News

Hackers and cybercrime prevention

• September 19, 2023 19 Sep'23

  New revelations from the Snowden archive surface

  A decade after Snowden exposed NSA’s mass surveillance in cooperation with the British GCHQ, only about 1% of the documents have been published – but three major facts can finally be revealed thanks to a doctoral thesis in applied cryptography by ...

• September 19, 2023 19 Sep'23

  Okta confirms link to cyber attacks on Las Vegas casinos

  Okta CISO David Bradbury confirms widespread speculation about the high-profile cyber attacks on two Las Vegas casino operators, revealing that the threat actors responsible had indeed abused its services as they earlier claimed

• September 18, 2023 18 Sep'23

  Unregulated DeFi services abused in latest pig butchering twist

  Pig butchering scammers are taking advantage of the unregulated nature of DeFi crypto trading apps to siphon off even more money from their victims, according to the latest findings of an ongoing investigation

• September 18, 2023 18 Sep'23

  Government seeks industry views on cyber threat to UK CNI

  The Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee is seeking evidence from the cyber sector as it launches an inquiry into the resilience of the UK's critical national infrastructure

• September 15, 2023 15 Sep'23

  Las Vegas mainstay Caesars Palace likely paid off ransomware crew

  Caesars Entertainment, owner of the lavish Roman Empire-themed Caesars Palace casino in Las Vegas, has revealed it also suffered a ransomware attack, and appears to have paid off its hackers

• September 15, 2023 15 Sep'23

  Manchester police data breach a classic supply chain incident

  The developing data breach at Greater Manchester Police follows a cyber attack on the systems of a key supplier of ID services to the force

• September 14, 2023 14 Sep'23

  Data on over 3,000 Airbus suppliers leaked after breach

  An emergent threat actor has leaked details of multiple sensitive Airbus suppliers after claiming to have accessed the firm’s systems having hacked customer Turkish Airlines

• September 14, 2023 14 Sep'23

  BlackCat on the hook for cyber attack that crippled Vegas casinos

  The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware operation claimed responsibility for an attack that forced MGM Resorts to shut down systems at some of Las Vegas’ most popular gambling venues

• September 14, 2023 14 Sep'23

  Google, Microsoft and Mozilla push browser updates to foil zero-day

  A zero-day in Google’s Chrome browser was first reported by surveillance researchers at The Citizen Lab and Apple, but also affects other browsers

• September 14, 2023 14 Sep'23

  As vehicle safety regulations loom, carmakers fret over cyber risks

  Global, UN-backed car safety and security regulations come into force next year, and automotive bosses say they are not only unprepared, but “swamped” by a tide of compliance and security risks

• September 13, 2023 13 Sep'23

  GCHQ breached privacy rights of IT professional and security researcher, human rights court rules

  The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg finds UK intelligence services breached the privacy rights of two overseas nationals – an IT professional and a security researcher

• September 13, 2023 13 Sep'23

  BianLian ransomware gang holds Save the Children hostage

  The dangerous and prolific BianLian ransomware gang claims to have stolen almost 7TB of data from NGO Save the Children, but thankfully the charity’s vital work on the ground appears to be unaffected

• September 13, 2023 13 Sep'23

  Storm-0324 gathers over Microsoft Teams

  An initial access broker associated with several different ransomware operations is now conducting Microsoft Teams phishing attacks

• September 13, 2023 13 Sep'23

  Patch Tuesday: Microsoft fixes zero-days in Word and Streaming Service

  September 2023 brings a light Patch Tuesday, with two zero-days and five critical vulnerabilities listed in the latest release

• September 13, 2023 13 Sep'23

  ExtraHop open sources 16 million rows of threat domain data

  NDR specialist ExtraHop says making its entire machine learning dataset available for anybody to view will help organisations better defend against cyber attacks originating from malicious domains generated by algorithms

• September 12, 2023 12 Sep'23

  US casino giant MGM Resorts battles 36-hour outage after cyber attack

  Multiple systems at US hotel and casino operator MGM went down in the wake of the incident on 10 September, crippling several of Las Vegas’ most prominent casinos

