Tag: threat intelligence
341% Rise in Advanced Phishing Attacks – May 22nd
SlashNext's report revealed a 341% increase in malicious phishing links, business email compromise (BEC), Quishing, and attachment-based threats in the past six months. "The State of Phishing 2024" report also states that malicious email and messaging threats have increased by 856% over the past 12 months, amplified by the emergence of generative AI.
Change Healthcare Hit by Another Potential Cyber Attack – April 9th
Arriving just a month after a paid ransom was demanded following the massive data breach in February 2024, Change Healthcare reported on another potential cyberattack: extortion from the "ransomhub" group. Initiated by the new "ransomhub" group, with suspected connections to BlackCat, the double-extortion claim has yet to be confirmed by cybersecurity experts.
‘INC Ransom’ Group Threatens to Release NHS Data – March 28th
The 'INC Ransom' ransomware group publicly threatened to release three terabytes of NHS Scotland sensitive patient and staff data, after publishing a smaller sample size proving the viability of the threat. NHS Dumfries and Galloway's efforts to prevent the attack from being repeated are underway in collaboration with Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
Rise in Tax-Related Phishing Scams Detected – March 22nd
Microsoft's Threat Intelligence arm issued a warning on the rise of new, sophisticated tax phishing scams that could lead to stolen personal and financial data. These tax-related phishing scams are initiated by impersonating trusted employers, tax agencies, and payment processors. Victims click on a malicious attachment, which leads to a believable landing page designed to capture sensitive information.
Suspected Hackers Behind Meta Social Media Temporary Shutdown – March 6th
Cyberint reported that three threat actor groups (Skynet, Godzilla, and Anonymous Sudan) are suspected to be behind the temporary shutdown of Meta social media platforms; Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Despite the claims from the three threat actor groups on the Meta shutdown across various Telegram groups, there is still suspicion that these claims could be a hoax.
Deepfake face swaps hijack video meetings
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as face swaps are now being used in Mission Impossible-style cyber-enabled financial crimes. The South China Morning Post reports that last month criminals defrauded a multinational Hong Kong firm of HK$200 million (US$26 million) by using deepfake video technology. The cybercriminal gang initially sent a message to an employee in the finance department of the unnamed company, inviting him to a video conference via a message purporting to be from the organization’s chief financial officer (CFO). While on the video conference, the employee was joined by what looked and sounded sufficiently like his CFO and other colleagues to convince him to make a fraudulent transfer of company funds.
US White House Issues Executive Order to Improve Nation’s Cybersecurity – December 22nd
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."
167% Rise in Malicious Bot Attacks Reported – November 23rd
Arkose Labs reported a 167% rise in malicious bot attacks for the first half of 2023. The Arkose Labs report focused on bots also stated that 73% of all website and app traffic measured comprised of malicious bots in order to initiate attack types such as SMS toll fraud, web scraping, card testing, and credential stuffing.
Europol Urges Police to Prepare for Quantum Computing – October 26th
Europol released a statement directed to European law enforcement agencies to prepare for the impact quantum computing will have on the cybersecurity ecosystem. This warning is based on Europol's latest report, "The Second Quantum Revolution: The Impact of Quantum Computing and Quantum Technologies on Law Enforcement" which dives into the threats and opportunities of quantum computing to threat actors.
Companies slow to take the fight to cybercriminals
According to a study conducted in June, “Threat intelligence: Eyes on the enemy,” by threat intelligence firm Cyber Risk Analytics (CRA), vulnerability priority is the chief use of threat intelligence for 70 percent of the study’s respondents; 65 percent of those respondents also stated that they are starting to use threat intelligence to aid them with reactive incident response. By contrast, proactive measures still rank low on the list of primary uses for threat intelligence where most organizations are concerned, with 50 percent of respondents using threat intelligence for threat hunting and 46 percent, fewer than half, using actionable threat intelligence providing advanced warning against future attacks.