News

Hackers and cybercrime prevention

• January 31, 2023 31 Jan'23

  ATO renews major Macquarie deal

  The contract renewal will enable the Australian Tax Office to tap Macquarie’s security operations centre, among other services, to secure its IT environment and protect sensitive data

• January 30, 2023 30 Jan'23

  Data of 10 million JD Sports customers accessed in cyber attack

  Data on 10 million people who shopped online at JD Sports over a two-year period was accessed and potentially stolen in a cyber attack

• January 27, 2023 27 Jan'23

  Hive ransomware gang taken down after FBI hacks back

  The FBI hacked into Hive’s servers, stole its decryption keys and then took down its servers in a major action that has successfully disrupted a prolific and dangerous ransomware operation

• January 26, 2023 26 Jan'23

  Royal Mail resumes some international parcel services from UK

  Royal Mail has successfully stood up its International Tracked and Signed, and International Signed, services as it continues to recover from a ransomware attack

• January 26, 2023 26 Jan'23

  Zero-trust implementations remain work in progress

  Just one in 10 large enterprises are expected to have mature and measurable zero-trust programmes in place by 2026, study finds

• January 25, 2023 25 Jan'23

  NCSC exposes Iranian, Russian spear-phishing campaign targeting UK

  Spear-phishing campaigns likely linked to Iranian and Russian espionage activity are targeting persons of interest in the UK, warns the NCSC

• January 25, 2023 25 Jan'23

  Arnold Clark cyber attack claimed by Play ransomware gang

  A cyber attack that struck car dealer Arnold Clark prior to Christmas has been claimed as the work of the Play ransomware cartel

• January 25, 2023 25 Jan'23

  Boards struggle to resolve cyber risk in digital supply chains

  Accelerated digitisation of supply chains is introducing more cyber risk for which many organisations seem unprepared, according to the BSI’s annual report on supply chain risk

• January 25, 2023 25 Jan'23

  Japan researchers develop new data encryption method

  Researchers from Tokyo University of Science have combined the best of homomorphic encryption and secret sharing in a new method to handle encrypted data

• January 24, 2023 24 Jan'23

  Chinese IoT suppliers expose UK businesses to espionage and data theft

  Chinese companies supplying network components, known as IoT modules, post a greater long-term threat to UK security than the now banned 5G supplier Huawei, according to a study by a Chinese expert and former diplomat

• January 24, 2023 24 Jan'23

  UK insurers need to up their game on cyber gaps, says PRA

  Gaps and limitations in how insurers respond to cyber risk need to be addressed, according to the Bank of England regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority

• January 24, 2023 24 Jan'23

  SSRF attacks hit 100,000 businesses globally since November

  There has been a dramatic increase in attacks exploiting the ProxyNotShell/OWASSRF exploit chains to target Microsoft Exchange servers

• January 24, 2023 24 Jan'23

  Fake online contest makes Yahoo! most phished brand of Q4 2022

  Yahoo! was the most frequently phished brand during the last three months of 2022, according to a report

• January 23, 2023 23 Jan'23

  NCSC warning over cyber risk to charity sector

  Cash-strapped charities without the resource to tackle their resilience deficit are increasingly at risk from malicious actors, says the NCSC

• January 22, 2023 22 Jan'23

  Royal Mail making limited progress on ransomware recovery

  Royal Mail asks customers to hold back from sending post overseas as some services get back on track, while a report warns that disruptive attacks on critical infrastructure are set to become more common

• January 19, 2023 19 Jan'23

  International post resumes thanks to Royal Mail ‘workarounds’

  Royal Mail has resumed limited international services after putting in place operational workarounds to bypass the impact of a ransomware attack

• January 19, 2023 19 Jan'23

  KFC, Pizza Hut parent shuts UK restaurants after cyber attack

  A ransomware attack on Yum! Brands, the parent organisation of restaurants including KFC and Pizza Hut, was forced to shut approximately 300 outlets in the UK following a ransomware attack by an unspecified group

