News

Hackers and cybercrime prevention

• February 26, 2021 26 Feb'21

  Cyber extortionist threatened to bomb NHS targets

  A German court has convicted a 33-year-old Italian man for making extortion and bomb threats against NHS hospitals at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic’s first wave last year

• February 25, 2021 25 Feb'21

  NCSC Cyber Action Plan emphasises SME security

  NCSC self-assessment tool launched to help sole traders and micro-businesses tackle their cyber security challenges

• February 25, 2021 25 Feb'21

  Npower shuts off app after credential stuffing attack

  Npower customers will have to log in to their accounts on its website after its app was withdrawn following a security breach

• February 25, 2021 25 Feb'21

  MHRA and other agencies to offer new resources for scam victims

  New landing page resources will replace .uk domains suspended for criminal activity to help members of the public access appropriate guidance

• February 24, 2021 24 Feb'21

  Transport for NSW hit by Accellion breach

  Australian state agency Transport for New South Wales is the latest victim of the supply chain attack against Accellion’s legacy file transfer system

• February 24, 2021 24 Feb'21

  Babuk ransomware unsophisticated, but highly dangerous

  Intelligence gathered through McAfee’s Mvision service reveals more insight into the emerging Babuk ransomware

• February 24, 2021 24 Feb'21

  Bombardier is latest victim of Accellion supply chain attack

  Canadian aviation company joins the growing list of Accellion breach victims

• February 24, 2021 24 Feb'21

  Warning on security risk from virtual events platforms

  Vulnerabilities found in virtual events platforms could form part of a variant supply chain attack

• February 23, 2021 23 Feb'21

  XDR makes cyber a Stroll in the park for Aston Martin F1

  Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One team will run SentinelOne’s Singularity XDR platform under the bonnet

• February 23, 2021 23 Feb'21

  CyberScotland offers centralised security resource hub

  Newly launched partnership brings together security resources for individuals and organisations across Scotland

• February 22, 2021 22 Feb'21

  Pandemic has exposed fractures in cyber fraud strategy

  RUSI report urges a bolder and more coordinated response to cyber-enabled fraud as the pandemic lays bear the scale of the problem

• February 19, 2021 19 Feb'21

  NCSC cyber defence scheme blocked thousands of scams in 2019

  The NCSC has reported another productive year for its Active Cyber Defence programme

• February 19, 2021 19 Feb'21

  Biden will act on cyber security to fix SolarWinds mess

  US will take action to modernise its defences in the wake of the SolarWinds attack, says US government cyber lead Anne Neuberger

• February 18, 2021 18 Feb'21

  2020 a record year for cyber, thanks to Covid

  The UK’s cyber industry now employs close to 50,000 people and contributes billions to the economy

• February 17, 2021 17 Feb'21

  North Korean Lazarus Group hackers indicted in US

  Charges filed relate to Lazarus Group’s long-running cyber crime spree, including financial theft and extortion, WannaCry malware and the cyber attack on Sony Pictures

• February 17, 2021 17 Feb'21

  Egregor ransomware arrests confirmed

  Authorities confirm that they have arrested an undisclosed number of cyber criminals associated with the Egregor ransomware

• February 17, 2021 17 Feb'21

  Law firm and cyber criminals clash over source of stolen data

  Cyber attack victim Jones Day says its data was stolen in a supply chain attack, but the gang holding it to ransom disagrees

• February 16, 2021 16 Feb'21

  North Korea accused of Pfizer Covid vaccine cyber attack

  South Korean intelligence pins a recent attack on Pfizer, targeting information on coronavirus vaccines, on its neighbour

• February 16, 2021 16 Feb'21

  RDP, SSH exposures off the charts thanks to remote working

  The Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the prevalence of certain vulnerabilities in the wild, according to a report

• February 16, 2021 16 Feb'21

  Egregor ransomware associates arrested amid disruption

  Undisclosed number of arrests made in Ukraine after investigators tracked bitcoin ransom payments

