Government


  • Ukrainian intelligence’ hackers attack Russian government agencies and large companies

    June 5, 2024

    Hackers from the Main Intelligence Directorate (DIU) of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense have attacked the electronic services of several Russian ministries and banking institutions, according to RBC-Ukraine source in the special services. According to Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) , the disruption is allegedly linked to an accident in ...

  • Inside The Box: Malware’s New Playground

    June 3, 2024

    Over the past few months, we have been monitoring the increasing abuse of BoxedApp products in the wild. BoxedApp products are commercial packers that provide advanced features such as Virtual Storage (Virtual File System, Virtual Registry), Virtual Processes, and a universal instrumentation system (WIN/NT API hooking). Even though BoxedApp has been commercially available for a while, ...

  • Massive cyber attack against Eritrea’s Internet System

    May 26, 2024

    A massive cyber attack was unleashed against Eritrea’s Internet System on Independence Day, Friday, 24 May 2024, at 12:32’:47 in the afternoon hours. The attempt was foiled by the defensive countermeasures deployed promptly, and the network continued its functions without interruptions. The identity of the originators, architects, and implementers of the attempted cyber attack is not ...

  • Optus sued by regulator over 2022 cyber-attack

    May 23, 2024

    Australia’s Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has begun legal action against Optus, the country’s second largest telco, over a data breach it suffered in 2022. The watchdog has filed legal proceedings to the Federal Court, alleging that Optus “failed to protect the confidentiality of its customers’ personal information from unauthorised interference or unauthorised access,” and was ...

  • 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 ...