News

Hackers and cybercrime prevention

• August 03, 2023 03 Aug'23

  Cozy Bear hijacks SME Microsoft 365 tenants in latest campaign

  Microsoft shares intelligence on a newly observed Cozy Bear campaign that saw the APT take over genuine Microsoft 365 tenants and subvert them to try to phish its victims

• August 03, 2023 03 Aug'23

  Microsoft attacked over ‘grossly irresponsible’ security practice

  The CEO of Tenable has launched a scathing attack on Microsoft, asserting that the organisation is deliberately keeping its Azure cloud customers in the dark about dangerous vulnerabilities and accusing it of a culture of ‘toxic obfuscation’

• August 02, 2023 02 Aug'23

  Pig butchers caught using ChatGPT to con victims

  Romance scammers looking to con people out of their savings appear to be turning to generative AI tools to save time and effort

• August 02, 2023 02 Aug'23

  Ivanti MDM users told to patch against two dangerous flaws

  Users of Ivanti’s mobile device management platform have been warned to act now to patch two vulnerabilities that were chained by a threat actor in a series of cyber attacks on the Norwegian government

• July 28, 2023 28 Jul'23

  Scottish university hit by Rhysida ransomware gang

  Data allegedly stolen from the University of Western Scotland has been put up for sale on the dark web by a ransomware gang going by the name Rhysida

• July 28, 2023 28 Jul'23

  How Indian organisations are keeping pace with cyber security

  Indian organisations are shoring up their defences to improve their cyber resilience amid intensifying cyber threats targeted at key sectors such as healthcare and logistics

• July 27, 2023 27 Jul'23

  Cyber criminals pivot away from ransomware encryption

  Cyber breaches that saw data theft and extortion without an encryption or ransomware component account for more and more incidents, in a possible indication that ransomware gangs are changing up their business models

• July 26, 2023 26 Jul'23

  Cyber attack on IT supplier hits two major ambulance trusts

  Ambulance trusts serving millions across southern England have been hamstrung for the past week after a cyber attack took down their hosted patient records system

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  CIO interview: Sean Green, University of East Anglia

  In his role as director of digital and data at the University of East Anglia, Sean Green provides high-performance computing to researchers and manages the diverse needs of a campus with the characteristics of a small town, all while finding the ...

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  Citrix NetScaler users told to patch new zero-day urgently

  A vulnerability disclosed and patched last week by Citrix appears to be being exploited by China-backed threat actors as a zero-day, prompting warnings from government cyber bodies

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  Security AI and automation may reduce cost of data breaches

  Organisations that go all in on security AI and automation tend to incur lower financial costs when they experience a data breach incident, according to an IBM report

• July 21, 2023 21 Jul'23

  Government boosts protection for encryption in Online Safety Bill but civil society groups concerned

  House of Lords adopts amendment to require Ofcom to commission a report before requiring technology companies to scan encrypted messages, but drops proposals for judicial oversight

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  Renowned hacker and social engineer Kevin Mitnick dead at 59

  Famed hacker and social engineer Kevin Mitnick, who was at one time one of the most wanted cyber criminals in the world, has died peacefully at the age of 59 from complications arising from pancreatic cancer, following a 14-month illness

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  How the DSMA balances security and privacy with press freedom

  In a world of information sharing and 24-hour news cycles, the Defence and Security Media Advisory committee have to balance national security and data privacy with freedom of the press

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  Attention-seeking KillNet hacktivists becoming more dangerous

  The KillNet DDoS gang seems to be becoming more dangerous, but its primary goal remains to create a lot of noise and draw media attention, according to latest analysis

• July 19, 2023 19 Jul'23

  BlackCat and Clop gangs both claim cyber attack on Estée Lauder

  Cosmetics conglomerate Estée Lauder is experiencing operational disruption in the wake of a cyber attack that seems to involve two different cyber crime gangs