• February 15, 2021 15 Feb'21

  NCSC recognises UK’s top cyber schools

  National Cyber Security Centre CyberFirst Schools initiative has handed out 14 gold, silver and bronze awards recognising excellence in cyber security teaching

• February 11, 2021 11 Feb'21

  Hacked Finnish therapy business collapses

  Vastaamo, the Finnish psychotherapy centre whose patients were blackmailed by a cyber criminal gang, has filed for bankruptcy

• February 11, 2021 11 Feb'21

  Low-complexity CVEs a growing concern

  Analysis of thousands of CVEs logged with NIST in 2020 reveals some unwelcome developments

• February 11, 2021 11 Feb'21

  Future security stars shine in first round of CyberFirst Girls contest

  There were more than 6,500 participants in the opening heats of the National Cyber Security Centre’s CyberFirst Girls competition this year

• February 11, 2021 11 Feb'21

  Singtel falls prey to supply chain attack

  The Singapore telco reveals that its Accellion file sharing system was illegally hacked in a supply chain attack

• February 10, 2021 10 Feb'21

  Dating app users warned to watch out for scammers

  A vast amount of money was lost to romance scammers last year, and with millions of people isolated in lockdown the problem is getting worse, according to a report

• February 10, 2021 10 Feb'21

  HelloKitty almost certainly behind CD Projekt ransomware attack

  Theories that the cyber attack on a high-profile gaming studio was orchestrated by players who are disappointed in a videogame are likely wide of the mark, according to analysis

• February 10, 2021 10 Feb'21

  Windows 10, Server 2019 users must patch serious zero-day

  Another dangerous zero-day exploit is among 56 vulnerabilities patched by Microsoft in February’s Patch Tuesday update

• February 10, 2021 10 Feb'21

  Sim-swapping crooks targeted celebrities, influencers

  Eight arrests have been made in England and Scotland in connection with a series of Sim-swapping attacks targeting high-profile victims

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  Data breaches are a ticking timebomb for consumers

  Damage from data breaches goes far beyond the impact to the target organisation – an obvious fact that is too often overlooked, says F-Secure

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  Cyberpunk 2077 developer refuses to pay up after ransomware attack

  Polish video game developer CD Projekt has released details of a ransomware attack on its systems

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  ‘Batman Begins’ cyber attack is a warning to CNI providers

  A thwarted cyber attack in a Florida town that could have resulted in the poisoning of the water supply is a timely reminder of the vulnerability of critical services

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  NHS reports fewer phishing emails in 2020

  The NHSmail email service saw a steady decline in suspected phishing emails during the course of 2020

• February 08, 2021 08 Feb'21

  Too few UK organisations offering cyber training for remote work

  Nearly a year into the pandemic, a study reveals a concerning tendency for organisations not to bother offering security training for remote workers

• February 08, 2021 08 Feb'21

  Data of thousands of Dutch citizens leaked from government Covid-19 systems

  Weak access controls and outdated systems blamed for leaking of the personal details of thousands of Dutch citizens tested for Covid-19

• February 08, 2021 08 Feb'21

  Sweden to establish national cyber security centre

  Sweden becomes latest Nordic state to establish a national cyber security centre as the threat landscape grows

• February 05, 2021 05 Feb'21

  Google Chrome update to patch serious zero-day

  A serious heap buffer overflow vulnerability means Google Chrome users should patch their browsers as soon as possible

• February 05, 2021 05 Feb'21

  Financial regulatory body bombarded with malicious emails

  New disclosures reveal the FCA’s systems bounced almost a quarter of a million malicious emails in a three-month period

• February 05, 2021 05 Feb'21

  Security firm Stormshield loses source code in cyber attack

  Source code from two products developed by French cyber security firm was compromised in a December 2020 incident

• February 04, 2021 04 Feb'21

  Woodland Trust hit by cyber attack in December

  Conservation charity is investigating what it describes as a ‘sophisticated’ cyber attack but has waited nearly two months to inform its members

