News

Security policy and user awareness

• August 12, 2020 12 Aug'20

  How Dharma ransomware became an effective services business

  New research looks under the bonnet of a Dharma ransomware attack, with the ransomware's ease of use being particularly dangerous for small to medium-sized enterprises

• August 12, 2020 12 Aug'20

  Microsoft patches two zero-days with active exploits

  Microsoft drops another major Patch Tuesday update, including fixes for two zero-day exploits that are already being exploited by cyber criminals

• August 12, 2020 12 Aug'20

  Security training body Sans Institute hit by data breach

  Around 28,000 items of personally identifiable data were lost in a phishing attack on Sans, proving that even the professionals can be caught out

• August 11, 2020 11 Aug'20

  NHS hit by thousands of malicious emails at height of pandemic

  The NHS received nearly 30,000 malicious emails at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in March and April

• August 11, 2020 11 Aug'20

  Coronavirus: Phishing lures pivot to exploit vaccine hopes

  Phishing emails are increasingly luring in victims with subject lines relating to the development of a vaccine for Covid-19

• August 11, 2020 11 Aug'20

  Hospitality sector is failing on contact-tracing obligations

  Cyber security experts urge the government to do more to help small hospitality businesses improve their contact-tracing data-handling practices

• August 10, 2020 10 Aug'20

  Retailer Monsoon allegedly exposing data via Pulse Connect server

  A researcher has found a critically insecure Pulse Connect Secure VPN version belonging to UK retailer Monsoon Accessorize, but claims the firm is ignoring his disclosures

• August 10, 2020 10 Aug'20

  Security teams struggle to keep pace with cloud threats

  Security professionals face challenges in keeping pace with cloud deployments and migrations, and the additional security threats they open up

• August 07, 2020 07 Aug'20

  Virgin Media customers targeted in Twitter phish

  Customers seeking help from the ISP are being targeted by a scam Twitter account

• August 07, 2020 07 Aug'20

  TikTok to be banned in US in 45 days

  Trump says his Executive Orders against Chinese mobile apps are in the interests of dealing with a national emergency

• August 06, 2020 06 Aug'20

  Australia updates cyber security strategy but offers little new

  The nation’s latest cyber security strategy includes centralised management of networks and a voluntary code of practice for deploying internet-connected devices, among other areas

• August 06, 2020 06 Aug'20

  Qualcomm chip vulnerability puts millions of phones at risk

  Qualcomm has patched multiple vulnerabilities in its chip hardware that left hundreds of millions of smartphones open to compromise by malicious actors

• August 06, 2020 06 Aug'20

  Canon said to be latest Maze ransomware victim

  Canon may have had up to 10TB of its data exfiltrated by the Maze ransomware gang

• August 06, 2020 06 Aug'20

  GCHQ seeks researchers to tackle deep fakes and misinformation

  A GCHQ research fellowship based at its Manchester office will explore various national security priorities such as deep fakes, fake news and the impact of AI

• August 05, 2020 05 Aug'20

  Seven questions you need to ask when buying security insurance

  Find out what you need to ask to make an informed decision on cyber security insurance with new help from the UK’s NCSC

• August 05, 2020 05 Aug'20

  Second wave of Covid-19 cyber attacks locked in

  More cyber attacks exploiting the pandemic seem likely, says Interpol

• August 04, 2020 04 Aug'20

  Liam Fox hack raises questions over government security

  The hack of a former cabinet minister’s emails casts doubt over the effectiveness of safeguards and security training processes at the highest levels of the British government

• August 04, 2020 04 Aug'20

  New foundation to bolster security of open source software

  The Open Source Security Foundation will bring together key open source security initiatives across the industry to improve and support the security of open source software

• August 03, 2020 03 Aug'20

  Estonian police and border services need better IT to block criminals from becoming e-residents

  Police and Border Guard Board of Estonia needs to improve its IT systems to stop criminals from becoming e-residents, says report

• August 03, 2020 03 Aug'20

  Microsoft offers way out of TikTok impasse

  Microsoft offers to buy TikTok from its Chinese parent to ease security fears in the US

• August 02, 2020 02 Aug'20

  More data breaches from ransomware attacks in Australia

  The number of data breaches caused by ransomware rose to 33 in the first half of 2020 from 13 in the previous six-month period, according to the latest report from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