• September 12, 2023 12 Sep'23

  IT spending in Australia to grow 7.8% in 2024

  The growth will be led by investments in cyber security, cloud, analytics and application modernisation as Australian CIOs look to improve cost and operational efficiencies

• September 11, 2023 11 Sep'23

  Brits happy to break cyber law if the price is right

  A study conducted ahead of an upcoming security trade fair reveals a slim majority of Brits would come out in favour of offensive government security ops and even engage in cyber criminality themselves in the right circumstances

• September 11, 2023 11 Sep'23

  Professional ransomware gangs clearly a threat, but attacks can be easily stopped

  NCSC and NCA report reveals insight into business models and underpinnings of ransomware gangs and their affiliates, but also urges defenders to take heart, as stopping a ransomware attack is not that hard to do

• September 11, 2023 11 Sep'23

  Polish election questioned after Pegasus spyware used to smear opposition, investigation finds

  Senate committee alerts prosecutors over potential crimes by public officials involved in purchasing Pegasus spyware used to monitor and smear political opponents

• September 11, 2023 11 Sep'23

  Salesforce and Zoom embrace ethical hackers. You should, too

  Software companies Salesforce and Zoom discuss their successful bug bounty programmes, what they learned at a recent in-person hackathon in which they participated, and why others shouldn’t be scared of hackers

• September 08, 2023 08 Sep'23

  Apple patches Blastpass exploit abused by spyware makers

  Apple has patched two vulnerabilities that formed an exploit chain which has been allegedly abused by spyware company NSO

• September 08, 2023 08 Sep'23

  Deputy PM urges UK plc not to lose focus on cyber

  In a speech at TechUK, deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden urges the cyber security community not to lose focus, and to do more to further collaboration across sectors

• September 08, 2023 08 Sep'23

  North Koreans using new zero-day to target security researchers

  A threat actor linked to the North Korean government is continuing a long-running campaign targeting legitimate security researchers, using an as-yet undisclosed zero-day vulnerability to gain access to their victims

• September 07, 2023 07 Sep'23

  UK minister fails to reassure tech companies over encryption risk

  Technology companies say reassurances by government ministers that they have no intention of weakening end-to-end encrypted communication services do not go far enough

• September 07, 2023 07 Sep'23

  UK and US slap fresh sanctions on Conti ransomware crew

  London and Washington DC have imposed sanctions on 11 more members of the cyber criminal gang behind the Conti ransomware attacks

• September 07, 2023 07 Sep'23

  Microsoft finds Storm-0558 exploited crash dump to steal signing key

  Microsoft has published new information on how the Chinese state threat actor Storm-0558 was able to exploit a rare race condition following a crash dump in order to acquire a consumer signing key

• September 07, 2023 07 Sep'23

  Finnish government to bolster spending on cyber-AI defences

  Finland’s government will increase spending on cyber security amid heightened threats from artificial intelligence-based attacks

• September 06, 2023 06 Sep'23

  French supreme court dismisses legal challenge to EncroChat cryptophone evidence

  Defence lawyers plan to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights after the French supreme court disallowed an appeal over the legality of EncroChat evidence

• September 06, 2023 06 Sep'23

  German court unclear whether intercepted EncroChat cryptophone messages are legally admissible

  Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court is waiting to hear five complaints that could decide whether data from the hacked EncroChat phone network can be lawfully used in German courts, but situation remains unclear for now

• September 06, 2023 06 Sep'23

  Meet the professional BEC op that targeted Microsoft 365 users for years

  The so-called W3LL cyber crime operation ran a phishing empire that has played a large role in compromising Microsoft 365 accounts for years. Its activities are now coming to light thanks to Group-IB researchers

• September 06, 2023 06 Sep'23

  Okta customers targeted in new wave of social engineering attacks

  Authentication specialist Okta has warned customers to be on alert for a campaign of social engineering attacks exploiting highly privileged users

• September 05, 2023 05 Sep'23

  Hacked Electoral Commission failed Cyber Essentials audit

  The Electoral Commission failed an NCSC Cyber Essentials audit on multiple counts at about the same time as cyber criminals breached its systems in 2021, it has emerged