• February 04, 2021 04 Feb'21

  SolarWinds chases multiple leads in breach investigation

  Investigators at SolarWinds are exploring multiple theories as to how the company’s systems were compromised

• February 04, 2021 04 Feb'21

  Fraud and cyber crime still vastly under-reported

  The scale of digitally enabled crime in the UK is dramatically under-reported, new statistics indicate

• February 03, 2021 03 Feb'21

  Crypto malware targets Kubernetes clusters, say researchers

  Newly identified Hildegaard malware targets Kubernetes clusters and seems to herald a new campaign from the TeamTNT gang

• February 03, 2021 03 Feb'21

  Foxtons rejects claims of slow reaction to data leak

  Investigators have unearthed 16,000 data records that seem to have been stolen in an attack on property firm Foxtons last year, but the organisation says it acted by the book in dealing with the incident

• February 03, 2021 03 Feb'21

  ‘Classic’ Cerber ransomware targets health sector in high volumes

  Cerber ransomware-as-a-service seems to have re-emerged as one of the most critical cyber threats facing healthcare organisations, reports VMware Carbon Black

• February 03, 2021 03 Feb'21

  SolarWinds patches two critical CVEs in Orion platform

  New vulnerabilities disclosed as SolarWinds reels from December 2020 Solorigate/Sunburst attack – but do not appear to have been exploited yet

• February 02, 2021 02 Feb'21

  Agent Tesla trojan finds new ways to sneak past defences

  Updated versions of Agent Tesla Rat include new techniques that fiddle with code to disable endpoint protection tools on target systems

• February 01, 2021 01 Feb'21

  Serco confirms Babuk ransomware attack

  Outsourcing firm was hit by the ransomware last week but insists most of its operations are running as normal

• February 01, 2021 01 Feb'21

  UKRI suspends services after ransomware attack

  UK Research and Innovation was hit by an undisclosed strain of ransomware at the end of January

• February 01, 2021 01 Feb'21

  SBRC picks Check Point to support cyber helpline

  The Scottish Business Resilience Centre has enlisted Check Point as the first security supplier to join its incident response partnership programme

• January 31, 2021 31 Jan'21

  Indian firms see growing value of data

  Half of Indian IT leaders see a permanent increase in value of data as their organisations come under threat from mounting cyber attacks amid the pandemic

• January 29, 2021 29 Jan'21

  Hunting and anti-hunting groups locked in tit-for-tat row over data gathering

  The leaking of internal documents has prompted a row between pro- and anti-hunting groups about the legality of the other’s data collection practices

• January 29, 2021 29 Jan'21

  Revealed: Brits who fuelled ‘vicious’ conspiracy theory by Trump supporters

  Trump supporters have apologised and paid millions in damages to the family of murdered Democratic Party staffer Seth Rich for promoting false allegations that Rich – not Russian agents – stole emails from the Democratic National Committee

• January 29, 2021 29 Jan'21

  Manufacturing particularly at risk of Solorigate-linked breaches

  Every fifth victim of the SolarWinds Solorigate/Sunburst attack was a manufacturing organisation, say researchers

• January 29, 2021 29 Jan'21

  Human factor dominates Australia’s latest data breach numbers

  The number of data breaches resulting from human error increased by 18% in the second half of 2020, according to Australian government’s latest notifiable data breaches report

• January 28, 2021 28 Jan'21

  End of Emotet: A blow to cyber crime, but don’t drop your guard

  The takedown of Emotet is a huge event with repercussions that will reverberate across the cyber criminal world, but unfortunately that’s not to say there will be much of a long-term impact

• January 27, 2021 27 Jan'21

  Mimecast breach was work of SolarWinds attackers

  Mimecast’s investigation into a January 2021 breach of its systems turns up evidence that the culprit was the same group that targeted SolarWinds in December

• January 27, 2021 27 Jan'21

  Emotet botnet goes offline as cops seize servers

  The Emotet botnet has been disrupted and knocked offline after a major international effort by law enforcement