• July 31, 2020 31 Jul'20

  Labour Party is latest victim of Blackbaud ransomware attack

  Widening Blackbaud data breach ensnares the Labour Party as the cloud software firm continues to duck questions about its behaviour

• July 31, 2020 31 Jul'20

  Twitter confirms it was hit by targeted spearphishing attack

  Investigation into 15 July 2020 hack of a number of high-profile accounts by cryptocurrency scammers has found evidence of a targeted spearphishing incident

• July 31, 2020 31 Jul'20

  EU sanctions China and Russia over cyber attacks

  The EU is applying restrictive measure to six individuals and three entities accused of conducting disruptive cyber attacks in Europe, including the Russian GRU

• July 30, 2020 30 Jul'20

  List of Blackbaud breach victims tops 120

  More than 120 education and third-sector organisations may have had their data compromised through the breach of Blackbaud’s cloud platform

• July 29, 2020 29 Jul'20

  Serious BootHole vulnerability puts millions of systems at risk

  BootHole is a GRUB2 bootloader vulnerability and puts millions of PCs, servers and other devices at risk of compromise

• July 29, 2020 29 Jul'20

  Majority of organisations at risk of cloud data exposure

  Report casts doubt on the effectiveness of the shared responsibility model of cloud security

• July 28, 2020 28 Jul'20

  De Montfort, KCL, Newcastle universities join list of Blackbaud victims

  Embattled cloud services provider now has big questions to answer over its handling of data belonging to UK universities and charities

• July 28, 2020 28 Jul'20

  Garmin may have paid hackers ransom, reports suggest

  Garmin’s services are coming back online, but the company remains tight-lipped about what exactly happened to it

• July 28, 2020 28 Jul'20

  NCSC names national security expert Lindy Cameron as new CEO

  New National Cyber Security Centre head joins from the Northern Ireland Office and has spent 20 years in government at home and abroad

• July 28, 2020 28 Jul'20

  Scotland’s security resilience centre concept goes national

  Based on the success of the Scottish Business Resilience Centre, a series of regional Cyber Resilience Centres are now launching across the rest of the UK

• July 26, 2020 26 Jul'20

  Australia issues new cloud computing guidelines

  The new guidance, which comes after the expiry of the government’s cloud services certification programme, will help to bolster Australia’s cyber security resilience

• July 24, 2020 24 Jul'20

  Investment in neurodiverse talent a win-win for security

  Current careers guidance and recruitment processes for security jobs are not working for people with ADHD, autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia, but the problem is fixable with a little attention to detail

• July 24, 2020 24 Jul'20

  A question of trust: University and supplier on the hook for data breach

  Data on students at the University of York was stolen in a ransomware attack on a supplier two months ago, and the response of both parties raises serious questions

• July 22, 2020 22 Jul'20

  NCSC reveals scale of cyber attacks on UK sports industry

  The UK’s sports industry is under near constant cyber attack, according to new statistics from the National Cyber Security Centre

• July 22, 2020 22 Jul'20

  No let-up in cyber attacks as lockdown eases

  Cyber attacks are up by one-third as the coalescence of cyber activity and nation state-linked threats around the pandemic bears fruit for bad actors

• July 22, 2020 22 Jul'20

  US charges Chinese nationals with Covid-19 research hacking

  The two hackers allegedly worked with the Chinese Ministry of State Security, targeting intellectual property and confidential business information

• July 21, 2020 21 Jul'20

  Coronavirus: Government drags its feet on online misinformation

  Online misinformation about Covid-19 continues to spread unchecked, according to a DCMS committee report which has accused the government of dragging its feet over online harms

• July 21, 2020 21 Jul'20

  Russia Report reveals long-running cyber warfare campaign against UK

  Russia has been hacking the UK for years and the British government has also known about it for years, according to the Intelligence and Security Committee’s report

• July 21, 2020 21 Jul'20

  Australian industry panel calls for ‘clear consequences’ of cyber attacks

  A government-appointed panel recommends strong deterrence and other measures to be implemented in Australia’s next cyber security strategy

• July 20, 2020 20 Jul'20

  ICO hails transformative year as average fine trebles

  Information Commissioner’s Office annual report reflects on a busy period, during which it levied two of the largest fines so far seen under the GDPR

