News

Hackers and cybercrime prevention

• October 24, 2022 24 Oct'22

  Complacency biggest cyber risk to UK plc, says ICO

  Information commissioner John Edwards warns against complacency as his office issues a multimillion-pound fine to a building company that failed to prevent a ransomware attack

• October 24, 2022 24 Oct'22

  Half of staff might quit after a cyber attack, report says

  Findings from a survey of CISOs, IT leaders and staffers reveal how experiencing a cyber incident may take a larger-than-thought toll on employee retention

• October 19, 2022 19 Oct'22

  Ransomware crews regrouping as LockBit rise continues

  Overall ransomware activity dropped off in the third quarter of 2022, but increasing attack volumes in September may herald a difficult few months ahead

• October 19, 2022 19 Oct'22

  Treat cyber crime as a ‘strategic threat’, UK businesses told

  The government’s new National Cyber Advisory Board aims to help elevate cyber discussion and spur action in the business community

• October 14, 2022 14 Oct'22

  Malicious WhatsApp add-on highlights risks of third-party mods

  Kaspersky researchers discovered a malicious version of a widely used WhatsApp messenger mod, highlighting the risks of using so-called mods

• October 14, 2022 14 Oct'22

  Annual costs of Hackney ransomware attack exceed £12m

  Hackney Council reveals new insight into the ongoing cost of a ransomware attack that devastated its systems two years ago

• October 14, 2022 14 Oct'22

  Advanced: Healthcare data was stolen in LockBit 3.0 attack

  Advanced has revealed a total of 16 of its health and social care sector customers had their data exfiltrated in a recent ransomware attack

• October 14, 2022 14 Oct'22

  Australia becoming hotbed for cyber attacks

  Research by Imperva shows an 81% increase in cyber security incidents in Australia between July 2021 and June 2022, including automated attacks that doubled in frequency

• October 13, 2022 13 Oct'22

  Cyber training firm KnowBe4 bought by private equity firm

  Acquisition of KnowBe4 supposedly reflects the success the company has seen since its spring 2021 IPO

• October 13, 2022 13 Oct'22

  Unsung Heroes Awards celebrate diversity in cyber community

  The seventh annual Security Serious Unsung Heroes Awards recognise those trying to improve diversity and mental health in cyber for the first time

• October 13, 2022 13 Oct'22

  Dutch influence standards for post-quantum cryptography

  Cryptology group at Dutch research institute is involved in the two primary algorithms of the next NIST portfolio comprising four new standards

• October 12, 2022 12 Oct'22

  French Supreme Court rejects EncroChat verdict after lawyers question secrecy over hacking operation

  France’s Supreme Court has sent a case back to the court of appeal after police failed to disclose technical details of EncroChat hacking operation

• October 10, 2022 10 Oct'22

  Ukraine and EU explore deeper cyber collaboration

  A Ukrainian delegation has met with officials from the EU’s ENISA cyber agency to explore deeper cooperation on cyber security issues

• October 07, 2022 07 Oct'22

  Australia to amend telecoms regulations following Optus breach

  Amendments to Australia’s telecoms regulations are in the works to temporarily allow sharing of individuals’ identifier information between telcos and financial institutions

• October 05, 2022 05 Oct'22

  Italian Supreme Court calls for prosecutors to disclose information on Sky ECC hacking operation

  Italy’s Supreme Court says Italian prosecutors and police should disclose information on how they obtained intercepted messages from the Sky ECC cryptophone network

• October 05, 2022 05 Oct'22

  Inside Dell Technologies’ zero-trust approach

  Dell Technologies’ zero-trust reference model starts with defining business controls and having a central control plane that manages all the security aspects of an organisation’s infrastructure

• October 04, 2022 04 Oct'22

  Tories to replace GDPR

  IT industry reacts to the government’s plan to replace the pan-European data protection regulation

• October 04, 2022 04 Oct'22

  France extradites Spanish EncroChat cryptophone distributors for complicity with organised crime

  Three phone sellers have been extradited from Spain to France to face charges that they were complicit in the activities of criminal EncroChat phone users  

• October 03, 2022 03 Oct'22

  Security regulation cuts online payment fraud at 73% of retailers

  New online payments security standard, Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), sees immediate fall in fraudulent payments to retailers

• September 29, 2022 29 Sep'22

  Five startups to join NCSC for Startups initiative

  The NCSC has invited five startups to join its NCSC for Startups programme to help the government with pressing cyber challenges facing the UK

• September 29, 2022 29 Sep'22

  Failure of Russia’s cyber attacks on Ukraine is most important lesson for NCSC

  Russia has so far failed in its attempts to destabilise Ukraine through cyber attacks due to strength of Ukrainian, security industry and international efforts

• September 29, 2022 29 Sep'22

  Optus breach casts spotlight on cyber resilience

  The massive data breach that affected more than 10 million Optus customers has cast the spotlight on API security and other factors that contribute to the cyber resilience of organisations in Australia

• September 28, 2022 28 Sep'22

  UK suffers third highest number of ransomware attacks globally

  Based on an analysis of around 5,000 ransomware incidents, NordLocker has found that UK businesses, and small businesses in particular, are a priority target for ransomware gangs

• September 28, 2022 28 Sep'22

  Data protection in Finland, four years after GDPR came into force

  Data privacy has always been a big concern in Finland, so the country naturally has a lot to say about the General Data Protection Regulation four years on

• September 28, 2022 28 Sep'22

  Most hackers exfiltrate data within five hours of gaining access

  Insights from more than 300 sanctioned adversaries, otherwise known as ‘ethical’ hackers, reveal that around two-thirds are able to collect and exfiltrate data within just five hours of gaining access

