A cyber-criminal known as “algoatson” placed the data of over 200,000 Facebook Marketplace users for sale on Breach Forums, an illicit marketplace.
The Facebook Marketplace compromised user information including full names, passwords, Facebook IDs, emails, and phone numbers, which was claimed to be stolen on October 2023.
Specialists from the Netherlands’ Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) and the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) announced a Chinese nation-state-sponsored malware ‘Coathanger’ and its breach on the Dutch Ministry of Defense (MoD).
The stealthy ‘Coathanger’ malware’s code revealed a remote access trojan (RAT) specifically built to infiltrate Fortinet’s FortiGate firewalls through the ‘CVE-2022-42475’ vulnerability, which resulted in stolen user account credentials from the Dutch MoD’s servers.
CISA and EPA Launch Water Sector Cyber Toolkit Amid the recent string of critical water infrastructure cyber attacks, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) co-launched a toolkit to fortify the cybersecurity posture of water and wastewater systems in the United States. The water sector cyber toolkit serves as […]
Schneider Electric announced that they were hit by a ransomware attack on January 17th, resulting in a data breach exposing their customer’s information. The ‘Cactus’ ransomware group claimed the ransomware attack.
Schneider has since informed the affected customers of the breach, which include Hilton, Pepsico, and Walmart. The attack also caused Schneider to shut down several division-specific systems.
Last year saw exponential growth in the number of organizations impacted by supply-chain attacks, although the increase in the number of organizations targeted has remained slow. According to the 2023 data breach report from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) the number of organizations impacted has surged by more than 2,600 percent since 2018, affecting over 54 million victims.
“We must acknowledge the significant impact of Supply Chain Attacks and their effect on all organizations. A single supply chain attack can directly or indirectly impact hundreds or thousands of businesses that rely on the same vendor,” warns the ITRC.
While supply chain attacks have been around for many years, the ability to automate and launch the attacks at scale accelerated in 2018. The MOVEit attack last year shows the scope and scale a Supply Chain Attack can have. According to the report, 102 entities were directly impacted by threat actors exploiting a MOVEit product. However, 1,271 organizations were indirectly affected when information stored in or accessed by a MOVEit product or service was compromised via a vendor or vendors.
Initially noted by the ‘Have I Been Pwned?’ breach notification service, user data of 15 million Trello users are now exposed, and peddled on Dark Web hacking forums.
Atlassian, Trello’s parent company commented on the attack, claiming they’ve taken significant steps to prevent such data scraping attacks. They will continue to investigate and mitigate the situation surrounding the cyber attack.
Despite the hype of AI in cybersecurity, a PwC survey revealed that 77% of CEOs still believe AI increases the risk of breaches rather than boosts cybersecurity.
The PwC survey interviewed 4,700 executives globally, the majority of whom are CEOs. The survey also found that 63% of respondents believed AI to be a misinformation risk, causing a barrier for legal and reputational damage stemming from generative AI.
US real estate financial services fat cat, Fidelity National Financial (FNF), has revealed details of a cybersecurity breach that occurred in November, exposing the details of 1.3 million customers. An updated filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claims the attack, which occurred on November 19, 2023, was detected early on and successfully contained.
But despite FNF’s best efforts, over a million customers will wonder if the threat actors behind the breach also believe that their attack has been successfully “contained.” The nature of their target suggests otherwise. A Fortune 500 company, FNF is one of the largest companies of its kind in the US, with an annual revenue of over $10 billion, a market capitalization of $13.3 billion, and a staff of over 23,000 people.
The British Library, which houses about 14 million books plus manuscripts and items dating back to 2000 BC, was forced offline in October after refusing to pay a £600,000 ransomware demand.
According to The Financial Times, the digital destruction caused by the “deep and extensive” ransomware attack means that the world-renowned library will now be forced to pay ten times that sum to rebuild its online services at a cost of £6 million to £7 million, taking it offline for up to a year. The British Library breach is further evidence of the devastating speed of the latest generation of ransomware attacks.
Cybersecurity firm Sophos’s State of Ransomware 2023 report says that threat actors now succeed in encrypting data in 76 percent of ransomware attacks, up from 65 percent in 2022. According to Sophos, there has also been a 62 percent year-on-year rise in intentional remote encryption attacks since 2022
US mortgage service provider Mr. Cooper has disclosed a breach to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) affecting over 14.5 million people. Breached data includes names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, dates of birth, and bank account numbers. The Mr Cooper breach is indicative of several trends likely to shape the cybersecurity industry in 2024.
The new obligation to report material cyber breaches within four days that came into effect last week on December 15 is widely expected to reveal a huge iceberg of what might have previously been unreported and, therefore, uncounted cyber breaches. The obligation to detail the loss and those affected also puts a big onus on organizations in all sectors to implement systems capable of identifying and tracking any intrusions into their network.
On December 21st, the U.S. White House issued Executive Order (EO) 14028, “Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” which emphasized modernizing cybersecurity infrastructure by coding in more secure ways.
A more detailed excerpt from the Executive Order stated; “Software engineers, developers, and coders must build secure code and security controls into the code they create. They need to make security by design and security by default software-design requirements.”
Based on a Netwrix survey, the financial sector in 2023 experienced the most cyberattacks among any other sector in 2023.
Surveying 1,610 IT and security professionals from more than 100 countries, the survey also revealed phishing and malware to be the most common attacks across all sectors.
MongoDB revealed a data breach exposing customer metadata and sensitive information in an email announcement to their customers.
