News

Hackers and cybercrime prevention

• 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

• August 17, 2023 17 Aug'23

  Researchers demo fake airplane mode exploit that tricks iPhone users

  Exploit chain that tricks a victim into believing their iOS device is offline in airplane mode when it is not could open the door to grave privacy concerns

• August 16, 2023 16 Aug'23

  NCSC expands Cyber Incident Response service more widely

  The NCSC has added a level to its CIR programme to enable more cyber attack victims to take advantage of the service, which offers access to assured incident response specialists

• August 12, 2023 12 Aug'23

  Datacentre management vulnerabilities leave public clouds at risk

  At the annual DEF CON hacking convention, researchers from Trellix have disclosed multiple vulnerabilities in key datacentre products underpinning the world’s public cloud infrastructure

• August 09, 2023 09 Aug'23

  Microsoft addresses Office vulnerability attacked by Russian spooks in latest update

  Microsoft has issued fixes for over 70 vulnerabilities in its August Patch Tuesday drop, including remedies for CVE-2023-36884, which was disclosed without a fix in July and has been the subject of Kremlin-backed cyber attacks

• August 08, 2023 08 Aug'23

  MPs warn about growing prevalence of tech-enabled domestic abuse

  The UK government must take action to prevent perpetrators from being able to use connected or smart technologies to conduct their domestic abuse, a select committee has warned

• August 08, 2023 08 Aug'23

  UK voter data hacked in cyber attack on election watchdog

  An unknown threat actor who attacked the UK’s Electoral Commission had access to data on millions of UK voters for over a year, the watchdog has revealed

• August 08, 2023 08 Aug'23

  Black Basta, Hive and Royal ransomware gangs may share real-world connection

  At Black Hat USA, Sophos X-Ops researchers share data revealing potential connections between three active ransomware crews

• August 07, 2023 07 Aug'23

  Microsoft fixes Azure flaw that was subject of researcher criticism

  Microsoft has confirmed a potentially-dangerous flaw in the Azure platform has now been fully fixed, and moved to reassure customers that despite criticism it is committed to responsible disclosure and timely fixes

• August 07, 2023 07 Aug'23

  Rise in fraudsters spoofing the websites of leading UK banks

  Despite safeguards to protect customers from scams, UK retail banks are still seeing high volumes of fake phishing websites exploiting their brands, and the problem seems to be increasing in scope and scale

• August 04, 2023 04 Aug'23

  Log4Shell, ProxyShell still among most widely exploited flaws

  Statistics released by the collective Five Eyes cyber agencies reveals insight into the most exploited vulnerabilities of 2022, and unsurprisingly there are some old ‘friends’ on the list

• August 03, 2023 03 Aug'23

  Cozy Bear hijacks SME Microsoft 365 tenants in latest campaign

  Microsoft shares intelligence on a newly observed Cozy Bear campaign that saw the APT take over genuine Microsoft 365 tenants and subvert them to try to phish its victims

• August 03, 2023 03 Aug'23

  Microsoft attacked over ‘grossly irresponsible’ security practice

  The CEO of Tenable has launched a scathing attack on Microsoft, asserting that the organisation is deliberately keeping its Azure cloud customers in the dark about dangerous vulnerabilities and accusing it of a culture of ‘toxic obfuscation’

• August 02, 2023 02 Aug'23

  Pig butchers caught using ChatGPT to con victims

  Romance scammers looking to con people out of their savings appear to be turning to generative AI tools to save time and effort

• August 02, 2023 02 Aug'23

  Ivanti MDM users told to patch against two dangerous flaws

  Users of Ivanti’s mobile device management platform have been warned to act now to patch two vulnerabilities that were chained by a threat actor in a series of cyber attacks on the Norwegian government

• July 28, 2023 28 Jul'23

  Scottish university hit by Rhysida ransomware gang

  Data allegedly stolen from the University of Western Scotland has been put up for sale on the dark web by a ransomware gang going by the name Rhysida

• July 28, 2023 28 Jul'23

  How Indian organisations are keeping pace with cyber security

  Indian organisations are shoring up their defences to improve their cyber resilience amid intensifying cyber threats targeted at key sectors such as healthcare and logistics

• July 27, 2023 27 Jul'23

  Cyber criminals pivot away from ransomware encryption

  Cyber breaches that saw data theft and extortion without an encryption or ransomware component account for more and more incidents, in a possible indication that ransomware gangs are changing up their business models

• July 26, 2023 26 Jul'23

  Cyber attack on IT supplier hits two major ambulance trusts

  Ambulance trusts serving millions across southern England have been hamstrung for the past week after a cyber attack took down their hosted patient records system

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  CIO interview: Sean Green, University of East Anglia

  In his role as director of digital and data at the University of East Anglia, Sean Green provides high-performance computing to researchers and manages the diverse needs of a campus with the characteristics of a small town, all while finding the ...

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  Citrix NetScaler users told to patch new zero-day urgently

  A vulnerability disclosed and patched last week by Citrix appears to be being exploited by China-backed threat actors as a zero-day, prompting warnings from government cyber bodies

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  Security AI and automation may reduce cost of data breaches

  Organisations that go all in on security AI and automation tend to incur lower financial costs when they experience a data breach incident, according to an IBM report

• July 21, 2023 21 Jul'23

  Government boosts protection for encryption in Online Safety Bill but civil society groups concerned

  House of Lords adopts amendment to require Ofcom to commission a report before requiring technology companies to scan encrypted messages, but drops proposals for judicial oversight

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  Renowned hacker and social engineer Kevin Mitnick dead at 59

  Famed hacker and social engineer Kevin Mitnick, who was at one time one of the most wanted cyber criminals in the world, has died peacefully at the age of 59 from complications arising from pancreatic cancer, following a 14-month illness