• July 20, 2020 20 Jul'20

  Businesses underestimate negative impact of bot traffic

  Research from Netacea finds that although awareness of malicious bot activity is high, many are underestimating its true impact

• July 20, 2020 20 Jul'20

  Test and Trace programme unlawful, admits government

  The Department of Health and Social Care failed in its legal obligation to complete a mandatory Data Protection Impact Assessment

• July 17, 2020 17 Jul'20

  Enterprises need to rethink how end-of-life equipment is dealt with

  Electronic waste is a massive and growing problem, but many companies are not recycling or reusing IT equipment, instead opting for physical destruction of the assets

• July 17, 2020 17 Jul'20

  Twitter hack fallout: Investigators on trail of cyber criminals

  Investigators are hunting the cyber criminals who broke into Twitter’s systems to hijack prominent accounts, amid concerns that more attacks may come

• July 16, 2020 16 Jul'20

  Russian state hackers attacking Covid-19 researchers

  Kremlin-linked APT29 group, also known as Cozy Bear, is conducting a campaign against Covid-19 researchers around the world

• July 16, 2020 16 Jul'20

  Bazar malware may be new tool in Trickbot arsenal

  Cybereason’s Nocturnus research team uncovers new Bazar malware, which shares some similarities with other varieties

• July 16, 2020 16 Jul'20

  Cryptocurrency scammers attack Twitter in insider breach

  Apparent insider breach at Twitter saw so-called “blue tick” accounts of business people, politicians and celebrities hijacked to promote a Bitcoin scam

• July 16, 2020 16 Jul'20

  Coronavirus shines spotlight on cyber security

  Programme committee chair of this year's RSA Conference Asia-Pacific and Japan talks up the challenges that IT security professionals in APAC are facing to mitigate security risks amid the Covid-19 pandemic

• July 15, 2020 15 Jul'20

  Government proposes IoT security enforcement body

  The government is today publishing new proposals concerning planned legislation that will protect users of smart IoT devices from cyber criminals

• July 15, 2020 15 Jul'20

  Patch Tuesday: Microsoft fixes 123 bugs in July 2020 update

  The bugs start coming and they don’t stop coming; Microsoft has issued yet another bumper Patch Tuesday update

• July 14, 2020 14 Jul'20

  Check Point unearths critical SigRed bug in Windows DNS

  SigRed vulnerability is highly dangerous, but is being fixed as part of the July 2020 Patch Tuesday update

• July 14, 2020 14 Jul'20

  CISOs undervalued, overworked, burning out, warns CIISec

  The vast majority of security professionals say they are under immense pressure, according to a report

• July 14, 2020 14 Jul'20

  ‘Name-and-shame’ ransomware attacks increasing in prevalence

  Since emerging at the tail-end of 2019, double extortion, or exfiltration and encryption, ransomware attacks have become highly popular, and now account for a significant number of incidents, according to Emsisoft research

• July 14, 2020 14 Jul'20

  Australian enterprises facing more cyber attacks

  The volume of cyber attacks in Australia jumped from 90% in October 2019 and 81% in February 2019, underscoring the worsening threat landscape in the country

• July 13, 2020 13 Jul'20

  NCSC launches pen testing service for remote workers

  An expansion to the successful Exercise in a Box toolkit will enable SMEs to probe the cyber security defences of remote workers

• July 13, 2020 13 Jul'20

  Zoom zero-day a reminder to stop using Windows 7

  Researchers have disclosed a newly discovered zero-day vulnerability to videoconferencing service Zoom, which only affects users of Windows 7 systems

• July 09, 2020 09 Jul'20

  HSBC customers targeted in new smishing scam

  SMS phishing scam is targeting HSBC customers in the UK to trick them into handing over their bank account details

• July 09, 2020 09 Jul'20

  Majority of security pros fed up with alert fatigue

  A vast majority of security professionals say they experience alert fatigue, and 88% are facing challenges with their current SIEM setup, according to a report

• July 09, 2020 09 Jul'20

  Clearview AI faces ICO investigation over facial recognition

  Controversial company that scraped data from the public internet to build its facial recognition algorithm faces a joint UK-Australian investigation into its practices