• July 19, 2023 19 Jul'23

  Cyber criminal AI tool WormGPT produces ‘unsettling’ results

  A newly discovered generative AI tool dubbed WormGPT is being sold to the cyber criminal underground via the dark web, and poses a significant danger, researchers warn

• July 18, 2023 18 Jul'23

  NATO membership to drive Nordic cyber security sector growth

  The Nordic cyber security sector will see increasing demand as Finland and Sweden joint NATO

• July 18, 2023 18 Jul'23

  Critical Adobe ColdFusion flaws chained in ongoing cyber attacks

  Two vulnerabilities in Adobe ColdFusion have been chained by threat actors to target victim systems, apparently after one of them was accidentally disclosed

• July 13, 2023 13 Jul'23

  Microsoft issues new warning over Chinese cyber espionage

  A newly uncovered Chinese espionage campaign exploited forged authentication tokens to access its victims’ email accounts, says Microsoft

• July 13, 2023 13 Jul'23

  One month after MOVEit: New vulnerabilities found as more victims are named

  Five weeks after the mass MOVEit breach, new vulnerabilities in the file transfer tool are coming to light as the Clop cyber crime group continues to terrorise victims. But has the gang bitten off more than it can chew?

• July 12, 2023 12 Jul'23

  Forensic Institute provides Hansken viewing method for Dutch lawyers

  Dutch lawyers can now view crypto communication in criminal cases from their own workplace via digital search engine Hansken. Previously, this had to be done at an external location

• July 12, 2023 12 Jul'23

  Cozy Bear lures victims with used BMW 5 Series

  A recent Cozy Bear campaign saw the Russian APT group pivot to exploiting an advert for a used car as it targeted diplomatic missions in Kyiv

• July 12, 2023 12 Jul'23

  Hackers: We won’t let artificial intelligence get the better of us

  AI is changing how ethical hackers go about their work, and will continue to do so, but the community is convinced the technology will never be able to replicate the creativity of a flesh-and-blood hacker

• July 12, 2023 12 Jul'23

  Microsoft users on high alert over dangerous RCE zero-day

  A serious RCE vulnerability in Microsoft Office and Windows is among several zero-days disclosed in Redmond’s July Patch Tuesday update, but this one does not have a patch yet

• July 11, 2023 11 Jul'23

  Malicious URL volumes soar as cyber criminals pull on Threads

  Malicious actors have been quick to exploit the buzz around Meta’s newly launched Threads platform, with thousands of new suspicious domains registered exploiting its branding

• July 07, 2023 07 Jul'23

  Suspicious email reported every five seconds in UK

  National Cyber Security Centre report reveals a suspicious email was reported by UK citizens and organisations every five seconds last year

• July 06, 2023 06 Jul'23

  Vodafone tests quantum-safe business network solutions

  Telco announces initiative looking at transition to a quantum safe world, exploring and trialling new algorithms with upgraded smartphones to provide protection against possible quantum-empowered attackers in the future

• July 05, 2023 05 Jul'23

  Germany: European Court of Justice hears arguments on lawfulness of EncroChat cryptophone evidence

  The European Court of Justice will decide whether the collection and sharing of data intercepted by law enforcement from EncroChat crypto phone network is compatible with European law

• July 03, 2023 03 Jul'23

  Over half of ANZ organisations hit by ransomware

  Amid the rising ransomware threat, almost four in five organisations in ANZ expect to pay a ransom if they could recover data and business processes

• July 03, 2023 03 Jul'23

  BlackCat gang claims cyber attack on Barts NHS Trust

  Investigations continue into a claim by the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang that it has stolen 7TB of data from Barts NHS Trust in London

• June 30, 2023 30 Jun'23

  NHS data stolen in Manchester Uni ransomware attack

  The ransomware gang behind the cyber attack on the University of Manchester appears to have got its hands on an NHS dataset being used by the university for research purposes

• June 27, 2023 27 Jun'23

  Three years on, EncroChat cryptophone hack nets 6,500 arrests and seizures of €900m

