Spyware poses a growing threat
“Lurking in the murky depths of the global marketplace for offensive cyber capabilities sits a particularly dangerous capability—spyware,” warns the Atlantic Council, a Washington, DC-based organization that promotes transatlantic cooperation and global economic prosperity. The number of US-based entities investing in the spyware market is three times greater than in the next three-highest countries with the most investors, according to a report published by the Atlantic Council on September 10: Mythical Beasts: Diving into the depths of the global spyware market.
A recent attempt to bribe BBC News reporter Joe Tidy to assist a cybercriminal in breaching the BBC’s cyber defenses highlights the growing threat all organizations now face from within. Tidy was offered millions of pounds and told he need never work again if he assisted the threat actor. With the permission of his editor, the BBC reporter played along with the cybercriminals without actually assisting them in order to discover more about their methods.
Teenage hackers take down JLR
Carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has shut down its systems after suffering a cyber-attack. The group claiming responsibility for the attack, The Com, also referred to as Scattered Spider, is a loosely affiliated online community of predominantly teenage English-speaking hackers based in the UK and the US.
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Over half of cyber-attacks are state-sponsored
Over half of cyber-attacks exploiting known vulnerabilities are the work of state-sponsored groups from abroad, mainly from China. According to cybersecurity company Recorded Future’s research arm, Insikt Group, 53 percent of observed exploitation activity in the first half of this year was driven by state-sponsored and suspected state-sponsored actors and conducted for espionage, surveillance, or other geopolitical objectives.
China is now spying on you
The Chinese government now has a vast storehouse of confidential information belonging to key industries and individuals in the US and UK and many other countries. According to an urgent joint cybersecurity advisory issued by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other U.S. and foreign organizations, threat actors sponsored by the Chinese government, notably Salt Typhoon, have been consistently targeting telecommunications, government, transportation, lodging, and military infrastructure networks globally.
AI-powered ransomware fuels cybercrime
Cybercriminals are now weaponizing artificial intelligence (AI) to create potentially devastating off-the-shelf ransomware. Researchers at cybersecurity company ESET have discovered what they called "the first known AI-powered ransomware". The malware, which ESET has named PromptLock, has the ability to exfiltrate, encrypt, and possibly even destroy data, though this last functionality appears not to have been implemented in the malware as yet.