The recent UK retail cyberattacks that impacted Marks & Spencer and the Co-Op supermarket chain are only the tip of a very large iceberg that now threatens organizations on both sides of the Atlantic. Although media reports have attributed the attacks to a group named “Scattered Spider,” the actual threat is far bigger. For a start, there is no criminal group that actually calls itself “Scattered Spider”, which is just a made-up name attributed by cybersecurity researchers. These attacks and many others in the US and the UK are now known to be the work of a vast sprawling network of hackers, some as young as 14, spread across the US and the UK. They call themselves “the Community”, or “the Com” for short, and are essentially a vast teenage subculture of criminal hackers.
An attempt to impersonate White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is currently being investigated by US federal agencies. The incident highlights the ongoing dangers posed by key individuals using their personal phones to store the phone numbers of important contacts, now that voice cloning enables cybercriminals to mimic anyone’s voice with ease.
A new Russian threat actor, Void Blizzard, also known as Laundry Bear, is gathering intelligence from Western states on an industrial scale unseen since the end of the Cold War. According to Microsoft Threat Intelligence, Void Blizzard primarily targets NATO member states, particularly those supporting Ukraine, and Ukraine.
The US healthcare sector is now reeling from a seemingly never-ending series of cyberattacks. The problem is becoming so dire that there is growing concern that it may even spark a genuine healthcare crisis. The recent ransomware attack on Kettering Health, for example, which operates 14 hospitals and over 120 medical facilities in Ohio, is merely the latest volley in a remorseless wave of cyberattacks on the cash-rich sector.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is learning to think like a human. But the critical question now being asked in IT circles is: “What kind of human?” Claude, Opus 4, a groundbreaking new AI system released by AI developers Anthropic on Tuesday, is attempting to blackmail its creator by exposing an alleged extramarital affair. This follows on from other AI systems programmed to interact with humans effectively, lying by making up fake information, a phenomenon known by developers as “hallucinating”.
The UK government is issuing a warning this week to all companies to make cybersecurity an “absolute priority”, following recent cyberattacks on retailers Marks & Spencer, Harrods, and the Co-op. UK cabinet office minister Pat McFadden is reported to have held a briefing last week with national security officials and the CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, Richard Horne, aimed at providing support to the three retail groups.
The UK retailers, Marks & Spencer, Harrods and the Co-Op, who have been hit by a flurry of cyber-attacks over the last two weeks, have immediately experienced a loss in consumer and investor confidence.
Companies are largely ignorant of the looming threat of increased artificial intelligence (AI) identity theft, despite the fact that 93 per cent of companies surveyed suffered two or more identity-related breaches in 2024. According to leading identity management company CyberArk Software, executives and employees alike are overconfident of their ability to spot ongoing ID-theft and subsequent cyber breaches, with over 75 per cent of respondents to a recent survey saying that they are confident their employees can identify deepfake videos or audio of their leaders. “Employees are [also] largely confident in their ability to identify a deepfake video or audio of the leaders in their organization. Whether we chalk it up to the illusion of control, planning fallacy, or just plain human optimism, this level of systemic confidence is misguided,” warns Cyberark following a survey of 4,000 US-based employees.
Ransomware attacks on the operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS) that run industrial facilities almost doubled in 2024. According to Washington DC-based industrial cybersecurity company Dragos, ransomware attacks on industrial organizations in 2024 increased by a staggering 87 percent over the previous year. The main industries targeted were: electricity and water; industrial manufacturing; telecommunications; oil and gas; food and beverage; chemical manufacturing; mining, transportation, and logistics. Manufacturing, which accounted for 69 percent of all ransomware attacks targeting 1,171 manufacturing entities, was by far the worst hit.
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