  French and Dutch prosecutors say three years after they infiltrated the EncroChat cryptophone network in a novel hacking operation, Europe’s courts are opening the way for more collaboration and data sharing between law enforcement agencies

• June 27, 2023 27 Jun'23

  A tenth of kids claim they could hack you

  More and more young people are at risk of being drawn into cyber criminality, and parents must shoulder some of the blame, according to a report

• June 23, 2023 23 Jun'23

  Phishing and ransomware dominate Singapore’s cyber threat landscape

  Phishing and ransomware attacks continued apace in Singapore last year amid signs of improving cyber hygiene

• June 22, 2023 22 Jun'23

  Manchester University students threatened by ransomware gang

  Students and staff members at the University of Manchester are being pressurised by an unnamed ransomware gang

• June 21, 2023 21 Jun'23

  Nearly quarter of a million malicious websites reported and removed through NCSC service

  A suspicious email and text message reporting service in the UK has directly led to a quarter of a million malicious websites being removed

• June 21, 2023 21 Jun'23

  The security interviews: Exploiting AI for good and for bad

  The chief product officer of AI security firm Darktrace explains how large language AI models are making it harder for people to spot email attacks

• June 19, 2023 19 Jun'23

  Prime minister Rishi Sunak faces pressure from banks to force tech firms to pay for online fraud

  The UK’s major banks have told the prime minister to force tech firms to do more to prevent fraud that the banks end up paying for

• June 19, 2023 19 Jun'23

  How Fastly thinks differently about CDNs and the edge

  Fastly is counting on its developer chops and different approaches towards security and other areas to compete with its rivals

• June 19, 2023 19 Jun'23

  Early June Microsoft outages were result of large-scale DDoS hit

  Investigations into recent outages on Microsoft Azure and Outlook services have turned up evidence of a massive distributed denial-of-service attack

• June 19, 2023 19 Jun'23

  UK to contribute up to £25m to Ukraine cyber defences

  Prime minister Rishi Sunak announces an expansion to the Ukraine Cyber Programme, with a cash boost of up to £25m over the next two years

• June 15, 2023 15 Jun'23

  Exploitation of Barracuda ESG appliances linked to Chinese spies

  Intelligence from Mandiant links exploitation of a flaw in a subset of Barracuda ESG appliances to a previously untracked China-nexus threat actor

• June 15, 2023 15 Jun'23

  NCSC warns over ‘enduring’ LockBit threat

  Although its activity volumes have been lower of late, LockBit is still a highly dangerous ransomware gang and is now the subject of a new international cyber advisory

• June 15, 2023 15 Jun'23

  Clop begins naming alleged MOVEit victims

  Clop uploaded details of 12 new victims to its dark web leak site late on 14 June, many of them likely linked to the ongoing MOVEit cyber attack

• June 14, 2023 14 Jun'23

  Ransomware-stricken Capita to run Action Fraud successor

  A £50m deal to replace the Action Fraud service has been handed to PwC and Capita, which is facing investigations over its handling of customer data in a ransomware incident

• June 14, 2023 14 Jun'23

  No zero-days for June Patch Tuesday, but plenty to chew over

  On the face of it, Microsoft’s monthly round of updates is a lighter-than-usual load for security teams, with no zero-days in evidence, but there are still plenty of issues needing attention

• June 14, 2023 14 Jun'23

  TSB calls on Meta to intervene and protect users from fraud losses of £250m this year

  TSB is the latest bank to demand more action from social media sector in helping to reduce online fraud

• June 14, 2023 14 Jun'23

  Clop’s MOVEit ransom deadline expires

  A seven-day deadline set by Clop for victims of its latest attack to contact it to arrange payment passes today

• June 14, 2023 14 Jun'23

  Cyber attacks against APAC commerce sector surpass 1.1 billion

  Retailers, hotels and travel-related organisations in the region saw over a billion cyber attacks last year amid the surge in e-commerce activity and online travel bookings