• January 27, 2021 27 Jan'21

  Emergency Apple updates patch exploited zero-days

  Three vulnerabilities could give attackers full control of their target Apple devices, and must be patched immediately

• January 26, 2021 26 Jan'21

  North Korean state attacks legitimate security researchers

  Threat researchers specialising in vulnerability research and development appear to be being targeted by a North Korean state-backed group

• January 26, 2021 26 Jan'21

  Saudi IT spending to hit $11bn in 2021

  Saudi Arabian organisations will spend about $11bn on IT this year, with emerging technologies high on shopping lists

• January 26, 2021 26 Jan'21

  Cyber fraud a national security issue, says Rusi report

  A report from the Rusi think tank calls for fresh approaches to how we think about fighting fraud

• January 25, 2021 25 Jan'21

  Cracking the message in a bottle

  Between 2016 and 2019, a number of bottles washed ashore in Hamburg, each containing an ‘uncrackable’ message

• January 25, 2021 25 Jan'21

  Are banks overburdened with responsibility for money lost to online scams?

  Bank boss calls for cross-industry cooperation to reduce scams that trick people into making instant payments online

• January 22, 2021 22 Jan'21

  Sepa data leaks as agency resists ransom demands

  The Scottish Environment Protection Agency is resisting extortion demands from a ransomware gang, but has suffered a data leak in retaliation

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Hackney Council tenders for cyber security upgrade

  Suppliers are being invited to tender for enhanced cyber security capabilities at ransomware victim Hackney Council

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Gamarue malware found on government-issued school laptops

  Devices handed out by the government to support vulnerable children contain malware that appears to be contacting C2 infrastructure in Russia

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Two-thirds of CISOs say they’ll be cyber attack victims this year

  Security professionals are ever alert to the threats they face, but some still seem to think it is unlikely they will be attacked

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Incompetent cyber criminals leak data in opsec failure

  Even cyber criminals need to pay attention to their information security posture, as this cautionary tale uncovered by Check Point reveals

• January 20, 2021 20 Jan'21

  Should I be worried about MFA-bypassing pass-the-cookie attacks?

  Malicious actors bypassed multi-factor authentication using so-called pass-the-cookie attacks, but how worrying is this and what is the risk to organisations?

• January 20, 2021 20 Jan'21

  Malwarebytes also hit by SolarWinds attackers

  The nation state group that attacked SolarWinds in December got inside Malwarebytes by exploiting privileged access to its Microsoft Office 365 tenant, the firm reveals

• January 19, 2021 19 Jan'21

  Questions raised by New Zealand central bank boss, following cyber attack investigation

  The governor of New Zealand’s central bank said the organisation must answer questions about its security following a ‘significant’ attack

• January 19, 2021 19 Jan'21

  UK fraud agency deploys ArcGIS dashboard for data sharing

  The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau says it has achieved improved transparency with the public, as well as saving 3,500 staff hours and £100,000

• January 19, 2021 19 Jan'21

  Click fraud levels reach new heights in pandemic

  Small companies risk losing £10,000 a year, and enterprises as much as £520,000, to cyber criminals as click fraud volumes spike

• January 19, 2021 19 Jan'21

  Criminals fiddled stolen Covid-19 vaccine data to damage trust

  Malicious actors manipulated stolen Covid-19 data in a way clearly intended to damage public trust in vaccines, says the EMA

• January 19, 2021 19 Jan'21

  MAS offers guidance on mitigating supply chain threats

  Monetary Authority of Singapore revises its technology risk management guidelines to help the financial sector guard against supply chain attacks

• January 18, 2021 18 Jan'21

  Australians lost A$176m to scams in 2020

  Investment scams topped the list of scams, which grew by 23.1% in 2020 as criminals exploited human psychology using social engineering

• January 17, 2021 17 Jan'21

  NCSC CyberFirst Girls 2021 contest kicks off

  UK’s national cyber agency says it has already had hundreds of entrants in spite of the challenges presented by the pandemic

• January 15, 2021 15 Jan'21

  US cyber security agencies get $9bn in Biden plan

  New funding proposals come as US government reels from the impact of the December 2020 SolarWinds attack

