What'd I Miss? June 27-30, 2025
Sherpa Intelligence: Your Guide Up a Mountain of Information!
This Information Security and Data Privacy news roundup includes items from Friday through Sunday, so that you can hit the ground running on Monday morning.
These news roundups are not comprehensive and focus on news that may have been overlooked or under reported, and from lesser-known sources like local press.
This Sherpa Intelligence newsletter is curated by Tracy Z. Maleeff (aka InfoSecSherpa) and is just the tip of the iceberg of the research, OSINT, and information security research services we provide.
Friday, June 27 - Sunday, June 29, 2025
More from Sherpa Intelligence: OSINT Basecamp - Ground News
Friday, June 27th
German Authorities Demand Apple Google Remove DeepSeek App Over Unlawful Data Transfers
(AInvest)
- German authorities have taken a firm stance against the Chinese AI service DeepSeek, urging Apple and Google to remove the app from their respective app stores. The German regulator's warning to Apple and Google underscores the seriousness of the issue.Transatlantic Data Truce Under Threat
(Center for European Policy Analysis)
- The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation allows personal data to be transferred freely only to countries with “equivalent” data privacy protections. The US has no national privacy law and Europeans fear that US security services could gain access to their data.This city is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for OnlyOffice and Linux - here's why
(Tech Crunch)
- First, it was Denmark bidding Microsoft adieu. Then it was the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Now it's Lyon, France's third-largest city and a leading economic hub, sweeping Microsoft Windows and Office suite away to replace them with Linux, OnlyOffice, NextCloud, and PostgreSQL. They fear their data could be read and that Microsoft could kill their services on Trump's behalf.
More from Sherpa Intelligence: Listen Up! NeedleStack by Authentic8, Episode 79
Saturday, June 28th
14 Chinese Nationals Convicted in Lagos for Cyber-Terrorism, Internet Fraud
(TV 360 Nigeria)
- The convicted individuals were arrested in December 2024 during a massive sting operation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) codenamed Eagle Flush, which targeted a syndicate of 792 suspects linked to cryptocurrency scams and romance fraud.Biometrics unifying factor amid big changes in IDs
(Biometrics Update)
- This is a roundup of the top biometrics news items from this past week. Includes articles like Reddit considers World for proof of personhood, age verification and Cyber Threat Observatory workshop advises on protections for national digital ID systems, and more.Bitter worker hell-bent on revenge launches cyber attack on Huddersfield firm
(Yorkshire Examiner Live)
- Mohammed Umar Taj gained access to the company’s premises and unlawfully accessed computer systems to deliberately alter login credentials to disrupt the company’s day to day activities. A day later, Taj changed access credentials and the company’s multi-factor authentication so that he could adversely impact the activities of the firm’s clients both in the UK and overseas in Germany and Bahrain.
More from Sherpa Intelligence: Listen Up! Cyber Empathy Podcast, S2 E10
Sunday, June 29th
Germany seeks Israeli partnership on cyberdefence, plans 'cyber dome'
(Reuters)
- Germany is aiming to establish a joint German-Israeli cyber research centre and deepen collaboration between the two countries' intelligence and security agencies, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said.NIST’s CURBy Uses Quantum to Verify Randomness of Numbers
(Security Boulevard)
- CURBy, detailed in a paper published in Nature, is the product of a NIST-run Bell test – a physics experiment that tests whether the universe operates according to quantum mechanics – that creates raw randomness from quantum entanglement, in this case entangled photon pairs.RFK Jr.’s latest health proposal raises some very important questions
(MSNBC)
- Most immediately, as Kennedy was asked in the hearing but did not clearly answer, are concerns about data collection and privacy, especially relevant due to recent breaches like the 23andMe hack, which leaked the data of millions of users to the public and potential nefarious actors. Fitness tracker data has already created a specific liability. The Strava running app, for example, has repeatedly revealed sensitive locations of troops and political figures to the public.
More from Sherpa Intelligence: Five for Friday - 27 June 2025