Tag: Cybersecurity
SSCL named as breached MoD contractor
UK-based Shared Services Connected Limited (SSCL) has been named as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) contractor hacked by, according to senior government sources, China. British defense minister Grant Shapps has admitted that the personal and financial details of 272,000 service personnel were hacked by “a malign actor.” However, the breach is now being widely attributed to China, despite China’s dismissal of the allegations as “absurd”. But while the compromised payment system has now been taken offline, there are growing fears that the breach may not merely be confined to the MoD, as SSCL handle a number of UK government contracts. “We’re the largest provider of critical business support services for the Government, the UK Military & Veterans (MoD), Metropolitan Police Service, and the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB),” boasts SSCL on its website.
FBI warns of fresh North Korean hacking tactic
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a joint advisory warning of a new tactic being used by North Korean intelligence-gathering cyber group Kimsuky. The warning is squarely aimed at think tanks, academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and members of the media in Western countries. Despite North Korea’s previous reliance on revenue from international crime to finance its weapons and military programs, the FBI reports that Kimsuky’s role is intelligence gathering. Kimsuky exploits an improperly configured Domain Name System (DNS) to mimic legitimate email senders and hack targeted individuals. Without properly configured DNS Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) policies, malicious hackers can send spoofed emails as if they came from a legitimate domain’s email exchange.
Cybercrime continues to cold-shoulder AI
Organized cybercriminals continue to give artificial intelligence (AI) the cold shoulder. New research from US telecoms conglomerate Verizon confirms a report in November from cybersecurity firm Sophos revealing that cybercriminals judged AI to be “overrated, overhyped and redundant.” According to Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report: “We did keep an eye out for any indications of the use of the emerging field of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in attacks and the potential effects of those technologies, but nothing materialized in the incident data we collected globally…The number of mentions of GenAI terms alongside traditional attack types and vectors such as “phishing,” “malware,” “vulnerability,” and “ransomware” was shockingly low, barely breaching 100 cumulative mentions over the past two years.”
Gulf of misunderstanding between CEOs and CISOs widens
There is a widening gulf of miscommunication between security teams and their boards. According to software intelligence platform, Dynatrace, 77 percent of company information security officers (CISOs) say their boards and CEOs focus too heavily on the ability to react to security incidents and not enough on reducing and preventing risk proactively. “Executive engagement has often been limited to conversations around regulatory compliance and high profile or user-centric security risks, such as phishing attacks, ransomware, or the use of mobile devices among an increasingly hybrid workforce. There is often less understanding of the material operational effects created by other, more technology-centric risks, such as gaps in the organization’s application security posture,” says Dynatrace.
91% of Orgs Report Use of Gen AI for Cybersecurity – May 1st
Splunk reported that 91% of organizations reported the use of Generative AI for specific cybersecurity usage. The report “State of Security 2024: The Race to Harness AI” also disclosed that 93% of security leaders said public Gen AI was in use across their respective organizations, among other insightful statistics on Gen AI's impact on cybersecurity.
‘Brute force’ cyber-attacks continue to escalate
Cybersecurity firm Okta reports a spike in ‘brute-force’ credential-stuffing attacks over the last month. This follows earlier reports of a spike in ‘brute force’ credential-stuffing attacks reported last week. Increasingly sophisticated ‘brute force’ attacks use trial and error techniques to crack passwords, login credentials, and encryption keys. New life is now also being breathed into what is essentially an old hacking technique, with widely available software using artificial intelligence (AI) that can carry out large numbers of attempts automatically.
95% of Organizations Changed their Cyber Strategy in the Past Year – April 30th
LogRhythm announced that 95% of companies reported that they’ve altered their cybersecurity strategies within the last twelve months. The “2024 State of the Security Team: Navigating Constant Change” report also disclosed that 98% of respondents state that keeping pace with the shifting regulatory landscape is the leading factor in driving changes in security strategy.
Rubrik listing underlines strength of cyber sector
The cyber sector has received another boost with the initial public offering (IPO) of shares in Microsoft-backed cloud-based cybersecurity firm Rubrik, valuing the company at around $6.5 billion. Last week also saw that US private equity (PE) firm Thoma Bravo is to take UK cybersecurity company Darktrace private in a deal valuing the firm at over $5 billion. Orders for Rubrik’s IPO were reported to be oversubscribed for 20 times the 23.5 million shares on offer, with half of the shares allocated to top institutional investors. This investor appetite for the cyber stock is being seen as a testimony to the robustness of the cybersecurity sector, as Rubrik posted operating losses of $307 million last year. But it is the company’s current growth curve that seems to have spurred on investors, with annual recurring revenues reported at $784 million as of the end of 2023, up 47% on the year before.
UK Government Launches Updated Cyber Regulations – April 29th
As a testament to the UK's £2.6 billion National Cyber Strategy, the UK Government has proactively launched regulations to safeguard UK consumers and businesses from cyber-attacks. The updated regulations now mandate that manufacturers of consumer electronics adhere to minimum security standards. Additionally, consumers are prohibited from using easily guessable default passwords, a measure aimed at bolstering their personal cyber security.
$5bn Darktrace deal to boost cyber sector
Private equity (PE) firm Thomas Bravo is to take UK cybersecurity company Darktrace private in a deal valuing the firm at over $5 billion. The US-based PE firm, which manages around $140 billion in assets, intends to use its US market experience to expand Darktrace’s worldwide operations. News of the deal comes hard on the heels of better-than-expected quarterly earnings from US tech giants Alphabet and Microsoft. Darktrace claims to be a global leader in cybersecurity artificial intelligence (AI), protecting over 9000 customers from ransomware, cloud, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) attacks. Its main research center is in Cambridge, UK, with a second research and development facility in the Hague, Netherlands. The firm holds over 145 patents and pending applications.
Ransomware drives corporate cyber-crime
Cybercriminals are getting greedier. According to Google subsidiary Mandiant’s M-Trends 2024 Special Report, the proportion of financially motivated intrusions grew from more than a quarter of all investigations (26 percent) in 2022 to over a third (36 percent) in 2023. Ransomware-related intrusions represented almost two-thirds of financially motivated intrusions and 23 percent of all 2023 intrusions; the remaining financially motivated intrusions included business email compromise (BEC) fraud and cryptocurrency theft. In 70 percent of cases, organizations learned of ransomware-related intrusions from external sources. In three-quarters of those cases, organizations were notified of a ransomware incident by an attacker ransom message. The remaining quarter came from external partners, such as law enforcement or cybersecurity companies. “This is consistent with the extortion business model in which attackers intentionally and abruptly notify organizations of a ransomware intrusion and demand payment,” says Mandiant.
Police rounding up LabHost users
International law enforcement is hailing last week’s bust of LabHost, the world’s largest phishing-as-a-service platform, as a major victory in the war against cybercrime. In addition to multiple arrests, the Europol-co-ordinated investigation also unearthed the identities of around 10,000 users of the illegal site, many of whom are now already under police investigation. The year-long investigation, led by the UK’s London Metropolitan Police, resulted in the arrest of 37 suspects worldwide following Europol-coordinated raids across 70 addresses worldwide. Partners in the investigation also included Chainalysis, Intel 471, Microsoft, The Shadowserver Foundation, and Trend Micro.