John Wilkes
It’s official…It definitely IS the Russians
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has laid the blame for escalating worldwide ransomware attacks squarely at Russia’s door. Speaking at the 2024 Boston Conference on Cyber Security last week, FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran said: “Almost all of the criminals developing sophisticated malware to enable ransomware attacks are based in Russian-speaking countries and operate as organized crime syndicates, similar to traditional organized crime elements.” He focused on the FBI’s earlier this year disruption of Dark Web ransomware gang LockBit, stressing that organized cybercriminal gangs, particularly Russian ones, are essentially the same as old-school mafia mobsters. They differ only in their methods and avenues of attack.
Senior citizens targeted in Phantom Hacker scam – October 12th
State security in Pennsylvania, US has warned against a new hacker scam targeting senior citizens, called Phantom Hacker. The scam artists attempt to convince senior citizens that their accounts holding financial details have been hacked. They then suggest transferring money into an 'alias' account under the guise of being federal agency officials.
Lazarus equips two new remote access trojan weapons – September 22nd
The Lazarus group is using two new remote access trojans to target health systems' ManageEngine vulnerabilities. The group recently made headlines after targeting healthcare entities in Europe and the US and has since evolved its malware to exploit the CVE-2022047966 vulnerability in the ManageEngine setup, allowing for remote code execution. Its new RAT variants, QuiteRAT and CollectionRAT, allow for the attacker to run arbitrary commands, among other capabilities.
Moriarty of cybercrime strikes again
The world’s most-wanted cybercriminal, Russia’s Mikhail Matveev, who already has a $10 million dollar bounty issued by the FBI, is believed to be behind the recent theft of thousands of documents stolen from the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD). While authorities are intent on taking him down, his reign of terror shows no signs of stopping.
Chinese cyber-espionage campaign exposed
The China-backed hacking group referred to as RedHotel has been linked to attacks in 17 countries during a three-year espionage campaign. According to cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, RedHotel has been infiltrating sectors such as academia, aerospace, government, media, telecoms, and research while operating across the US, Europe, and Asia.
Threat actors’ preferred names? Microsoft, Meta, and Google
Microsoft, PayPal, Facebook, Google, and Amazon are some of the world's most respected brands, but they're also the most impersonated. With 300,000 successful phishing attacks recorded last year in the US alone and 71% of organizations experiencing an attempted or actual business email compromise the issue is only getting worse.
Sextortion scams soar by 178%
Security researchers, ESTET reports a 178% increase in sextortion emails between the first half of 2022 and the first six months of 2023, marking the category out as a top email threat. The company ranks sextortion emails third among all email threats in H1 2023.
BlackCat sharpens its claws
Cybersecurity firm Coalfire reports that the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang has been causing mayhem over the past year using a failsafe delivery system. The group suspects that the leaders of BlackCat are affiliated with the top ransomware gang, the infamous LockBit.
Microsoft One Drive doubles as ransomware tool
Microsoft's OneDrive includes built in ransomware detection and recovery and is marketed as a safe place to store sensitive documents. However, SafeBrach Researcher, Or Yair, was able to demonstrate its worrying capability to be used by the very criminals it was built to protect against.
UK Foreign Office hack reveals major security weaknesses
The UK Foreign Office's culture of secrecy kept the details of the extent of a 2021 breach that endangered its staff and allies until now.
Attack on One of the World’s Most Vital Companies
Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC announced that it was the victim of a data breach due to an attack by the
The Weaponization of AI
Cybercriminals are now using new AI offerings such as Microsoft-backed ChatGPT to create bespoke malware and to socially engineer spear…