• September 05, 2023 05 Sep'23

  NCSC names ex-NCC man as new CTO

  New NCSC CTO Ollie Whitehouse joins from NCC Group, having also worked at BlackBerry and Symantec

• September 05, 2023 05 Sep'23

  Plymouth Uni spearheads research into wind farm cyber resilience

  Project hosted at the University of Plymouth in Devon aims to develop cyber security measures to protect the UK’s increasingly important offshore wind farm assets

• September 04, 2023 04 Sep'23

  LockBit ransomware gang allegedly leaks MoD data after hit on supplier

  The UK government appears to have become entangled in a LockBit ransomware attack after data was leaked from a third-party supplier online

• September 04, 2023 04 Sep'23

  How startup Once.net and Cloudflare secured the 2023 Eurovision vote

  When the Eurovision Song Contest introduced paid-for public voting from outside Europe in 2023, it faced new cyber challenges. Learn how Dutch startup Once.net and Cloudflare teamed up to secure and support the big night

• September 01, 2023 01 Sep'23

  Threat actors exploiting unpatched Juniper Networks devices

  A series of vulnerabilities in Juniper Networks firewalls and switches appear to be being exploited in the wild to enable remote code execution, with thousands of devices thought to be exposed

• August 31, 2023 31 Aug'23

  Sandworm attacks Ukraine with Infamous Chisel malware

  The UK and its allies have attributed a novel malware campaign against Ukrainian state targets to the Russian intelligence-backed Sandworm APT

• August 31, 2023 31 Aug'23

  Ducktail social media marketing malware rears its head again

  Use of the Ducktail infostealer, which first popped up in 2022 targeting Meta Business accounts, seems to be increasing

• August 30, 2023 30 Aug'23

  Cyber world hails downfall of Qakbot trojan

  A multinational law enforcement hacking operation disrupted the botnet infrastructure used to distribute the Qakbot trojan at the weekend, in a major setback for the cyber criminal underworld

• August 30, 2023 30 Aug'23

  NCSC warns over possible AI prompt injection attacks

  The UK’s NCSC says it sees alarming potential for so-called prompt injection attacks driven by the large language models that power AI chatbots

• August 29, 2023 29 Aug'23

  Zero-day that forced Barracuda users to bin kit was exploited by China

  Mandiant has published details of how a Chinese threat actor targeted high-profile users of Barracuda Networks' Email Security Gateway appliances, including government agencies of interest to Beijing's intelligence goals

• August 24, 2023 24 Aug'23

  Teenage Lapsus$ ringleader was responsible for crime spree, UK court rules

  A court has ruled that Arion Kurtaj, allegedly a key player in the Lapsus$ cyber extortion syndicate, was responsible for the group’s year-long campaign of cyber attacks

• August 23, 2023 23 Aug'23

  St Helens Council in Merseyside hit by ransomware attack

  St Helens Borough Council is investigating a suspected ransomware incident targeting its systems, and is advising residents to be on the alert for follow-on phishing attacks

• August 23, 2023 23 Aug'23

  Cyber attacks in 2023 develop quicker as average dwell times plummet

  The median attacker dwell time shrunk from 10 to eight days in the first seven months of 2023, and in the case of ransomware attacks it is down to just five days

• August 22, 2023 22 Aug'23

  Singapore to bolster OT security capabilities

  Cyber Security Agency of Singapore teams up with Dragos and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to bolster the country’s OT security capabilities

• August 22, 2023 22 Aug'23

  Clop’s MOVEit attacks drive ransomware volumes to record high

  Such has been the scope of Clop’s activity since May that ransomware attack volumes have more than doubled year on year, according to the latest data

• August 21, 2023 21 Aug'23

  Police worker could have put investigation into EncroChat encrypted phone network at risk

  A police intelligence analyst admitted tipping-off a criminal contact that police had infiltrated the EncroChat encrypted phone network

• August 21, 2023 21 Aug'23

  Cyber attack on Aussie energy services firm may hit UK CNI

  Energy One, an Australia-based supplier of tech services to the energy sector, is investigating the possibility that some UK customers may have been caught up in an ongoing cyber attack on its systems