”Hi there. I. am working as a reporter and covering cybersecurity, mostly I'm interested in APT-related research. I'm with "paper trail media" and Der Spiegel.
If you want to check out the work I'm doing, here are some useful links: https://linktr.ee/hakantanriverdi
I gave a presentation at Virusbulletin this year in which I describe the process of reporting and then fact-checking tips I get while working on these types of stories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtlTF1Ajjdw
| https://twitter.com/hatr/status/1589374562957156352 | |
| articles etc. | linktr.ee/hakantanriverdi |
When we said that we found and fixed hundreds of bugs in Firefox using AI, people were skeptical and said: Where are the bugs?
Well, here they are. We are unhiding 12 security bugs that are representative of the issues we have found.
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2026/05/behind-the-scenes-hardening-firefox/.
"Whatever you think about our machine learning overlord corporations, there's no doubt that they are sucking immense value from journalists and giving almost none of it back"
https://aramzs.xyz/noteworthy/the-internets-most-powerful-archiving-tool-is-in-peril/
"The report describes “high alert” in the Kremlin “since the beginning of March 2026” about “the risk of a plot or coup attempt against the Russian president.”
OCCRP’s Russian partner, Important Stories, obtained a report by an EU intelligence agency that describes extreme new security measures, rising tension among security services, and fears of assassination by drone.
"Marketing agencies are pitching influencers deals such as $5,000 per TikTok video to amplify Build American AI’s messaging about how China’s technological rise should be seen as a threat"
If you're following the situation in Iran, this one is of interest to you.
Today, we're publishing a story that I find very important for many reasons.
We can prove how the regime in Iran is using facial recognition software to surveil its citizens. We have obtained videos showing the software in a live-scenario, at metro stations in Teheran. We have contracts, and we have had a look at the code, built by the Russian company Ntechlab whose algorithms are deemed to be best-in class.
We spoke with a dozen people who know the regime, either because they had to flee after being imprisoned or from a technical point of view.
All of this, and more, you can find in our reporting, #EyesOfIran. Here are the links:
Forbidden Stories: https://forbiddenstories.org/iran-regime-monitors-citizens/
US-Präsident Trump fordert die Iraner auf, das Regime zu stürzen. Doch die Führung in Teheran hat einen gigantischen Überwachungsapparat erschaffen. SPIEGEL-Recherchen gewähren Einblick in das Spähsystem der Mullahs.
So, Enisa, the cybersecurity agency of the EU, releases a yearly Threat Landscape. In the 2025 edition, they've used AI. And the AI introcuded loads of errors. Five percent of all the links end up 404
One of the researchers.(@wavehackr) told me: "You just had to click once", to check whether the links are valid or not. Upon closer inspection, you'd notice something was amiss just by looking, i.e., Enisa referenced a blogpost by MSFT. The link has "APT29" in it. Microsoft is very picky about those names.
They even have a blogpost about their naming convention (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/unified-secops/microsoft-threat-actor-naming) What other companies call APT29, MSFT calls "Midnight Blizzard". The AI apparently didn't dig those subtleties.
Here's the story
https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000303214/peinliche-panne-bericht-der-eu-agentur-fuer-cybersicherheit-mit-ki-verfasst-und-fehlerhaft
"Die Zeit" reveals that German foreign intelligence, in a multi-year campaign, intercepted Barack Obama's phone calls while aboard Air Force One because the encryption was flawed. Angela Merkel didn't know about it.
https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2026-01/bnd-barack-obama-air-force-one-angela-merkel
"The computer contained a complex system of individually encrypted hard drives with 33 terabytes of stolen data, carefully organized into more than 4,000 folders. "
I’ve been writing a lot of stories about state-sponsored cyberespionage by China. The case we’re revealing today is a prime example of this, telling the story of a five-year campaign against one of the key players in 🇩🇪 the Volkswagen group
The hackers started back in 2010, with initial mapping of the infrastructure and then, until 2015, tried to siphon data out of VW networks – repeatedly and successfully so. Even though VW removed the hackers, they kept coming back.
Very often companies do not know what the hackers were after because the hackers have deleted their traces until the time anoybody notices their presence. In this case, it was different: Volkswagen CERT was able to restore RAR-archives, giving rare insight into the tasking.
Frederik Braun �
sash