• January 19, 2023 19 Jan'23

  Fraudsters and cyber criminals stole more than £4bn in the UK through 2022

  The amount of money stolen by fraudsters and cybercriminals in the UK saw a huge increase in 2022

• January 19, 2023 19 Jan'23

  Mailchimp suffers third breach in 12 months

  Email marketing service Mailchimp has suffered its third data breach in a year, but has been praised for being open about its latest attack

• January 18, 2023 18 Jan'23

  Ukraine CERT leaders touch down in London for talks

  The UK’s NCSC has been hosting Ukrainian cyber security leaders for a round of bilateral talks on improving resilience

• January 18, 2023 18 Jan'23

  David Anderson KC to review UK surveillance laws

  Home Office commissions independent review of the Investigatory Powers Act, known as the snoopers’ charter. It will include a review of bulk datasets and government access to internet connection records held by phone and internet companies

• January 18, 2023 18 Jan'23

  Oracle and CBI: companies cautious, selective in 2023 IT, business investment

  Oracle and the CBI are seeing much the same picture of cautious technology investment of UK businesses in 2023, in the context of long Covid and the energy price inflation crisis

• January 18, 2023 18 Jan'23

  Ukraine cyber teams responded to more than 2,000 attacks in 2022

  The Ukrainian authorities responded to more than 2,000 major cyber incidents during 2022, and are blocking thousands more potential attacks every day

• January 17, 2023 17 Jan'23

  Cloudflare urged to clamp down on pirates, counterfeiters

  A whitepaper produced by brand protection specialist Corsearch calls on Cloudflare to do more to stop online content piracy and sales of counterfeit goods

• January 17, 2023 17 Jan'23

  Crest throws support behind CyberUp CMA reform campaign

  Cyber accreditation association Crest International has lent its support to the CyberUp campaign for reform to the Computer Misuse Act of 1990

• January 17, 2023 17 Jan'23

  Royal Mail promises ‘workarounds’ to restore services after ransomware attack

  Royal Mail CEO Simon Thompson apologises to customers whose businesses are being disrupted by a ransomware attack and promises a ‘workaround’ will be in place in the near future

• January 13, 2023 13 Jan'23

  LockBit cartel suspected of Royal Mail cyber attack

  The still-developing cyber incident at Royal Mail may be the work of the infamous LockBit ransomware operation

• January 12, 2023 12 Jan'23

  Companies warned to step up cyber security to become ‘insurable’

  Investing in better IT security to protect against cyber crime will make businesses more resilient against other risks 

• January 12, 2023 12 Jan'23

  Chrome vulnerability could have led to widespread data theft

  A dangerous vulnerability in Google Chrome and Chromium-based browsers could have put billions of users’ files at risk of being stolen

• January 12, 2023 12 Jan'23

  Guardian confirms Christmas 2022 cyber attack was ransomware

  Guardian Media Group bosses confirm the 20 December cyber attack that left staff locked out of its London office and disrupted several key systems was an untargeted ransomware attack

• January 11, 2023 11 Jan'23

  Royal Mail services hit by major cyber attack

  UK postal service Royal Mail is asking customers not to send any overseas letters or parcels while it deals with the impact of an ongoing cyber attack

• January 11, 2023 11 Jan'23

  Should we be worried about malicious use of AI language models?

  WithSecure research into GPT-3 language models, used by the likes of ChatGPT, surfaces concerning findings about how easy it is to use large language models for malicious purposes. Should security teams be concerned?

