Copyright forbes
This is the online edition of The Wiretap newsletter, your weekly digest of cybersecurity, internet privacy and surveillance news. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here. Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups walks to a vehicle after his federal court appearance on Thursday. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player Damon Jones were arrested by the FBI last week for their alleged involvement in Mafia-run poker games. According to the Department of Justice, Billups and Jones lured wealthy players to the games, which were rigged to ensure they didn’t win. The poker game organizers allegedly used a variety of tech to cheat. At the center of the scheme were hacked Deckmate 2 automatic shufflers, which handle cards in casinos around the world. According to Wired, security researchers showed in 2023 how a small device plugged into its USB port could read the cards on the shuffler’s internal camera and send their order to a nearby phone. Prosecutors allege that organized crime used this technique on their shufflers to rig games, where involved players communicated with covert signals to fleece their unsuspecting victims. Light&Wonder, which makes the Deckmate 2, has fixed its security vulnerabilities since they were revealed two years ago. So you can breathe easy at a game using one–as long as you’re at a licensed casino. Got a tip on surveillance or cybercrime? Get me on Signal at +1 929-512-7964. THE BIG STORY: AI Employees Are Coming. This Startup Wants To Keep Them Secure. ConductorOne cofounders Alex Bovee (left) and Paul Querna (right) ConductorOne The promise of AI agents is that they’ll act like human employees, deployed autonomously on tasks like navigating the web, sending emails and Slacks and working in Google Docs. But that also means they’ll need access to tons of applications, just like other staffers — creating additional work for IT teams managing that access, and increasing how vulnerable an organization is to identity-related hacks. Startup ConductorOne aims to eliminate that manual toil through a singular dashboard to help companies manage access for employees and agents alike, while flagging related security risks. Its software can plug into existing applications, tracking who accesses what across the organization and automating requests for new access. That especially comes in handy during onboarding processes when IT teams typically would have to approve and set up access to every single application for each employee. Bovee said publicly traded cloud security company Zscaler was able to use ConductorOne to reduce its engineers’ onboarding process from 20 days to 20 minutes. ConductorOne has closed a $79 million Series B round led by Greycroft with participation from strategic investor CrowdStrike Falcon Fund and prior investors Accel and Felicis Ventures. The funding round values the company at $350 million, according to sources familiar with the deal. Read more at Forbes. Stories You Have To Read Today The Universe browser, which advertises its privacy capabilities, actually routes its traffic through China and covertly installs key loggers and other malware onto users’ devices. Chatbots like ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini serve up Russian propaganda, citing sites linked to Russian intelligence services, when asked about the war in Ukraine. Zenni Optical is offering up glasses that aim to protect users from facial recognition systems that rely on infrared light, though they don’t thwart those that use other techniques. Hackers are taking advantage of LastPass’s account recovery procedures for deceased relatives to steal people’s information. Winner of the Week Good news for security researchers: Apple has significantly upped the bounties it pays to those who find serious vulnerabilities in its products, with the top award doubling to $2 million and its bonus system enabling payouts in excess of $5 million. Loser of the Week The August cyberattack on Jaguar Land Rover disrupted its business operations for weeks and cost the United Kingdom’s economy over $2.5 billion, according to the Cyber Monitoring Centre, thanks to ripple effects from halting production and dealer sales that impacted more than 2,700 British firms. More On Forbes ForbesInside Ripple’s $180 Billion ReinventionBy Nina BambyshevaForbesThis Gulf Nation Is Powering Trump’s Moneymaking MachineBy Dan AlexanderForbesInside Gavin Newsom’s Multimillion-Dollar Business EmpireBy Kyle Khan-Mullins Got a tip? Share confidential information with Forbes. Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions
