News

Hackers and cybercrime prevention

• November 13, 2020 13 Nov'20

  Ticketmaster fined £1.25m by ICO for failing to protect customer data

  Ticket website’s customer data was exposed through an attack on a third-party chatbot

• November 12, 2020 12 Nov'20

  Online kids’ game Animal Jam confirms large breach

  Cyber criminals have stolen data on 46 million Animal Jam player accounts via a third-party attack

• November 12, 2020 12 Nov'20

  Company accused of spying on Assange acted for Ecuadorian Intelligence, says ex UC Global manager

  Former operations chief of UC Global told Spanish Court the company accused of spying on Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London was acting on the orders of Ecuadorian Intelligence

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  Security pros coped admirably with remote working transition

  Despite facing tight timescales at the onset of the pandemic, security professionals have come through the transition to remote working remarkably well, according to a report

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  Microsoft drops fix for serious zero-day among 112 Patch Tuesday updates

  November’s Patch Tuesday contains fixes for 112 bugs, including a potentially serious zero-day exploit that malicious actors are already taking advantage of

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  EU aid funds used to train ‘unaccountable intelligence agencies’ in high-tech surveillance

  Hundreds of documents obtained by campaign group Privacy International show how the EU is supporting surveillance programmes in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Intel and AMD processors affected by another side-channel exploit

  Two years after Spectre and Meltdown, the x86 processor faces another side-channel exploit – only this time, it is based on sensing temperature

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Leaky AWS S3 bucket once again at centre of data breach

  Prestige Software exposed millions of records after failing to pay attention to the security of its cloud instances

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  IT Priorities 2020: After Covid-19, security goes back to basics

  This year’s transition to remote working highlighted big gaps in the fundamentals of security, as updated TechTarget/Computer Weekly data reveals

• November 09, 2020 09 Nov'20

  EU moves closer to encryption ban after Austria, France attacks

  Draft resolution document setting up an EU-wide ban on end-to-end encryption is set to be waved through this week

• November 06, 2020 06 Nov'20

  NHS warned over Ryuk spreading through Trickbot replacements

  NHS Digital tells healthcare organisations to be mindful of a marked rise in usage of the Bazar and Buer loaders

• November 05, 2020 05 Nov'20

  Consumer rights organisation warns of computer takeover scams

  Consumers warned to be on guard against criminals pretending to be IT support staff to gain access to personal banking information

• November 05, 2020 05 Nov'20

  Singapore government rolls out digital signature service

  Individuals and businesses will soon be able to sign documents digitally using a new service on the Singapore government’s SingPass digital identity platform

• November 04, 2020 04 Nov'20

  EU to introduce data-sharing measures with US in weeks

  The European Commission is to issue updated standard contractual clauses (SCCs) that will allow organisations in the EU to exchange data with the US, but they may arrive too late to incorporate into UK law

• November 04, 2020 04 Nov'20

  India and Japan report stronger concern over cyber threats

  Security operations teams in the two Asian giants see the increased volume of cyber threats as their biggest challenge amid the Covid-19 pandemic

• November 02, 2020 02 Nov'20

  NHS weathers cyber crime storm during pandemic, says NCSC

  The NCSC dealt with over 700 incidents in the 12 months to August 2020, with over 200 specifically related to Covid-19, and the NHS a critical area of focus

• November 02, 2020 02 Nov'20

  Maze ransomware shuts down with bizarre announcement

  The operators of Maze announce they are shutting down, and claim their crime spree was merely intended to demonstrate lax security at their targets

• October 30, 2020 30 Oct'20

  Accidental heroes: How one scaleup pivoted to cyber

  Simeon Quarrie designed his business using virtual reality and interactivity as a tool to tell stories that effect cultural change in enterprise environments – then a cyber criminal emptied his bank account

• October 30, 2020 30 Oct'20

  ICO slashes Marriott breach fine to £18.4m

  Reduced fine reflects both improvements made to hotel group’s cyber security and impact of coronavirus on the travel and hospitality sector

• October 29, 2020 29 Oct'20

  Surge in Ryuk ransomware attacks has hospitals on alert

  Russian cyber criminals are conducting a targeted campaign against hospitals with Ryuk ransomware

• October 28, 2020 28 Oct'20

  Trump supporters targeted by cryptocurrency scammers

  The successful breach of Donald Trump’s official website shows up lax security on his campaign team and is yet another timely warning that nobody is immune to cyber crime

• October 28, 2020 28 Oct'20

  Finnish therapy centre accused of covering up cyber attack

  Private therapy practice Vastaamo faces questions over its security and business practices in the months leading up to one of the biggest data breaches in Finland’s history

• October 28, 2020 28 Oct'20

  Privacy and online safety are focus of new UKRI research funding

  Online safety research centre of excellence will look into technology to boost privacy and tackle disinformation, fake news, conspiracies and other online harms

• October 27, 2020 27 Oct'20

  Calls for clarity over Amazon insider breach

  Security experts call for more clarity from Amazon over an apparent leak of customer data

• October 27, 2020 27 Oct'20

  Sopra Steria hit by new version of Ryuk ransomware

  IT services company Sopra Steria says it has contained the ransomware virus, but systems will take a few weeks to be fully operational

• October 27, 2020 27 Oct'20

  APAC CISOs warm up to zero trust

  Security leaders in Asia-Pacific are adopting zero-trust security, but challenges stand in their way of reaping the full potential of the security model

• October 26, 2020 26 Oct'20

  Highly unusual hacking attack directly threatens therapy patients

  A hacker has directly contacted therapy patients to say their highly personal therapy notes will be put on the internet unless they pay the ransom

• October 26, 2020 26 Oct'20

  Cooperation between Norway’s security agencies planned following cyber attack on parliament

  Government seeks to develop enhanced national IT infrastructure with an embedded early warning system and defence shield to protect the IT systems of public and private organisations

• October 23, 2020 23 Oct'20

  Cyber attack on Hackney Council is ‘morally repugnant’, says mayor

  Mayor of Hackney is ‘incredibly angry’ at the cyber criminals behind the attack, which will continue to disrupt key council services for some time

• October 21, 2020 21 Oct'20

  NSA’s top CVE list a timely reminder to patch

  Many of the CVEs detailed on the NSA’s top 25 chart are golden oldies

• October 21, 2020 21 Oct'20

  Charities warned over ‘Robin Hood’ cyber criminals

  Accepting donations from cyber criminal groups could be deemed as profiting from crime, money laundering or handling stolen goods – so don’t do it

• October 21, 2020 21 Oct'20

  Trump and Biden campaign apps easy targets for cyber criminals

  You don’t need a stellar IQ to exploit the dangerous StrandHogg Android vulnerability, and users of both Donald Trump’s and Joe Biden’s mobile apps are at risk of falling victim to it

• October 21, 2020 21 Oct'20

  Customer loyalty accounts in danger from cyber criminals

  Billions of credential stuffing attacks are harvesting valuable customer data for the dark web economy

• October 21, 2020 21 Oct'20

  Retailers get access to new security toolkit

  The British Retail Consortium has worked with the NCSC to develop a new cyber security toolkit pitched at retailers

• October 20, 2020 20 Oct'20

  Hackney Council services to be disrupted ‘for some time’

  Inability to make housing benefit payments is likely to sting some tenants as Hackney cyber attack drags on

• October 20, 2020 20 Oct'20

  Resilient Trickbot down but not yet knocked out

  Global, Microsoft-led effort to disrupt the Trickbot botnet has seen some success, but new command and control servers continue to pop up

• October 20, 2020 20 Oct'20

  Six Russians charged over NotPetya and other attacks

  Six members of the APT group known as Sandworm have been charged in the US over a series of attacks including the destructive NotPetya incident

• October 16, 2020 16 Oct'20

  BA argues ICO data breach fine down to £20m

  Information Commissioner’s Office levies fine of £20m on British Airways for failing to protect the personal data of hundreds of thousands of passengers – a vast reduction on the initial £183m penalty

• October 16, 2020 16 Oct'20

  Spanish court to question witnesses over ‘illegal surveillance’ of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

  The Spanish National Court in Madrid is to hear evidence from information security expert Andy Müller-Maguhn and two lawyers who were subject to ‘illegal surveillance’  of their meetings with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London

• October 15, 2020 15 Oct'20

  Arrests and indictments made in cyber money laundering ring

  The NCA has revealed six men were arrested in the UK as part of an international investigation into a money laundering network which handled transactions for some of the world’s most prolific cyber criminal groups

• October 15, 2020 15 Oct'20

  Cloud data protection keeps the Crick’s medical research Covid-secure

  Cloud data management services from Rubrik gave the Francis Crick Institute a data protection edge and have helped keep its vital work going through the pandemic

• October 15, 2020 15 Oct'20

  Hackney services still offline in ongoing cyber attack

  Services remain disrupted two days after council was hit by a serious incident, as residents are warned to be on their guard

• October 14, 2020 14 Oct'20

  US Elections: Malicious internet domains spike as campaigns heat up

  Internet domains related to the US presidential election are 56% more likely to be malicious than regular ones

• October 13, 2020 13 Oct'20

  Hackney Council services offline after ‘serious’ cyber attack

  Services to residents of the London borough of Hackney are being disrupted by a cyber attack

• October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20

  Trickbot forced offline in major cyber security victory

  Coalition led by Microsoft obtained a court order enabling them to take down the infamous Trickbot botnet’s back-end server infrastructure

• October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20

  Cyber security skills ad branded ‘crass’ by minister

  Security skills campaign advert depicting a ballet dancer comes in for criticism as the arts sector struggles in the pandemic

• October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20

  Software AG caught in double extortion ransomware hit

  Data stolen from prominent German software company by Clop ransomware gang appears on the dark web

• October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20

  Making sense of zero-trust security

  Implementing zero-trust security is not an easy feat, but enterprises can still get it right if they approach it from a process perspective and get a handle on their infrastructure footprint

• October 09, 2020 09 Oct'20

  Magecart strikes website of school payments service Wisepay

  Magecart credit card skimmer harvested financial data of users of Wisepay’s platform over a two-day period

• October 08, 2020 08 Oct'20

  NCSC relaunches SME security guide with home working focus

  The NCSC is issuing an updated version of its guide to security for SMEs, reflecting the long-lasting changes to the world of work seen in 2020