News

Hackers and cybercrime prevention

• 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