• September 27, 2022 27 Sep'22

  Fraudsters adapt phishing scams to exploit cost-of-living crisis

  Around 80,000 Brits a month are falling victim to phishing attacks as fraudsters switch up tactics to take advantage of cost-of-living crisis and behavioural changes prompted by pandemic

• September 26, 2022 26 Sep'22

  Bank warns of spike in online cost-of-living scams

  Fraudsters are exploiting the cost-of-living crisis by tricking people into sending money to help friends and relatives pay bills, TSB has warned

• September 26, 2022 26 Sep'22

  How Russian intelligence hacked the encrypted emails of former MI6 boss Richard Dearlove

  Hack by Russian-linked ColdRiver group exposed former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove’s contacts and email communications with government, military, intelligence and political officials

• September 23, 2022 23 Sep'22

  Conversation between two police officers formed basis of EncroChat warrant, court hears

  The National Crime Agency did not seek a written explanation of a French hacking technique before applying for a surveillance warrant to use French “intercept” in the UK, a court heard

• September 23, 2022 23 Sep'22

  NCA ‘deliberately concealed’ information when it applied for EncroChat warrants, tribunal hears

  Investigatory Powers Tribunal hears that the National Crime Agency made ‘serious and fundamental errors’

• September 22, 2022 22 Sep'22

  Nordic private equity firms pursue cyber security acquisitions

  Increasing interest in the security sector from Nordic private equity firms is a reflection of growing threats and increasing enterprise security budgets

• September 22, 2022 22 Sep'22

  ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware family becoming more dangerous

  Researchers from Symantec share fresh insight into the ongoing development of the ransomware-as-a-service family known variously as ALPHV, BlackCat and Noberus

• September 21, 2022 21 Sep'22

  NCSC publishes cyber guidance for retailers

  The NCSC has published tailored advice to support online retailers, hospitality providers and utility services in protecting themselves and their customers from cyber crime

• September 21, 2022 21 Sep'22

  ANZ organisations using antiquated backup and recovery systems

  Nearly half of ANZ organisations are still using backup and recovery systems from over a decade ago, hampering their ability to protect their data assets and recover from ransomware attacks

• September 20, 2022 20 Sep'22

  Thousands of customers affected in Revolut data breach

  Digital challenger bank has warned its customers to be vigilant after their data was exposed in a cyber attack

• September 20, 2022 20 Sep'22

  IHG attackers phished employee to deploy destructive wiper

  A couple from Vietnam who claim to be behind a destructive wiper cyber attack on hotel operator IHG told the BBC how they orchestrated their operation

• September 20, 2022 20 Sep'22

  Reports Uber and Rockstar incidents work of same attacker

  Rockstar Games was hit over the weekend by an attacker who claimed to have accessed its Slack channel to steal data on an upcoming release, and may be the same person who compromised Uber

• September 16, 2022 16 Sep'22

  Uber suffers major cyber attack

  Details are trickling out of an apparent ‘near total’ compromise of ride-sharing service Uber by an alleged teenage hacktivist

• September 15, 2022 15 Sep'22

  Nominations closing soon for annual cyber awards

  Nominations for the annual Security Serious Unsung Heroes Awards closes 16 September

• September 15, 2022 15 Sep'22

  US charges three Iranians over CNI cyber attacks

  Three Iranian nationals have been indicted over a spate of ransomware attacks against organisations in the US, UK, Israel and Iran

• September 14, 2022 14 Sep'22

  FormBook knocks Emotet off top of malware chart

  FormBook emerged as the most widely seen malware in August, according to Check Point’s latest data

• September 14, 2022 14 Sep'22

  Ex-CISA head Krebs: Disrupt ransomware support networks to win the war

  Speaking at an event hosted by data protection specialist Rubrik, former CISA director Chris Krebs calls for the security community to work collectively to kick out the supports from under ransomware gangs

• September 14, 2022 14 Sep'22

  NCSC warns public of potential Queen-related phishing attacks

  The National Cyber Security Centre is urging users to be on guard against phishing attacks during the period of national mourning for the Queen

• September 14, 2022 14 Sep'22

  DDoS attacks on UK financial sector surged during Ukraine war

  A quarter of cyber security incidents reported to the Financial Conduct Authority in the first six months of 2022 involved DDoS, with a likely link to events in Ukraine

• September 13, 2022 13 Sep'22

  Cisco confirms leaked data was stolen in Yanluowang ransomware hit

  Cisco has confirmed that data leaked last week by the Yanluowang ransomware gang was that stolen during a May 2022 cyber attack

• September 13, 2022 13 Sep'22

  Multi-persona impersonation adds new dimension to phishing

  Iranian APT used multiple personas on a single email thread to convince targets of the legitimacy of its phishing lures

• September 12, 2022 12 Sep'22

  Mandiant floats off into Google Cloud

  As planned, the acquisition of Mandiant will see the threat intel and incident response giant become a part of Google’s Cloud business

• September 12, 2022 12 Sep'22

  CISOs should spend on critical apps, cloud, zero-trust, in 2023

  Faced with a global recession next year, security buyers should try to direct investment towards technology that protects customer-facing and revenue-generating workloads, say analysts

• September 08, 2022 08 Sep'22

  NCSC CyberUK event heads to Belfast in 2023

  National Cyber Security Centre’s annual CyberUK roadshow is crossing the Irish Sea to Belfast in April 2023

• September 08, 2022 08 Sep'22

  Chinese APT using PlugX malware on espionage targets

  China’s Bronze President APT is once again targeting government officials of interest to its paymasters, this time using forged diplomatic correspondence, according to the Secureworks Counter Threat Unit