attend peace summit without giving up land  Yahoo! Voices