Iran continues to crack down on dissent as the government faces street protests and online organizing. Statements by senior officers make it clear that in their view the unrest is driven by foreign enemies whose weapon is information. Telegram and Instagram have received most of the government's attention. As ready access to these platforms is lost, many in the country seem to be turning to Tor. Security experts warn those outside of Iran who may have had actual or apparent contact with Iranian citizens to beware of spearphishing on the part of Iran's government-associated "Infy" threat group.

A major security flaw has been reported in Intel x86-64 processors produced over the past decade. Details remain sketchy as Intel prepares an announcement, but apparently attackers can identify and exploit normally protected kernel memory. All major operating systems are affected. Users of cloud services may also experience issues. Amazon Web Services has told users to expect a "major security update" Friday; observers speculate that Microsoft will address the problem in its January 10 patches. Cloud users should also expect slowdowns in their service.

A researcher known by the handle "Siguza" has published a macOS local privilege escalation vulnerability that could be exploited for root access and code execution. The vulnerability was apparently not disclosed to Apple before publication; there's currently no fix.

Two researchers yesterday disclosed issues with a vulnerable API used for GPS tracking services that can expose location data, audio recordings, image files, and device information. (They're calling it "Trackmageddon.")