A TikTok ‘carjacking’ challenge is costing Hyundai $200 million

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But wait, there is more. Every week we round up the security stories that we don’t cover in depth ourselves. Click on the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

Most of the TikTok challenges you hear about are fake. This one, however, is deadly serious. Automaker Huyandai this week agreed to pay around $200 million to customers whose vehicles were stolen following a viral TikTok challenge that exposed a major security flaw in some Hyundai and Kia vehicles.

The challenge began after user “Kia Boys” posted a video on TikTok showing that it was possible to connect the vulnerable vehicles with a USB cable. According to Engadget, at least 14 accidents and eight deaths have been linked to the challenge. Hyundai will pay affected customers up to $6,125 for stolen vehicles and up to $3,375 to cover the cost of damage caused by those who took advantage of the flaw. The company also has aanti-theft update” available for affected vehicles. Check to see if your vehicle is impacted here.

The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court revealed an April 2022 opinion yesterday exposing the FBI’s rampant misuse of the so-called Section 702 database, a vast trove of electronic communications records used by the office and the National Security Agency. The court found that the FBI improperly consulted the database, established under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, more than 287,000 times in 2020 and 2021. Targets of the FBI searches include January 6 protesters, people arrested while protesting the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and some 19,000 US political donors for an unnamed campaign in the US Congress.

Section 702 gives the US government the authority to collect communications from foreign targets. Communications from Americans can go into the database when they communicate with someone outside the US. An audit released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence late last year found several similar instances of the FBI misusing the Section 702 database to perform searches on U.S. citizens, including US Congressman Darin LaHood. Following the ODNI audit and the release of the court’s opinion this week, the FBI says the abuse was the result of a “misunderstanding” and promised it has fixed the problem. Regardless, Section 702 will expire at the end of the year without congressional reauthorization, which could jeopardize repeated and widespread misuse by the FBI.

The United States Department of Justice on Tuesday Announced charges against a former Apple engineer accused of stealing the company’s source code related to its driverless car technology. Weibao Wang allegedly stole the “sensitive” documents in the last days of his employment at Apple in April 2018. Wang left Apple five months after signing an agreement to work for a US subsidiary of a China-based company, according to the Department. of Justice. After US police searched his Mountain View, California, home in June 2018, Wang, 35, fled to China, the Justice Department says. If convicted, Wang faces up to 10 years in prison plus fines.

Everyone knows how much data can be collected about you every time you are online. But a bigger concern may be what someone might collect about you anytime you’re anywhere. That’s the warning in a new research paper, who discovered that it is possible to collect “environmental DNA” (traces of genetic material floating in the air or in liquids, also called eDNA) that can be linked to a person’s medical or ancestral details. The legal experts who spoke with the The New York Times warns that if police or other government authorities start collecting eDNA, as animal scientists have done for a decade, it could create widespread abuses of privacy and civil liberties.