The email, alerting MongoDB’s customers of the cyberattack, also informed customers to be aware of heightened phishing email risk due to the data breach, and to set up multi-factor authentication for their accounts as a phishing safety measure.
Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest telecom provider announced it was hit by a devastating cyberattack, disrupting internet access for over 26 million users.
Kyivstar’s parent company, VEON Ltd confirmed the devastating cyberattack, claiming it to be “one of the largest cyberattacks in the history of the global telecom market.”
Nine out of ten of the world’s leading energy companies, including the top ten US energy companies, experienced a third-party data breach sometime in the last 12 months. According to cybersecurity ratings company Security Scorecard, while only four percent of leading energy companies worldwide suffered a direct data breach, most were compromised via a supplier, contractor, or other third-party organization.
“Fueling the global economy and daily life, reliance on the energy sector elevates it as a prime target for cyberattacks. Amid economic and political uncertainties, concerns about safeguarding this vital sector intensified. Energy attacks not only result in financial losses and disruptions but ripple through manufacturing, healthcare, and transportation sectors,” says Security ScoreCard.
News of the mass exploitation of ownCloud customers as a result of a zero-day vulnerability follows revelations earlier this month of a critical security vulnerability in Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.
Reports of gaping security flaws in cloud services come at a bad time for cloud service providers in general and Microsoft in particular. The Seattle-based computing giant is currently doing its utmost to persuade the US, UK, and Australian governments that its Azure Government Cloud is the best way for the AUKUS trio to securely update cross-border information and enhance mutual collaboration. This might prove problematic for Microsoft, whose Azure platform was recently proven to have a critical vulnerability, and some of whose government clients suffered a series of serious breaches earlier this year.
To improve cybersecurity readiness, the U.S. Navy launched its first cybersecurity strategy.
The 14-page Navy cyber strategy outlined cybersecurity as a core competency in modern warfare and highlighted the importance of protecting the information environment.
General Electric (GE) recognized the data theft from threat actor IntelBroker pertaining to a project involving the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, sparking national security concerns.
The GE Spokesperson commented on the data theft, saying they are thoroughly investigating the claims, will work on further protecting the integrity of their security systems, and that business operations will not be affected.
A staggering 14 percent of cyber incidents are due to senior IT security staff errors, compounded by a further 15% of errors caused by other IT staff. According to a new study published by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, over the last two years, 77 percent of companies experienced between one and six cybersecurity breaches, with IT security staff being directly culpable for almost a third of all cybersecurity breaches.
In preparation for the 2024 elections, the European Parliament’s services, the European Commission, and the EU Agency for Cybersecurity conducted a cybersecurity exercise. The drill, held in the European Parliament, involved national and EU partners testing crisis plans and responses to potential cybersecurity incidents. Representatives from electoral and cybersecurity authorities participated, aiming to enhance their capacity to address cybersecurity issues and update protocols for securing election technology.
The exercise addressed risks such as information manipulation and cyber-attacks, crucial for safeguarding the integrity of the upcoming European Parliament election scheduled for June 6-9, 2024.
LivaNova reported a cyber attack to the SEC, resulting in disruption of the company’s operations.
The MedTech company is now in the process of executing its incident response plan and placed some of its systems offline to minimize the damages of the attack.
In a startling revelation, Vikas Singla, the former COO of cybersecurity firm Securolytics, confessed to hacking two Georgia hospitals in June 2021 to enhance the company’s profile. Singla disrupted services at Gwinnett Medical Center hospitals, stealing patient data and publicizing the breach on Twitter.
Facing 17 counts of computer damage and one count of information theft, Vikas Singla agreed to pay over $817,000 in restitution. Due to health issues, prosecutors recommended 57 months of probation, raising concerns about cyber threats jeopardizing public safety and healthcare data.
Samsung notified its customers in the UK that a recent data breach potentially exposed customer data, stemming from a third-party business application vulnerability.
Samsung UK further stated that the data affected only covers customers that purchased Samsung items in the UK online store, and ensured customers that the breach does not include passwords or financial data.
Despite recent talk of a tech slowdown that reaches cyber, Allied Market Research reported that the market is poised to grow to $478.68B by 2030, with a 9.5% annual growth rate.
The data predicting the cybersecurity market’s growth was taken from Allied Market Research’s “Cyber Security Market by Component, Solution, Deployment Model, Enterprise Size, and Industry Vertical: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021–2030”.
Ransomware Attacks Double Over Past Two Years Akamai Technologies found that organizations faced an average of 86 ransomware attacks in the past 12 months, based on their latest report “The State of Segmentation 2023”. In comparison, organizations only faced 43 annual attacks two years ago. The 1,200 IT and security professionals who participated in the […]
Crypto exchange server Upbit has announced it was targeted by hackers 159,000 times during the first quarter of this year.
This is more than double the number of hacker attacks it experienced in the same period last year. The figures were released by Dunamu, the company that operates Upbit.
There has been a surge of advertisements on the dark web this year, with over 700 adverts advertising Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks through the Internet of Things (IoT) devices having been identified.
The cost of employing the sinister DDoS attack services ranges from $20 per day to $1 000 per month, depending on the amount of protection the target has.
It seems that no one and no business is immune to hacker activity. Recent reports say that Pizza Hut Australia has again been the victim of threat actors a year after its newsmaking Optus cyber attack.
Reports allege customers’ data has been compromised by the incident, which occurred in early September, with the fast food outlet having contacted clients to notify them of the data breach.
In today’s roundup; Russian threat actors target the Ukranian Military, browser-hacking malware found on the phones of Xiaomi users, and a LockBit data leak.
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