• July 09, 2020 09 Jul'20

  Most finance firms are multicloud, but many are unprepared for public cloud cyber attacks

  Financial services firms are moving to the cloud at pace, but many are uncertain whether they could cope with an attack on an application based in the public cloud

• July 09, 2020 09 Jul'20

  Pubs and restaurants failing on cyber fraud protection

  Virtually all of the UK’s most popular restaurant and pub brands are failing to proactively block fraudulent emails from reaching their targets

• July 08, 2020 08 Jul'20

  Political awareness needed to ethically handle migration data, panel claims

  Understanding the political, social and economic relationships between different groups in society is needed to ensure location data is not used in ways that further endanger already vulnerable people on the move

• July 08, 2020 08 Jul'20

  Use of spyware apps linked to domestic abuse soars in lockdown

  The rise in domestic violence during the pandemic has been linked to increase use of stalkerware apps by abusers

• July 08, 2020 08 Jul'20

  Cosmic Lynx cyber crime group takes BEC to new heights

  Newly identified Russian threat group targets large organisations with increasingly dangerous business email compromise attacks

• July 08, 2020 08 Jul'20

  Over 15 billion credentials for sale on dark web

  Research by Digital Shadows reveals the scale of the security threat facing consumers as it uncovers 15 billion usernames and passwords stolen in more than 100,000 different data breaches

• July 07, 2020 07 Jul'20

  Cyber4Summer scheme to divert young people from cyber crime

  Cyber4Summer platform will offer 100 different tracks covering a range of security skills to divert them from falling into a life of cyber crime

• July 06, 2020 06 Jul'20

  CIO interview: David Allison, global head of IT, First Quantum Minerals

  For his first global CIO role, the IT chief had to tackle unusual challenges such as reliable networking and IT use in inhospitable mining environments in developing countries

• July 03, 2020 03 Jul'20

  Chinese law may require companies to disclose cyber-security preparations outside China

  Companies with Chinese operations may have to disclose information about the security of their networks in other countries under China’s draft data security law

• July 02, 2020 02 Jul'20

  Locked-down teens flock to NCSC CyberFirst training scheme

  A record number of 14 to 17-year-olds have signed up to the National Cyber Security Centre’s CyberFirst summer school

• July 01, 2020 01 Jul'20

  UK’s unsung cyber security heroes sought

  Nominations have opened for the fifth annual Security Serious Unsung Heroes Awards

• July 01, 2020 01 Jul'20

  Zoom making progress on cyber security and privacy, says CEO

  Three months after being hit by a spate of security incidents, Zoom’s CEO, Eric Yuan, has been discussing progress towards a more secure product

• July 01, 2020 01 Jul'20

  Remote workers more aware of security, but still flout the rules

  Almost three-quarters of remote workers reckon they have gained in cyber security awareness during lockdown, but don’t seem to be especially bothered about keeping themselves safe

• July 01, 2020 01 Jul'20

  Mysterious EvilQuest macOS ransomware spreads through torrents

  A new strain of ransomware, dubbed EvilQuest, is threatening Apple Mac environments, and seems to behave quite oddly

• July 01, 2020 01 Jul'20

  FakeSpy Android malware targets Royal Mail app users

  The FakeSpy malware was first identified in October 2017 but is now significantly more powerful and dangerous

• June 30, 2020 30 Jun'20

  Australia to invest a record A$1.35bn in cyber security

  The Australian government is making its largest ever investment in cyber security over the next decade to identify cyber threats, disrupt foreign cyber criminals and build new capabilities

• June 30, 2020 30 Jun'20

  ReversingLabs makes over 100 Yara rules publicly available

  Threat intelligence specialist is making its IP available on GitHub to support malware hunters in their work

• June 30, 2020 30 Jun'20

  The Security Interviews: What CISOs can learn from Covid-19

  Mike Lloyd, CTO at Redseal, holds 21 cyber security patents and a PhD in stochastic epidemic modelling from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, so is probably the man to talk to when it comes to cyber security in the world of Covid-19

• June 30, 2020 30 Jun'20

  Complex security estates hinder incident response

  The more disparate security tools in use in an organisation, the harder it becomes to mount an effective incident response

