Tag Archive for: Eurovision

Eurovision, acts of war, and Twitter circles • Graham Cluley

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Smashing Security podcast #321: Eurovision, acts of war, and Twitter circles

Twitter shares explicit photos without users’ permission, one US company can look forward to a $1.4 billion payout seven years after an infamous cyberattack, and how might hackers target Eurovision?

All this and much much more is discussed in the latest edition of the “Smashing Security” podcast by computer security veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault, joined this week by cybersecurity reporter John Leyden.

Plus don’t miss our featured interview with Outpost24’s John Stock.

Hosts:

Graham Cluley – @gcluley
Carole Theriault – @caroletheriault

Guest:

John Leyden – @jleyden

Episode links:

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Thanks:

Theme tune: “Vinyl Memories” by Mikael Manvelyan.
Assorted sound effects: AudioBlocks.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon’s Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy.
Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.

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Fears pro-Russian hackers could disrupt Eurovision by hacking into the broadcasts

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Ministers fear pro-Russian hackers could disrupt Eurovision by hacking into the broadcasts and silencing the song contest next week. 

Experts from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) were called in after the government and Eurovision organisers raised concerns that the competition could become a digital front of the Ukraine war, The Times reports.

A senior Whitehall official said the biggest worry was the potential hacking of the voting system like last year.

The contest, held in Liverpool, will see reinforced cyber-defences by the NCSC experts in combination with the Home Office and the Department for Science.

In 2022, Italian police managed to thwart attacks by pro-Russian hackers at the competition in Turin, Italy, especially during performances of the Kalush Orchestra, which represented Ukraine and won last year’s Eurovision.

Experts from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) were called in after the government and Eurovision organisers raised concerns that the competition could become a digital front of the Ukraine war
Paul Quinn, 32, from the Dingle area of Liverpool, will co-present the song contest finale alongside Brookside actress Claire Sweeney (pictured), 52, on Saturday, May 13
The BBC said it will be the first time contest audiences will have the option of listening to an alternative commentary in the host city’s regional accent (pictured: Scouse commentator Paul Quinn)

The semi-final and final of the song contest were targeted by Killnet, a hacker collective supposedly supportive of Putin’s regime, but the group was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing audiences from watching the show or voting via telephone, app or text.

However, ministers still fear disruption during this year’s Eurovision. A security source told The Times: ‘While it’s possible to be confident that concertgoers will be safe, the cyber side is far more unpredictable.’

It is unknown whether British security agencies are acting upon specific intelligence regarding a potential Russian hacker attack – and the Kremlin has always denied engaging in cyberwarfare against Western states. 

A successful hacking attack at the contest in 2019 in Israel saw the national broadcaster’s online stream…

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Eurovision 2022 Ukraine Kalush Orchestra Win Russia Hacking Threat

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The same Russian threat actors that this week targeted Italian parliamentary and military websites and threatened to disrupt U.K. National Health Service (NHS) services, could now have the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 final in their crosshairs.

The Killnet threat group has threatened to “send 10 billion requests” to the Eurovision online voting system and “add votes to some other country.”

What is Killnet?

The pro-Kremlin Killnet cybercriminal group boasts of conducting “military cyber exercises” to improve member skills, appears to be mostly involved in reasonably straightforward, if disruptive, Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.

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According to threat intelligence experts at Cyjax, Killnet first emerged back in March following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Using the newly launched ‘Killnet Botnet DDoS’ resource, its first target was the Anonymous hacktivist collective. This involved disrupting “the Anonymous website.” Or, at least, it would have if such a thing existed.

As Cyjax explains, there is no central Anonymous website. “It’s more likely that an independent generic Anonymous website was targeted to boost morale for the Russian side,” Cyjax says.

Killnet threatens to disrupt Eurovision 2022 final voting

In an apparent attempt to prevent or disrupt the online voting for current Eurovision favorites from Ukraine, the Kalush Orchestra, Killnet has hinted it could target Eurovision servers. In a Telegram message, the group claimed to have already disrupted the voting system. Or, rather, that the DDoS Botnet might be behind earlier voting difficulties.

Russia was banned from competing in Eurovision 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine, and the Kalush Orchestra has stated that a win would be a morale booster for the people of Ukraine.

A Eurovision spokesperson said that the voting system has “a wide range of security measures in place to protect audience participation” and this year will be no different in that regard.

Killnet also appears to…

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When AI takes on Eurovision: Can a computer write a hit song?

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Robots are everywhere these days.

Enlarge / Robots are everywhere these days. (credit: NBC Universal)

Imagine assembling a crack team of musicologists to compose the perfect Eurovision hit, only to end up with a song that crescendos as a robotic voice urges listeners to “kill the government, kill the system.”

That was the experience of a team of Dutch academics who, after an experiment in songwriting using artificial intelligence algorithms, inadvertently created a new musical genre: Eurovision Technofear.

The team—Can AI Kick It—used AI techniques to generate a hit predictor based on the melodies and rhythms of more than 200 classics from the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual celebration of pop music and kitsch. These included Abba’s “Waterloo” (Sweden’s 1974 winner) and Loreen’s “Euphoria” (2012, also Sweden).

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