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  Old, on-premise systems targeted in Hackney ransomware attack

  Council reveals some more insight into how the Pysa ransomware gang infiltrated its systems by exploiting legacy technology

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  APAC firms grapple with cyber security amid pandemic

  Some aspects of cyber security have taken a backseat as companies across the Asia-Pacific region rush to shore up their infrastructure to cope with the demands of remote work

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  Three-quarters of finance firms report more potentially criminal activity in their networks

  Fears of failing to comply with strict regulations grow as financial services firms identify more suspicious financial activity on their networks

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  World’s largest dark web market disrupted in major police operation

  Coordinated international operation including Europol and the UK’s National Crime Agency has successfully taken DarkMarket offline

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  Stolen Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine data leaked

  Data dump understood to include screenshots of emails, peer review information, PDFs and PowerPoint presentations

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  Critical zero-day features in first Patch Tuesday of 2021

  Microsoft releases fixes for 84 bugs on the first Patch Tuesday of 2021, including a critical zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Defender

• January 12, 2021 12 Jan'21

  Palo Alto Networks opens Australia cloud location

  The cyber security company’s Australia cloud location will address data localisation requirements amid growing adoption of cloud-based security services

• January 12, 2021 12 Jan'21

  Mimecast latest security firm to be compromised

  Users of a specific Mimecast certificate used to authenticate services to Microsoft Office 365 may be at risk of compromise in an attack that may relate to the ongoing SolarWinds incident

• January 12, 2021 12 Jan'21

  Parler collapse opens door to phishing attacks

  The shutdown of controversial social media site Parler, and the publication of huge amounts of user data scraped by ethical hackers, is giving cyber crime experts cause for concern

• January 12, 2021 12 Jan'21

  Early stage UK security startups face funding crisis

  Overall cyber security funding since the advent of the pandemic is well up, but investment is dominated by safe, later-stage firms while those raising capital for the first time fall away

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  New SolarWinds CEO sets out rescue plan

  Customers can expect to see more regular and thorough checks on SolarWinds products, alongside greater engagement with the security community

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  Kaspersky claims link between Solorigate and Kazuar backdoors

  Researchers say they have found specific code similarities between the Solorigate/Sunburst malware and the Kazuar backdoor, suggesting some relationship

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  New Zealand central bank IT system breached in cyber attack

  Bank is responding to a cyber attack after hackers breached the system of a third-party supplier

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Government use of 'general warrants' to authorise computer and phone hacking is unlawful

  A court has ruled that the security and intelligence services can no longer rely on ‘general warrants’ to authorise the hacking of large numbers of computers and phones belonging to UK citizens

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Which? online banking investigation reveals ‘worrying gaps’ in security

  Consumer rights organisation has ranked the security of UK online current account providers

• January 07, 2021 07 Jan'21

  Biden picks cyber veteran to reinvigorate security response

  Appointment of career intelligence operative Anne Neuberger signals refreshed security approach for the US government under Joe Biden's administration

• January 07, 2021 07 Jan'21

  Trump bans Chinese payment apps

  US president signs executive order banning the use of Chinese payments app, citing national security risks

• January 07, 2021 07 Jan'21

  Hackney Council data leaked by Pysa ransomware gang

  Council data stolen in October is leaked online in a double extortion attack

• January 06, 2021 06 Jan'21

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to remain in prison despite winning extradition battle

  Judge cites Assange’s support of NSA whistleblower as one of the reasons for him being at high risk of absconding. He will remain in Belmarsh prison until the US government completes its appeal

• January 06, 2021 06 Jan'21

  SolarWinds attack almost certainly work of Russian spooks

  Investigations into the far-reaching SolarWinds Solorigate attack did not let up during the holidays

• January 05, 2021 05 Jan'21

  Scammers impersonating the ACSC on the prowl

  The Australian Cyber Security Centre warns of scammers who are using its name to gain control of personal computers and trick users into revealing personal information