News – December 2023


  • Former Chelsea player Rati Aleksidze arrested in Germany for ‘gang-related investment fraud’

    December 20, 2023

    A former Chelsea striker played a possible minor role in a global investment crime gang, according to prosecutors investigating a cyber scam worth “billions”. Rati Aleksidze was temporarily held under a European arrest warrant in March. German prosecutors told Telegraph Sport he is suspected of playing “at most” a minor role in the Tbilisi-based conspiracy accused of ...

  • UK: Police to be able to run face recognition searches on 50m driving licence holders

    December 20, 2023

    The police will be able to run facial recognition searches on a database containing images of Britain’s 50 million driving licence holders under a law change being quietly introduced by the government. Should the police wish to put a name to an image collected on CCTV, or shared on social media, the legislation would provide them ...

  • U.S. National Security Agency Publishes 2023 Cybersecurity Year in Review

    December 19, 2023

    FORT MEADE, Md.–The National Security Agency (NSA) published its 2023 Cybersecurity Year in Review today to share its recent cybersecurity successes and how it is working with partners to deliver on cybersecurity advances that enhance national security. This year’s report highlights NSA’s work with U.S government partners, foreign partners, and the Defense Industrial Base. “The combined ...

  • Seedworm: Iranian Hackers Target Telecoms Organisations in North and East Africa

    December 19, 2023

    Iranian espionage group Seedworm (aka Muddywater) has been targeting organizations operating in the telecommunications sector in Egypt, Sudan, and Tanzania. Seedworm has been active since at least 2017, and has targeted organizations in many countries, though it is most strongly associated with attacks on organizations in the Middle East. It has been publicly stated that Seedworm ...

  • Threat Actors Exploit CVE-2017-11882 To Deliver Agent Tesla

    December 19, 2023

    First discovered in 2014, Agent Tesla is an advanced keylogger with features like clipboard logging, screen keylogging, screen capturing, and extracting stored passwords from different web browsers. Recently, Zscaler ThreatLabz detected a threat campaign where threat actors leverage CVE-2017-11882 XLAM to spread Agent Tesla to users on vulnerable versions of Microsoft Office. The CVE-2017-11882 vulnerability is ...

  • #StopRansomware: ALPHV Blackcat

    December 19, 2023

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are releasing this joint CSA to disseminate known IOCs and TTPs associated with the ALPHV Blackcat ransomware as a service (RaaS) identified through FBI investigations as recently as Dec. 6, 2023. This advisory provides updates to the FBI FLASH BlackCat/ALPHV Ransomware Indicators ...

  • Operation HAECHI IV: USD 300 million seized and 3,500 suspects arrested in international financial crime operation

    December 19, 2023

    LYON, FRANCE – A transcontinental police operation against online financial crime has concluded with almost 3,500 arrests and seizures of USD 300 million (approx. EUR 273 million) worth of assets across 34 countries. The six-month Operation HAECHI IV (July-December 2023) targeted seven types of cyber-enabled scams: voice phishing, romance scams, online sextortion, investment fraud, money laundering ...

  • Mr. Cooper leaks personal data of 14 million loan and mortgage customers

    December 19, 2023

    A major mortgage and loan company based in Dallas, working under the name Mr. Cooper Group Inc. has released more information on a recent breach. In a data breach notification, the company didn’t say what type of cyberattack caused the compromise of customer data, calling it a rather non-descriptive “External system breach (hacking).” For those unfamiliar ...

  • Europol publishes IOCTA spotlight report on online fraud schemes

    December 19, 2023

    Europol’s spotlight report on online fraud highlights that online fraud schemes represent a major crime threat in the EU and beyond as online fraudsters generate multiple billions in illicit profits every year to the detriment of individuals, companies and public institutions. Fraud schemes are perpetrated with the intention of defrauding victims of their assets using false ...

  • KLM, Air France passenger data was improperly secured, and vulnerable to data theft

    December 18, 2023

    A large amount of personal data belonging to airline passengers who flew on KLM and Air France was not properly secured, and was somewhat readily available for theft, according to NOS and information technology security researcher Benjamin Broersma. The security hole was fixed soon after the broadcaster contacted the Dutch airline. It was not immediately clear ...