• January 11, 2023 11 Jan'23

  Microsoft fixes EoP zero-day on January Patch Tuesday

  On the first Patch Tuesday of 2023, Microsoft fixed an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Windows Advanced Local Procedure Call, which has been actively exploited in the wild and may be co-opted into ransomware campaigns

• January 11, 2023 11 Jan'23

  Davos 2023: Pervasive cyber crime and cyber security gaps pose severe risk to organisations

  Governments and organisations face tough trade-offs as they balance immediate problems caused by economic recession, energy shortages and rising interest rates with longer-term risks, including the impact of global warming

• January 10, 2023 10 Jan'23

  New APT group targets ASEAN governments and militaries

  The Dark Pink advanced persistent threat group used custom malware to exfiltrate data from high-profile targets through spear-phishing emails last year, according to Group-IB

• January 10, 2023 10 Jan'23

  Insurer Beazley introduces catastrophe bond to ease cyber risk

  Insurance company Beazley says that its $45m cyber catastrophe bond will help to protect its balance sheet and enable it to offer more cyber insurance cover

• January 09, 2023 09 Jan'23

  JPMorgan ordered to face lawsuit over cyber attack on Ray-Ban maker

  US banking giant JPMorgan forced to respond to accusations that it failed to inform a business customer about suspicious transactions

• January 08, 2023 08 Jan'23

  Vulnerable organisations to get free Cyber Essentials support

  Charities and legal aid firms are among those to be offered free security checks and certifications from the National Cyber Security Centre

• January 06, 2023 06 Jan'23

  Proposed digital fraud refund rules risk excluding many victims

  Proposals to establish a fraud refund mechanism in the UK risk excluding many victims of digitally enabled fraud, a major bank has warned

• January 06, 2023 06 Jan'23

  Russia’s Turla falls back on old malware C2 domains to avoid detection

  Mandiant says it has observed the Russian APT UNC2410, also known as Turla, re-registering expired or sinkholed domains previously used by financially motivated cyber criminals

• January 06, 2023 06 Jan'23

  Vice Society cyber gang targeted multiple UK schools

  The Vice Society ransomware gang has made a habit of attacking educational institutions, and now appears to have struck multiple schools, colleges and universities in the UK

• January 06, 2023 06 Jan'23

  Meta to appeal £345m fine for Facebook and Instagram privacy breaches

  Social media company Meta is to appeal after the Irish Data Protection Commission fined the company for breaching GDPR

• January 05, 2023 05 Jan'23

  Cyber gang abused free trials to exploit public cloud CPU resources

  A South Africa-based cyber crime gang exploited free trials and introductory offers to run cryptominers via public cloud services, then did a runner without paying

• January 05, 2023 05 Jan'23

  Warning over ransomware attacks spreading via Fortinet kit

  Following the disclosure of a critical vulnerability in October 2022, Fortinet VPN devices were exploited in two known ransomware attacks, with access likely sold on the dark web

• January 05, 2023 05 Jan'23

  Fallout from Guardian cyber attack to last at least a month

  The Guardian newspaper’s offices remained shut into the New Year following a supposed ransomware attack, with disruption likely to last some time

• January 05, 2023 05 Jan'23

  Cashless Denmark has no bank robberies in a year for first time

  Denmark saw no bank robberies in a single year for the first time ever, but online fraud continues to increase

• January 02, 2023 02 Jan'23

  China and India governments among top targets for cyber attackers

  Chinese and Indian governments targeted by hacktivists and ransomware groups out to make statement or expose flaws in their respective security postures

• December 28, 2022 28 Dec'22

  Complaints that NCA failed in duty of candour over EncroChat warrants ‘incredible’, court hears

  NCA lawyers argue that a decision by an NCA intelligence officer to disclose notes of a key meeting after two-and-a-half years boosts her credibility as a witness

• December 27, 2022 27 Dec'22

  Top 10 ASEAN IT stories of 2022

  Despite the challenges over the past year, ASEAN businesses have taken things in stride as they press on with digital transformation, whether it is empowering citizen developers or building cloud-native applications

• December 22, 2022 22 Dec'22

  Top 10 India IT stories of 2022

  We recap the top 10 stories in India, including the digitisation work undertaken by global firms in the country and the progress made by local enterprises in harnessing technology