- A Microsoft under attack from government and tech rivals after ‘preventable’ hack ties executive pay to cyberthreats
May 22, 2024
Microsoft has come under fire recently from both the U.S. government and rival companies for its failure to stop a Chinese hack of its systems last summer. One change the tech giant is making in response: linking executive compensation more closely to cybersecurity. In April, a government review board described a hack of Microsoft last summer attributed ...
- Positive Technologies detects a series of attacks via Microsoft Exchange Server
May 17, 2024
While responding to an incident, the Incident Response team of Positive Technologies Expert Security Center (PT ESC) discovered an unknown keylogger embedded in the main Microsoft Exchange Server page of one of our customers. This keylogger was collecting account credentials into a file accessible via a special path from the internet. The team identified over 30 ...
- SugarGh0st RAT Used to Target American Artificial Intelligence Experts
May 16, 2024
Proofpoint recently identified a SugarGh0st RAT campaign targeting organizations in the United States involved in artificial intelligence efforts, including those in academia, private industry, and government service. Proofpoint tracks the cluster responsible for this activity as UNK_SweetSpecter. SugarGh0st RAT is a remote access trojan, and is a customized variant of Gh0stRAT, an older commodity trojan typically ...
- Ireland: More than 470 legal proceedings issued against health service after ransomware hit
May 14, 2024
More than 470 legal proceedings have been issued against the Health Service Executive (HSE) in relation to a cyber attack that shutdown the health service’s IT systems and compromised the data of thousands of patients and staff three years ago. Conti, a Russia-based cybercrime group, launched its ransomware attack on the health service on May 14th, ...
- Tennessee: New state law to protect entities under cyber attack from class action suits amid Ascension Health hack
May 13, 2024
Another healthcare system is under a cyber attack, and while it’s unclear what, if any information has been accessed, a soon-to-be law will prevent those whose information may have been exposed from filing a class action lawsuit against entities that are hacked as long as the organization wasn’t grossly negligent. According to a spokesperson for Ascension ...
- U.S. Patent Office data leak exposes private addresses
May 9, 2024
USPTO has acknowledged yet another incident in which the filers’ address data was leaked. Following a second data breach within two years, the federal agency responsible for patent and trademark grants notified thousands of filers whose private addresses were exposed. As a result, the USPTO is now reaching out to thousands of affected filers to inform ...
- Germany recalls envoy to Russia over cyberattack
May 6, 2024
The German ambassador to Russia was recalled for consultations on Monday after Berlin accused Moscow of carrying out cyberattacks. A newly concluded government investigation found the cyberattack had been carried out by a group — linked to Moscow’s GRU military intelligence agency — known as APT28. The group, also known as Fancy Bear, has been accused ...
- Israel’s Cabinet votes to shut down Al Jazeera operations in Israel
May 5, 2024
Israel’s cabinet on Sunday voted unanimously to shut down the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, nearly six months after first announcing its intentions to do so due to security concerns related to the Israel-Hamas war. The decision, which requires recertification every 45 days, includes shutting down Al Jazeera broadcasts in Arabic and English; ...
- Scaly Wolf’s new loader: the right tool for the wrong job
May 2, 2024
The BI.ZONE Threat Intelligence team has uncovered a fresh campaign by the group targeting Russian and Belarusian organizations. The threat actors are distributing phishing emails under the guise of a federal agency. The emails have a legitimate document as an attachment. It aims to lull the recipient’s vigilance and prompt them to open the other file, ...
- Polish minister says government used spyware against hundreds of people
April 25, 2024
The use of spyware in Poland under the previous government resulted in accusations that the authorities were abusing power and eroding democratic guardrails. Poland’s prosecutor general said on Wednesday that Pegasus spyware was used against hundreds of people during the former Polish government. Adam Bodnar told lawmakers that he found the scale of the surveillance to ...
- ToddyCat is making holes in your infrastructure
April 22, 2024
Kapersky researchers continue covering the activities of the APT group ToddyCat. In their previous article, they described tools for collecting and exfiltrating files (LoFiSe and PcExter). This time, the researchers have investigated how attackers obtain constant access to compromised infrastructure, what information on the hosts they are interested in, and what tools they use to extract ...
- UK government cannot protect businesses and services from cyber attacks
April 22, 2024
UK businesses are rapidly losing confidence in the government’s ability to protect them from cyberattacks. This is according to a new report from cybersecurity researchers Armis, which states that the lack of faith is higher than anywhere else in Europe. To draft the report, Armis surveyed more than 2,600 global security and IT decision-makers, and included ...
- From Social Engineering to DMARC Abuse: TA427’s Art of Information Gathering
April 16, 2024
Proofpoint researchers track numerous state-sponsored and state-aligned threat actors. TA427 (also known as Emerald Sleet, APT43, THALLIUM or Kimsuky), a Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) aligned group working in support of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, is particularly prolific in email phishing campaigns targeting experts for insight into US and the Republic of ...
- South Africa’s trade regulator ITAC hit by cyber attack
April 16, 2024
According to the organisation, the attack happened in January, leading to the exposure of the personal information of stakeholders. ITAC is an institution dedicated to promoting fair trade in South Africa in order to enhance economic growth and development. The site includes trade and tariff services as well as import and export control services. In a ...
- Russia slaps sanctions on UK IT sector
April 10, 2024
Moscow has blacklisted 22 British government officials, members of the IT sector and legal service market as a measure of retaliation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Those blacklisted particularly include employees of British companies, namely Micro Focus, providing Ukrainian forces with “software and cyber protection services necessary in the process of data collection ...
- LazyStealer: Sophisticated does not mean better
April 4, 2024
In the first quarter of 2024, researchers from Positive Technologies Expert Security Center (PT ESC) detected a series of attacks targeting government organizations in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Armenia. The research team could not find any links to known groups that used the same techniques. The main goal of the attack was stealing ...
- UK: Parliamentary staff warned of dangers after suspected sexting honeytrap attacks
April 4, 2024
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, has held talks with parliamentary staff following suspected sexting honeytrap attacks targeting MPs, staffers and political journalists. At least 12 men working in and around Parliament, including a serving minister and other MPs, have been targeted on WhatsApp in a suspected spear phishing attack. Attackers contacted their victims under the ...
- Russia foiled 280,000 DDoS cyberattacks against remote electronic voting system
March 17, 2024
Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, said that the overall turnout in the presidential election as of 3:45 p.m. Moscow time (1245GMT), taking into account remote electronic voting, is 70.81%. Pamfilova also said that about 280,000 DDoS cyberattacks against remote electronic voting had been foiled, including 215,000 ...
- A bug in an Irish government website exposed COVID-19 vaccination records
March 14, 2024
Two years ago, the Irish government fixed a vulnerability in its national COVID-19 vaccination portal that exposed the vaccination records of around a million residents. But details of the vulnerability weren’t revealed until this week after attempts to coordinate public disclosure with the government agency stalled and ended. Security researcher Aaron Costello said he discovered the ...
- Russia’s spy service accuses US of trying to meddle in presidential election
March 11, 2024
President Vladimir Putin’s foreign intelligence service on Monday accused the United States of trying to meddle in Russia’s presidential election and said that Washington even had plans to launch a cyber attack on the online voting system. Putin, who is almost certain to win the March 15-17 presidential election, has warned the West that any attempts ...