An international police operation called “Operation Cookie Monster” has taken down a notorious dark web marketplace, Genesis Market. Involving dozens of law enforcement agencies from around the world, the shutdown also resulted in the arrest of hundreds of users worldwide. 

The proposed UK Online Safety Bill legislation has been criticized for potentially undermining end-to-end encryption. Intended to protect adults and children online, critics have called out the bill for allowing the UK government and regulator Office of Communications (OFCOM) to abuse its power online.

Artemis Seaford, a former security policy manager at Meta, has filed a lawsuit against Greece’s national intelligence service for wiretapping and hacking her phone in 2021. 

YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips and two related channels within the same media group were recently taken over by hackers and deleted. For several hours chaos broke out across the Linus Media Group, which has a combined followership of over 25 million people. The hackers did everything from advertising dodgy cryptocurrency to mass deleting videos, eventually resulting in YouTube terminating the channels due to breaching its terms of service.

While online applications and services have made people’s lives easier in myriad ways, the convenience can come with downsides, particularly when it comes to user privacy and data collection. Telehealth, in particular, has helped make healthcare more accessible to so many people, especially during lockdown periods of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this, people could attend therapy and refill prescriptions from the safety of their own homes. However, users using such platforms have much to lose if their data is compromised. 

Notorious Dark Web hacker forum BreachForums was swiftly taken offline following the arrest of the owner and administrator. 21-year-old Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, known on the site as “Pompompurin,” was arrested by FBI cybersecurity investigators at his New York home on March 15th. A few days later, the new admin known as “Baphomet” announced they would shut down the site.

A study from Mozilla has found severe discrepancies between the Google Play Store’s data privacy labels and a large percentage of apps’ actual policies. The study, entitled See No Evil: Loopholes in Google’s Data Safety Labels Keep Companies in the Clear and Consumers in the Dark, was conducted by Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included — a guide dedicated to informing consumers about the security and privacy of online products while encouraging the tech industry to do more to safeguard customers.