- -=TWELVE=- is back
September 20, 2024
In the spring of 2024, posts with real people’s personal data began appearing on the -=TWELVE=- Telegram channel. Soon it was blocked for falling foul of the Telegram terms of service. The group stayed off the radar for several months, but as Kaspersky researchers investigated a late June 2024 attack, they found that it employed techniques ...
- Indonesia’s tax agency probes alleged personal data breach
September 19, 2024
Indonesia’s tax agency is investigating an alleged data breach that exposes the taxpayer identification numbers of millions of Indonesians, including President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, his ministers and his two sons, an official said. A series of cyber-attacks have hit Indonesian companies and government agencies in the past few years, which experts attribute to the government’s lax ...
- TikTok just had the most important two hours of its life
September 16, 2024
Who really controls TikTok’s magical algorithm — the US-based company that runs the app or its Chinese parent, ByteDance? That’s the question that bedeviled a trio of federal judges on Monday charged with deciding whether to allow the implementation of a law that could ultimately result in TikTok being banned for all Americans. After more than ...
- Chinese APT Abuses VSCode to Target Government in Asia
September 6, 2024
Unit 42 researchers recently found that Stately Taurus abused the popular Visual Studio Code software in espionage operations targeting government entities in Southeast Asia. Stately Taurus is a Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) group that carries out cyberespionage attacks. This threat actor used Visual Studio Code’s embedded reverse shell feature to gain a foothold in target ...
- Tropic Trooper spies on government entities in the Middle East
September 5, 2024
Tropic Trooper (also known as KeyBoy and Pirate Panda) is an APT group active since 2011. This group has traditionally targeted sectors such as government, healthcare, transportation and high-tech industries in Taiwan, the Philippines and Hong Kong. Kaspersky recent investigation has revealed that in 2024 they conducted persistent campaigns targeting a government entity in the Middle ...
- Should State Governments Ban Ransomware Payments?
September 3, 2024
In 2021, North Carolina became the first state to prohibit public ransomware payments, even going so far as to ban negotiations with cyber criminals. It was a groundbreaking move. Florida followed suit in 2022, but its legislation took a less stringent approach, covering a narrower range of entities and omitting some of the stricter provisions ...
- Head Mare: adventures of a unicorn in Russia and Belarus
September 2, 2024
Head Mare is a hacktivist group that first made itself known in 2023 on the social network X (formerly Twitter). In their public posts, the attackers reveal information about some of their victims, including organization names, internal documents stolen during attacks, and screenshots of desktops and administrative consoles. By analyzing incidents in Russian companies, Kaspersky researchers ...
- UK: Watchdog reprimands Labour following data breach
August 29, 2024
The information watchdog has formally reprimanded the Labour Party for failing in its data protection duties following a cyber attack. More than 150 complaints were made to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about the handling of inquiries about personal data, known as Subject Access Requests (SARs). An investigation revealed the problem developed in part because an ...
- Iran-based Cyber Actors Enabling Ransomware Attacks on US Organizations
August 28, 2024
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) are releasing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to warn network defenders that, as of August 2024, a group of Iran-based cyber actors continues to exploit U.S. and foreign organizations. This includes organizations across several sectors ...
- ACSC chief appointed new top cyber spy
August 26, 2024
Australian Cyber Security Centre chief Abigail Bradshaw has been named the new director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate, replacing outgoing chief Rachel Noble. Ms Bradshaw, a former Navy officer with deep expertise in cyber, national security, crisis management and incident response roles across government, will take up the top job on September 6. Prime Minister Anthony ...
- Security gaps leave local governments vulnerable to a variety of cyber threats
August 21, 2024
Cities and counties are beefing up their IT security, and that makes sense, says Augustine Boateng, interim chief information officer (CIO) in Memphis, Tenn. “It’s important to note that local governments have developed a reputation over the years for having lackluster cybersecurity; and not without good reason. As a result, we’re seeing more and more cyberattacks ...
- BlindEagle flying high in Latin America
August 19, 2024
BlindEagle, also known as “APT-C-36”, is an APT actor recognized for employing straightforward yet impactful attack techniques and methodologies. The group is known for their persistent campaigns targeting entities and individuals in Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Panama and other countries in Latin America. They have been targeting entities in multiple sectors, including governmental institutions, financial companies, energy ...
- T-Mobile Fined $60 Million to Settle Alleged National Security Violations
August 15, 2024
Wireless company T-Mobile US has agreed to pay about $60 million to settle allegations it failed to promptly report incidents of unauthorized data access in violation of a national security agreement that allowed its merger with rival Sprint, according to senior U.S. government officials. The civil penalty, announced Wednesday by the Committee on Foreign Investment in ...
- EastWind campaign: new CloudSorcerer attacks on government organizations in Russia
August 14, 2024
In late July 2024, we detected a series of ongoing targeted cyberattacks on dozens of computers at Russian government organizations and IT companies. The threat actors infected devices using phishing emails with malicious shortcut attachments. These shortcuts were used to deliver malware that received commands via the Dropbox cloud service. Attackers used this malware to download ...
- Venezuela is the Victim of a Cyber Coup
August 10, 2024
On Friday, Joaquin Perez, the Deputy Ambassador of Venezuela to the United Nations, participated in the United Nations Convention on Cybercrime meeting held in New York. The Bolivarian diplomat denounced that Venezuela is being subjected to a cyber coup d’état orchestrated by transnational far-right powerful actors who control major media outlets and social networks. “The meeting ...
- Greece leaves spy services unchecked on Predator hacks
August 7, 2024
Greece’s 2022 espionage scandal dubbed “Predatorgate” had everything: eavesdropping on politicians, journalists and judges, exports of shady software to dictatorial regimes and high-profile resignations. Fast-forward two years and everyone in government is off the hook. In a 300-page report seen by POLITICO, deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court Achilles Zisis argued that a series of controversial ...
- Bloody Wolf strikes organizations in Kazakhstan with STRRAT commercial malware
July 31, 2024
Since late 2023, BI.ZONE Threat Intelligence experts have been tracking the activity of Bloody Wolf. The cluster attacks organizations in Kazakhstan with STRRAT, a commercial malware also known as Strigoi Master. The attackers send out phishing emails on behalf of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan and other agencies. The emails have PDF ...
- UK: Basic IT security failings left electoral register vulnerable
July 30, 2024
Basic IT security failings allowed Chinese state-linked hackers to access the election watchdog’s register containing the details of 40 million voters. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said the Electoral Commission had failed to keep its servers updated, allowing hackers to exploit the vulnerability. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of GCHQ, has previously said it ...
- Pakistan to launch home-grown messaging app amid internet disruptions
July 30, 2024
The Pakistani government is set to roll out “Beep Pakistan”, a communication application designed for federal officials and employees. Shaza Fatima Khwaja, the state minister for information technology and telecommunication, said that the application was currently undergoing trial runs within her ministry and would be launched “soon” among other government departments. “We have developed an application ...
- New Attack Technique GrimResource Sweeps Through China with Fake Website
July 17, 2024
QiAnXin Threat Intelligence Center and Falcon Operations Team observed in their daily operations that in June 2024, several foreign counterparts reported in-the-wild attacks related to the new attack technique GrimResource. QiAnXin Threat Intelligence Center and Falcon Operations Team promptly conducted research on this technique and have been continuously monitoring it. In mid-July 2024, they discovered the ...
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