Last week, authorities from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada accused a well-known hacker group tied to the Russian government, APT29 a/k/a Cozy Bear of using malware to exploit security vulnerabilities to enable it to steal COVID-19 vaccine research from companies located in these countries working to develop a vaccine. This was after a … Continue Reading
Cities and towns continue to be a profitable target for successful ransomware attacks. As we previously reported [view related posts], the list of cities and towns getting hit with ransomware attacks continues to grow. Last week, Jackson County, Georgia admitted that it paid hackers $400,000 to obtain access to its information that was locked down … Continue Reading
In an effort to phase out what many in the security world believe are threats to the cybersecurity posture of governmental agencies and private entities alike, John Quinn, the Chief Information Officer of the State of Vermont, recently issued a memo to all state offices requesting that they determine whether any hardware or software manufactured … Continue Reading
We all remember Kronos—the malicious malware that was sold by Russian underground forums in 2014 for $7,000. If you bought it, you were promised updates and development of new modules. The Kronos developers recently released a new update (dubbed Osiris), which is presently attacking individuals in Germany, Japan, and Poland, with the U.S. in the … Continue Reading
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has indicated that Russian hackers successfully attacked the energy, nuclear, aviation and critical manufacturing sectors through targeted phishing campaigns throughout 2017. According to DHS, the coordinated attacks started in 2016 with one compromise that was dormant for a year until other infiltrations occurred. The hackers targeted real people by … Continue Reading
While meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump was given a soccer ball, symbolic of the 2018 World Cup played in Russia. Bloomberg has reported that the soccer ball contained a chip, known as near-field communication (NFC) tag, which can transmit information to nearby cellphones, presumably including Trump’s as well. The chips can send … Continue Reading
In a lawsuit against its insurance company requesting reimbursement for close to $2.4 million from two different hacking incidents, National Bank of Blacksburg detailed the intrusions, which are instructive of a sophisticated scheme against the financial services industry. According to the lawsuit, the first theft took place on Memorial Day weekend of 2016. In that … Continue Reading
Russian company, Yandex (often compared to Google here in the United States), recently debuted their very own self-driving car. Last week, Yandex released a video depicting its self-driving car driving through snowy streets of Moscow–an extraordinary feat navigating inclement weather and adverse driving conditions. The video shows a driver with his hands in his lap … Continue Reading
Just before the false alarm last weekend in Hawaii when residents were erroneously warned of an impending missile attack, think tank Chatham House issued a report stating that it had identified vulnerabilities in nuclear weapons systems located throughout the world that made them susceptible to malware and ransomware attacks that could lead to inadvertent missile … Continue Reading
The latest report regarding Russia stealing U.S. cyber secrets is yet again centered around the National Security Agency (NSA), using Contractors to gain access, in some cases, to classified data. It has been reported that a NSA Contractor (fired back in 2015) put highly classified U.S. cyber secrets on his home computer, which included information … Continue Reading
Following an election season characterized by missing emails, private servers and personal laptops, and amidst pervasive allegations of Russian cybercrimes, outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh C. Johnson issued an exit memo outlining the cybersecurity strides made by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during the Obama administration. Despite acknowledging “tangible progress,” Johnson warned that … Continue Reading
Cybersecurity hit the news hard in 2016. The number of high profile, and troubling, cyber incidents increased significantly. The Democratic National Committee and one of Clinton’s top advisor’s being hacked, with leaked emails by Russia, according to intelligence reports, may have influenced the U.S. election. Theft of document from the Mossack Fonseca law firm in … Continue Reading
A recent report from Imperva, Inc. has identified a Phishing as a Service (PhaaS) being offered on a Russian website. The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team defines phishing as “an attempt by an individual or group to solicit personal information from unsuspecting users by employing social engineering techniques. Phishing emails are crafted to appear … Continue Reading
It has been reported that the White House is investigating a hacking of the Gmail account of a contract worker who was working on the First Lady’s advance team responsible for logistics. The hacking included emails from February 2015 through July 2016, and included a scan of First Lady Michelle Obama’s passport, including her picture, … Continue Reading
We previously reported that several U.S. Olympians’ medical records were posted online by the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear [view related post]. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has confirmed that the medical records of 25 more Olympic athletes have been accessed and released online. These athletes are from 8 countries, including 10 from the U.S., … Continue Reading
Hacking group Fancy Bear, reportedly a Russian group, who allegedly hacked into the Democratic National Committee emails which made headlines, has posted U.S. Olympians’ medical and drug testing records online. Although it has been described as a “smear” campaign, the U.S. Olympians, in Olympian style, tweeted and thumbed their noses at the hackers, by saying … Continue Reading
The Department of Justice has announced that two hackers who built and sold the Trojan called SpyEye, that caused close to $1 billion in banking losses, have been sentenced for a combined 24 1/2 years in federal court in Atlanta, Georgia. According to evidence presented in Court, provided by the able investigation of the FBI, … Continue Reading
TruShield released its 2015 Annual Cyber Threat Intelligence Report, and the outlook: 2016 will see even more ransomware and phishing attacks than last year. And guess who is facing the biggest threat? Law firms. Paul Caiazzo, principal, chief security architect for TruShield says, “The attackers know law firms process highly sensitive information for their clients, … Continue Reading
