Cyber Politics - Red Hot Cyber

Red Hot Cyber

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Category: Cyberpolitics

A joke extension and Chat Control crashes! Houston, we have a problem… with privacy

Sergio Corpettini 30/09/2025

In 2025, the European Union wants full control over private chats. The “Chat Control” regulation (proposal COM(2022)209) claims to fight child pornography by scanning private messages on WhatsApp, Telegram, Gmail, and the like. Noble intention in theory. In practice, it means every single message you type online could be read and analyzed by automated systems, with very real and immediate consequences for everyone’s privacy. And since no system is unbreakable, it doesn’t take a genius to do the math on the risks. For the average user, the fallout is simple but serious: Meanwhile, the people who actually want to hide aren’t shy

Xi Jinping and the Chinese APT’s Ambition

Alessio Stefan 08/09/2025

The post-COVID macro political movements, including ongoing conflicts, have prompted a majority of states to shift their medium- to long-term political objectives. Clearly, a paradigm shift has been very common in the war sector, with Europe attempting to shift some of its member states’ resources, and the United States increasingly adopting a highly protectionist economic stance, using tariffs as a means of reducing trade deficits with key countries, including China. INTRO – The Silence of the Dragons The recent decisions taken by POTUS Donald Trump regarding the Chinese economic entity are nothing more than the continuation of decisions taken in the first

US-Iran Cyberwar: DHS Raises Alarm, American Networks Under Attack

Redazione RHC 24/06/2025

The United States has warned of possible cyber attacks by pro-Iranian groups following a series of airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, as part of the armed conflict between Iran and Israel that began on June 13, 2025. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the current situation creates a “elevated threat” in the country’s cyberspace. The department said that hacktivists, as well as groups associated with Iranian government agencies, will most likely focus their attacks on American networks and vulnerable devices connected to the Internet. According to the DHS, such activities have already been recorded: these are low-level attacks aimed at creating

Kill Switch! Donald Trump’s Digital Weapon Threatening Europe

Redazione RHC 23/06/2025

Donald Trump’s return to the White House has becomea painful reminder for Europe of its main digital vulnerability: the “kill switch” effectively controlled by the United States. Political risks that only a few years ago seemed like a fantasy are now perceived as a very real threat, capable of paralyzing the European economy and communications. Over the years of economic integration and technological globalization, European countries have become extremely dependent on American cloud services. The security of email, video streaming, industrial processing and even government communicationsis directly linked to the infrastructure controlled by the three largest American companies: Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Paragon Spyware – Let’s talk about privacy and governments

Alessio Stefan 18/03/2025

Politics, information technology, and privacy. A triad continually seeking balance with a history of conflict that originates from the introduction of personal computers at the consumer level. Attempts by the U.S. government in preventing access to “strong enough” cryptography for foreign nationals and states were numerous from 1990 onward. Dubbed as the “Crypto Wars,” such attempts were aimed at maintaining an acceptable level to warrant potential decryption by government agencies for public security reasons. Out of this context came the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) software that allowed authentication and private communications. The use of PGP was widely adopted by a large segment

Beyond the Dark Storm’s attack on X: how hacktivism’s Illusion reinforces the System

Olivia Terragni 18/03/2025

The Dark Storm attack on X (formerly Twitter) has been significant for several reasons. The attack on March 10 2025 – a multi-layered Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) using a botnet – claimed by by the pro-Palestinian hacktivist group Dark Storm, caused a major global outage, affecting a large number of users worldwide and disrupting its services. “There’s been (still is) a massive cyberattack against X,” Musk wrote, “We are attacked every day, but this one was done with many resources. Seems to be a large, coordinated group and/or a country involved”. X had previously (in August 2024) already suffered a DDoS attack, which

The UK’s Digital Crackdown: how the government is using our online habits to breach human rights 

Ashleigh Crause 12/02/2025

In today’s digital age, the boundaries between lawful expression and governmental overreach are becoming increasingly blurred in the United Kingdom. Citizens are finding themselves under scrutiny, and in some cases, facing legal consequences for their online activities, raising significant concerns about the erosion of fundamental human rights. More from Ashleigh Crause: The Fall of the Human Conscience: Programming Desensitization Non-Crime Hate Incidents (NCHIs) A particularly alarming development is the recording of Non-Crime Hate Incidents. These are instances where individuals engage in speech or actions that, while not criminal, are perceived as offensive or hateful. Shockingly, these incidents are documented and can appear

US Elections and psy-ops: main threats come from Digital Echo Chambers and erosion of trust in democratic processes

Olivia Terragni 22/10/2024

On November 5th, 2024, the next President and Vice President of the United States of America will be elected, as well as 1/3 of the U.S. Senators and all 435 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives will be chosen. In this context, influence operations through digital echo chambers – such as digital platforms and social media – can play a critical role, shaping narratives that can influence people’s opinions, who are exposed to different types of political, scientific, cultural, conspiracy or extremist content. We already put the spotlight on a 2024 marked by provocations in the great march to the polls

Donald Trump’s campaign under attack! Documents and internal communications exfiltrated

Alessio Stefan 11/08/2024

After the European elections unfolded, geopolitical attentions shifted to the U.S. election campaign, one of the most dynamic in recent years recently with the Democrats’ recent changeover with Harris as the new nominee. There has been no shortage of controversy : Elon Musk has taken a sharp stance by releasing AI videos against candidate Harris, record fundraising for the Democrats’ campaign, and Trump injured by a gunshot during a rally. The latter has also been a major player within digital crime circles, some of the readers will recall the (alleged) attack in Fulton County by LockBit. LockBitSupp claimed to be in possession

NSO Group targeted! BlackMeta attacks Spyware maker’s central domain

Alessio Stefan 04/08/2024

The Pro-Palestinian group BlackMeta (or DarkMeta) announced on August 1, 2024, on their official telegram channel that they conducted a destructive attack on the NSO group’s infrastructure, including the central domain. Along with the site of the Israeli intelligence group, the Europol site also suffered the same treatment by undergoing a strong DDoS attack. On August 3, BlackMeta wanted to update the status of the attack by stating that both sites remained unreachable for at least 24 hours. The group also wanted to clarify the emergency mitigation methods initiated by Europol by bragging about their failures in the face of their attacks.