politico.eu – POLITICO
March 25, 2026 1:48 am CET
By Zoya Sheftalovich
“Our internal reviews have found no evidence that any devices, networks or systems have been compromised,” POLITICO says in email to staff.
BRUSSELS ― POLITICO launched a security review after a private telephone conversation between one of its reporters and an EU official about issues connected to Hungary and Ukraine was apparently intercepted and the recording published online.
The nine-minute audio clip, from a call that took place on March 3, was uploaded to YouTube on March 16. It has been listened to 5,100 times, according to YouTube data.
“Our internal reviews have found no evidence that any devices, networks or systems have been compromised,” Kate Day, POLITICO’s senior executive editor in Europe, and Carrie Budoff Brown, POLITICO’s executive editor and executive vice president, said in an email to employees on Wednesday.
“We will not be intimidated by an apparent attempt to interfere with independent reporting — nor deterred from the important work we do,” they wrote. “We have always been and will remain vigilant in protecting our sources, supporting the work of our journalists, and maintaining the accuracy of our independent, nonpartisan reporting.”
The issue comes at a time when leaks of confidential EU information are in the spotlight ahead of the Hungarian general election on April 12. In a report on Saturday, the Washington Post said that Viktor Orbán’s government maintained close contacts with Moscow throughout the war in Ukraine, and Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó used breaks during meetings with other member countries to update his Russian counterpart.
A spokesperson for the EU institution where the official works declined to comment on “tapes produced by unknown and anonymous actors.” POLITICO is not identifying the EU official because the call wasn’t on the record.
POLITICO has not been able to determine how the recording may have been obtained and who was responsible for posting it to YouTube.
‘Chilling message’
Several Slovak and Hungarian news websites wrote articles about the recording and published partial transcripts.
“Hacking and the disclosure of journalists’ materials strike at the heart of press freedom and the protections we must be able to rely on as reporters,” said President of the International Press Association in Brussels Dafydd ab Iago. “This is illegal under Belgian law, and it sends a chilling message not only to journalists in Brussels but also to our sources here … The harder question is how to pursue those state actors, whether operating from within the EU or from a third country like Russia.”
On Monday, the Orbán-aligned Hungarian newspaper Mandiner — one of the first outlets that wrote about the conversation — published a separate exchange between independent Hungarian journalist Szabolcs Panyi and a contact. The material was received via a “mysterious email” from an individual identifying himself as “the fourth branch of power,” according to the article’s author.
“We have important stories to tell and work to do and remain focused on maintaining the rigor, independence and purpose that our audience expects from us,” Day and Budoff Brown said in their email.
bleepingcomputer.com - Plex has notified some of its users on Thursday to urgently update their media servers due to a recently patched security vulnerability.
The company has yet to assign a CVE-ID to track the flaw and didn't provide additional details regarding the patch, only saying that it impacts Plex Media Server versions 1.41.7.x to 1.42.0.x.
Yesterday, four days after releasing security updates that addressed the mysterious security bug, Plex emailed those running affected versions to update their software as soon as possible.
"We recently received a report via our bug bounty program that there was a potential security issue affecting Plex Media Server versions 1.41.7.x to 1.42.0.x. Thanks to that user, we were able to address the issue, release an updated version of the server, and continue to improve our security and defenses," the company said in the email.
"You're receiving this notice because our information indicates that a Plex Media Server owned by your Plex account is running an older version of the server. We strongly recommend that everyone update their Plex Media Server to the most recent version as soon as possible, if you have not already done so."
Plex Media Server 1.42.1.10060, the version that patches this vulnerability, can be downloaded from the server management page or the official downloads page.
While Plex hasn't shared any details regarding the vulnerability so far, users are advised to follow the company's advice and patch their software before threat actors reverse engineer the patches and develop an exploit.
Although Plex has experienced its share of critical and high-severity security flaws over the years, this is one of the few instances where the company has emailed customers about securing their systems against a specific vulnerability.
In March 2023, CISA tagged a three-year-old remote code execution (RCE) flaw (CVE-2020-5741) in the Plex Media Server as actively exploited in attacks. As Plex explained two years earlier, when it released patches, successful exploitation can allow attackers to make the server execute malicious code.
While the cybersecurity agency didn't provide any information on the attacks exploiting CVE-2020-5741, they were likely linked to LastPass' disclosure that one of its senior DevOps engineers' computers had been hacked in 2022 to install a keylogger by abusing a third-party media software RCE bug.
The attackers exploited this access to steal the engineer's credentials and compromise the LastPass corporate vault, resulting in a massive data breach in August 2022 after stealing LastPass's production backups and critical database backups.
The same month, Plex also notified users of a data breach and asked them to reset passwords after an attacker gained access to a database containing emails, usernames, and encrypted passwords.
Ukrainian hackers carried out a cyberattack that took down online broadcasts of Russian state television and radio channels on Monday, according to an official in Kyiv with knowledge of the operation.
#A #Dmitry #Emerging #Europe #Infrastructure #Markets #Media #Peskov #Putin #Radio #Russia #Ukraine #Vladimir #business #cybersecni #cybersecurity #politics #technology
Russia is increasingly turning to American social media stars to covertly influence voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to U.S. officials and recently unveiled criminal charges.
“What we see them doing is relying on witting and unwitting Americans to seed, promote and add credibility to narratives that serve these foreign actors’ interest,” a senior intelligence official said in a briefing on Friday. “These foreign countries typically calculate that Americans are more likely to believe other Americans’ views.”
We uncovered a malvertising campaign where the threat actor hijacks social media pages, renames them to mimic popular AI photo editors, then posts malicious links to fake websites.
A senior official previously condemned the platform for ‘censoring’ Hamas-related content.
Not only is TikTok’s algorithm promoting Neo-Nazi content, extremist organizations are also using the platform to recruit new members and encourage real-world action.
#content #extremism #media #moderation #nazis #social #tiktok
Meta has removed 63,000 Instagram accounts from Nigeria that were involved in sextortion scams, including a coordinated network of 2,500 accounts linked to 20 individuals targeting primarily adult men in the United States.
#Computer #Facebook #InfoSec #Instagram #Media #Meta #Scam #Security #Sextortion #Social
Hackers are increasingly targeting verified accounts on X (formerly Twitter) belonging to government and business profiles and marked with 'gold' and 'grey' checkmarks to promote cryptocurrency scams, phishing sites, and sites with crypto drainers.
In recent years, cybercriminals have become increasingly professional — fraudsters have consistently been improving their skills, making less crucial mistakes, and creating various “as-a-service” businesses to help lower-skilled threat actors launch scams and attacks, allowing the latter to run full cybercrime operations.
There are different types of cybercrime services that exist today, including malware-as-a-service, where cybercriminals develop and sell malware services to other malicious actors; the service also includes creating and spreading malware types such as ransomware on compromised hosts. Meanwhile, other services require the use of multiple social media accounts to be successfully carried out, such as misinformation, spamming, and malware propagation. Indeed, it’s not uncommon for cybercriminals to send thousands of spam messages using thousands of accounts on social media platforms. But how do they manage to automate all of it?
As American feminists came together in 2017 to protest Donald Trump, Russia’s disinformation machine set about deepening the divides among them.
Google will no longer allow Russian state media outlets to run ads, following a similar decision on Saturday by the tech giant's video subsidiary, YouTube.
