- North Korean cyberspies target govt officials with custom malware
November 18, 2021
A state-sponsored North Korean threat actor tracked as TA406 was recently observed deploying custom info-stealing malware in espionage campaigns. The particular actor is attributed as one of several groups known as Kimsuky (aka Thallium). TA406 has left traces of low-volume activity since 2018, primarily focusing on espionage, money-grabbing scams, and extortion. However, in March and June 2021, ...
- Philippines gov takes down passport application website amid privacy leak fears
November 11, 2021
The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has disabled its online passport application tracker, citing a “data privacy issue” and hinting that information could have leaked. “The DFA’s IT Unit is currently investigating the circumstances surrounding this issue and is taking appropriate measures to secure the data that may have been exposed,” states a notice on ...
- CISA Binding Operational Directive 22-01 – Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities
November 3, 2021
A binding operational directive is a compulsory direction to federal, executive branch, departments and agencies for purposes of safeguarding federal information and information systems. Section 3553(b)(2) of title 44, U.S. Code, authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop and oversee the implementation of binding operational directives. Federal agencies are required to comply ...
- New White House Cyber Director Wants to Fight Like Cobra Kai
November 1, 2021
The first U.S. National Cyber Director wants the government to take a tougher, more proactive approach to those who threaten America’s networks: degrade their capabilities and demonstrate how they would suffer should they attack. John “Chris” Inglis’ vision for his brand-new office somewhat resembles the match-day strategy employed by the Cobra Kai dojo in the original ...
- Meet Balikbayan Foxes: a threat group impersonating the Philippine gov’t
October 27, 2021
Proofpoint has uncovered a new, “highly active” threat group that is impersonating the Philippine government and businesses to spread Trojan malware. On Wednesday, researchers Selena Larson and Joe Wise said the threat actors, dubbed “Balikbayan Foxes” and tracked as TA2722, are concentrated in the Philippines but are targeting the shipping, logistics, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, business, and energy ...
- FBI: Ranzy Locker ransomware hit at least 30 US companies this year
October 26, 2021
The FBI said on Monday that Ranzy Locker ransomware operators had compromised at least 30 US companies this year from various industry sectors. “Unknown cyber criminals using Ranzy Locker ransomware had compromised more than 30 US businesses as of July 2021,” the FBI said in a TLP: WHITE flash alert. “The victims include the construction subsector of ...
- Hacker sells the data for millions of Moscow drivers for $800
October 23, 2021
Hackers are selling a stolen database containing 50 million records of Moscow driver data on an underground forum for only $800. According to Russian media outlets that purchased the database, the data appears to be valid and contains records collected between 2006 and 2019 Russian news publisher Kommersant called a small sample of the exposed individuals and ...
- Russia and China left out of global anti-ransomware meetings
October 13, 2021
The White House National Security Council facilitates virtual meetings this week with senior officials and ministers from more than 30 countries in a virtual international counter-ransomware event to rally allies in the fight against the ransomware threat. Publicly disclosed ransomware payments have reached more than $400 million globally in 2020 and over $81 million in the ...
- MysterySnail attacks IT companies, defence contractors and diplomatic entities with Windows zero-day
October 12, 2021
In late August and early September 2021, Kaspersky technologies detected attacks with the use of an elevation of privilege exploit on multiple Microsoft Windows servers. The exploit had numerous debug strings from an older, publicly known exploit for vulnerability CVE-2016-3309, but closer analysis revealed that it was a zero-day. We discovered that it was using ...
- Microsoft: Russian state hackers behind 53% of attacks on US govt agencies
October 8, 2021
Microsoft says that Russian-sponsored hacking groups are increasingly targeting US government agencies, with roughly 58% of all nation-state attacks observed by Microsoft between July 2020 and June 2021 coming from Russia. “Russian nation-state actors are increasingly targeting government agencies for intelligence gathering, which jumped from 3% of their targets a year ago to 53% – largely ...
- Ransom Disclosure Act would give victims 48 hours to report payments
October 5, 2021
Victims of ransomware attacks in the United States may soon have to report any payments to hackers within 48 hours, according to a new legislation proposal titled the ‘Ransom Disclosure Act’. The bill was drafted by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Deborah Ross, and its goal is to strengthen DHS’s (Department of Homeland Security) understanding ...
- GhostEmperor: From ProxyLogon to kernel mode
September 30, 2021
While investigating a recent rise of attacks against Exchange servers, we noticed a recurring cluster of activity that appeared in several distinct compromised networks. This cluster stood out for its usage of a formerly unknown Windows kernel mode rootkit that we dubbed Demodex, and a sophisticated multi-stage malware framework aimed at providing remote control over ...
- NSA-CISA Guidance: Selecting and Hardening Remote Access VPN Solutions
September 30, 2021
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) allow users to remotely connect to a corporate network via a secure tunnel. Through this tunnel, users can take advantage of the internal services and protections normally offered to on-site users, such as email/collaboration tools, sensitive document repositories, and perimeter firewalls and gateways. Because remote access VPN servers are entry points into protected networks, they ...
- New advanced hacking group targets governments, engineers worldwide
September 23, 2021
A new hacking group targeting entities worldwide to spy on them has been unmasked by researchers. Dubbed FamousSparrow by ESET, on Thursday, the team said that the advanced persistent threat (APT) group — many of whom are state-sponsored — is a new entry to the cyberespionage space. Believed to have been active since at least 2019, the ...
- Ransomware encrypts South Africa’s entire Dept of Justice network
September 15, 2021
The justice ministry of the South African government is working on restoring its operations after a recent ransomware attack encrypted all its systems, making all electronic services unavailable both internally and to the public. As a consequence of the attack, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development said that child maintenance payments are now on hold ...
- Brazil debates creation of national strategy to tackle cybercrime
September 13, 2021
Amid growing concerns about increasing threats in the cybersecurity space, the Brazilian government and the banking sector are discussing the creation of a strategy to address crime in digital environments. The president at the Brazilian Federation of Banks (FEBRABAN), Isaac Sidney, and the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Anderson Torres, have started negotiations for the ...
- Ransomware: It’s only a matter of time before a smart city falls victim, and we need to take action now
August 27, 2021
Ransomware attacks are going to get worse – and one could eventually take out the infrastructure of an entire 5G-enabled smart city, a cybersecurity expert has warned. Cyber criminals deploying ransomware regularly target government services. Not only do public sector IT budgets mean networks are less secure against attacks, but said networks are also used to ...
- Biden to host summit with tech moguls on combating cyberattacks
August 25, 2021
United States President Joe Biden is set to host leaders from the country’s largest technology and finance firms at the White House on Wednesday to discuss how to shore up their cybersecurity defences in the face of increasingly complex attacks. The meeting with top executives comes as Congress considers legislation regarding data-breach notification laws and cybersecurity ...
- Pakistan: Neglect caused Federal Board of Revenue cyber-attack
August 22, 2021
Despite knowing that its information technology equipment is obsolete and some of its software is outdated, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) did not make any serious effort to upgrade them, which resulted into hacking of the data centres. The systems were not improved even though the World Bank approved an $80 million loan two years ...
- Brazilian National Treasury hit with ransomware attack
August 17, 2021
The Brazilian government has released a note stating the National Treasury has been hit with a ransomware attack on Friday (13). According to a statement from the Ministry of Economy, initial measures to contain the impact of the cyberattack were immediately taken. The first assessments so far have found there was no damage to the structuring ...