Tag: law enforcement
Malware Found to Evade Ukranian Detection for 9 Years – April 18th
Cisco Talos revealed its findings, showing that select Ukranian government agencies have been infected with the 'OfflRouter' malware since 2015. Cisco Talos researcher, Vanja Svajcer said. "The virus is still active in Ukraine and is causing potentially confidential documents to be uploaded to publicly accessible document repositories."
US Department of Health and Human Services Falls Victim to Social Engineered Scam – April 11th
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported that they fell victim to a social engineering scam over the phone, imitating HHS' financial department, convincing them to hand over ID verification details. The threat actors, aside from imitating HHS' financial department, pulled the attack off by using local area codes and AI voice-changing technology to disguise themselves. The surrendered information could lead to threat actors bypassing multifactor authentication (MFA) security.
Q1 2024 Ransomware Attacks See 22% Drop – April 10th
Cyberint released a report that discloses the 22% drop in ransomware cases from Q4 2023 to Q1 2024, or from 1,309 down to 1,048 cases. The 'Q1 Ransomware Report' credits the decrease in ransomware attacks to a major uptick in law enforcement crackdowns on cyber criminal gangs, with notable major actions against LockBit and ALPHV.
UK Deputy PM Warns of Chinese Cyber Threats to Government – March 25th
The UK's Deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, is expected to formally announce to the press that China is behind a wave of cyber attacks against UK government officials and will urge the protection of voters' data. Despite the denial from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UK government remains on high alert for politically fueled cyber attacks as the election period nears.
Google’s Improvements to Chrome’s ‘Safe Browsing’ Mode – March 18th
Google announced major security-focused revamps to Chrome's 'Safe Browsing' mode, which enables the service to work while checking against a server-side malware-site list in real-time. The added safety feature to Google Chrome's 'Safe Browsing' mode is a massive improvement compared to the browsing mode cross-checking against lists of malware-infected sites that were manually added every two hours.
International Law Enforcement Seizes LockBit’s Website – February 20th
U.S. and U.K. authorities announced the seizure of the LockBit ransomware gang's extortion website. The "Operation Cronos" campaign was led by the UK's National Crime Agency, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Europol, in collaboration with a coalition of police agencies from 9 countries globally. However, LockBit posted messages on an encrypted messaging app saying its backup servers were unaffected.
Cybersecurity Experts Question ‘Cyber Scam Warning’ Effectiveness – January 19th
The concern of official cyber scam warnings potentially being ineffective was raised by cybersecurity firms, Praxis Labs, eSentire, stemming from Dubai and Ghana cyber and law enforcement agency reports. After multiple cyber scam warnings issued by the Dubai Police and the Cyber Security Authority of Ghana, reports of victims continuously poured in for these “search engine scams”. Following the incidents, researchers at Praxis Labs and eSentire released statements on human behavior corresponding to cyber, by being on "default mode" and for search engines, the issuance of "implicit trust".
Financial Sector Sees Most Cyberattacks in 2023 – December 20th
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.
US Consumers Receive 2B Spam Calls Monthly – November 29th
According to Truecaller, US consumers were faced with two billion spam calls per month. Truecaller's Monthly US Spam and Scam Report also unveiled that around 195 million hours were wasted by answering these scam calls. The goal of these scam calls is to carry out credit card fraud, identity theft, and sensitive data collection.
Law Enforcement takes down RagnarLocker base – October 20th
Law enforcement officials are working around the clock to take down ransomware gangs by targeting their funding sources and online infrastructure. As part of these efforts, they have seized the RagnarLocker base, hoping this will disrupt one of the internet's most malicious ransomware groups. The collective law enforcement effort is made up of authorities from Europe, the US, and Japan.