• June 29, 2020 29 Jun'20

  Phishing back in vogue as ransomware vector

  Researchers have observed an increase in phishing as a means to deliver ransomware payloads – and organisations don’t appear to be prepared

• June 29, 2020 29 Jun'20

  Evil Corp’s latest ransomware project spreading fast

  A new ransomware strain dubbed WastedLocker is spreading rapidly and targeting major corporations

• June 29, 2020 29 Jun'20

  Out of date security laws leave UK plc at risk during pandemic

  The CyberUp coalition has written to Boris Johnson to urge him to reform the UK’s 30 year-old cyber crime laws

• June 26, 2020 26 Jun'20

  Coronavirus: Cyber crime landscape evolving as lockdown eases

  As some countries begin to gradually ease Covid-19 lockdown measures, cyber criminals’ tactics are changing, but the pandemic remains a tempting lure

• June 25, 2020 25 Jun'20

  Pub ‘check-in’ apps provoke fresh privacy concerns

  With pubs and restaurants required to collect customer data for contact tracing when they reopen, data privacy risks will be heightened

• June 24, 2020 24 Jun'20

  NCSC catches a million phishes in its nets

  The NCSC has racked up a million suspicious email reports from the public just two months after launching a reporting service, but the lucky sender won’t be receiving a grand prize

• June 24, 2020 24 Jun'20

  EU judges GDPR an overall success, but changes still needed

  Two years after its implementation, an EU report says that the GDPR is achieving what it set out to do, with a few reservations

• June 24, 2020 24 Jun'20

  Brits will sell their personal data for pennies

  Surprising findings from an Okta report on digital identity suggest Brits would be willing to part with valuable personal data for a surprisingly low amount

• June 23, 2020 23 Jun'20

  Neurodiversity on the rise among career hackers

  More diverse hackers enhance the ability of both traditional and cutting-edge cyber security solutions to find and fix vulnerabilities, according to a new report from Bugcrowd

• June 23, 2020 23 Jun'20

  Flash-based MacOS malware hides in plain sight

  By masquerading as a legitimate Adobe web application, the new malware strains can trick Mac users into bypassing their on-board defences

• June 23, 2020 23 Jun'20

  Concern over digital risk falls dramatically during pandemic

  Brits are understandably more worried about the NHS than personal cyber security

• June 21, 2020 21 Jun'20

  APAC still hotbed for cyber attacks

  Individuals and organisations in APAC are encountering malware more frequently than the rest of the world, study finds

• June 18, 2020 18 Jun'20

  Cisco patches dangerous Webex vulnerability

  CVE-2020-3347 bug enables cyber criminals to steal meeting records from within Cisco’s Webex service

• June 18, 2020 18 Jun'20

  Check Point uncovers targeted Microsoft Office 365 phishing campaign

  Organised criminal campaign exploited Adobe, Oxford University and Samsung web domains to trick users into giving up their passwords

• June 18, 2020 18 Jun'20

  Zoom U-turns on end-to-end encryption

  Embattled video-conferencing provider Zoom backtracks on previous refusals to provide end-to-end encryption to free users

• June 17, 2020 17 Jun'20

  Coronavirus: 50% of security pros had no pandemic contingency plan

  A survey of security professionals conducted on behalf of Bitdefender reveals the lack of forward planning for events such as the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic

• June 16, 2020 16 Jun'20

  UK-US data deal puts Brexit data adequacy pact at risk

  European Data Protection Board writes to MEPs saying the UK is at risk of failing to strike a post-Brexit data adequacy accord if its data protection agreements with the US don’t strike the right note

• June 16, 2020 16 Jun'20

  Activists call on Zoom to implement encryption for all

  A coalition of tech organisations and nonprofits have urged Zoom CEO Eric Yuan to make end-to-end encryption available to all users

• June 15, 2020 15 Jun'20

  Banking trojans roar back to prominence in May

  Check Point sees an upswing in malicious activity around a number of classic banking trojan malware variants

• June 15, 2020 15 Jun'20

  Accessories store Claire’s hit by Magecart credit card fraudsters

  Attackers gained access to retailer’s website as long ago as March

• June 12, 2020 12 Jun'20

  NHS email service users ensnared in phishing attack

  More than 100 accounts on the NHSmail service were affected by attack, but health service says no patient data was accessed