News – December 2024


  • NCA disrupts $multi-billion Russian money laundering networks with links to, drugs, ransomware and espionage, resulting in 84 arrests

    December 4, 2024

    An international NCA-led investigation – Operation Destabilise – has exposed and disrupted Russian money laundering networks supporting serious and organised crime around the world: spanning from the streets of the UK, to the Middle East, Russia, and South America. Investigators have identified two Russian-speaking networks collaborating at the heart of the criminal enterprise; Smart and TGR. ...

  • 63% of companies plan to pass data breach costs to customers

    December 4, 2024

    The rising practice of shaking down customers to pay for security shortfalls could have a silver lining for CISOs, as diluted price competitiveness could convince top brass of the ROI of cybersecurity investments. Consumers may be more on the hook for paying for the rising costs of data breaches than they realize, as companies increasingly turn ...

  • Ireland: Woman, 20s, arrested over potential data breach at utility service provider

    December 4, 2024

    A woman has been arrested over a potential data breach at a national utility service provider last year. The woman, aged in her 20s, was arrested yesterday and is detained at a garda station in Dublin. The potential breach was identified by members of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau in 2023. It was referred to ...

  • UK: Ransomware hackers target NHS hospitals with new cyberattacks

    December 4, 2024

    Ransomware hackers have continued an assault on National Health Service trusts across the United Kingdom by compromising multiple hospitals, exposing sensitive patient data and disrupting emergency services. Inc Ransom, a prolific Russia-linked ransomware group that claimed responsibility for an attack on NHS Scotland earlier this year, now claims to have breached the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital ...

  • Foreign espionage agencies exploit crowdsourcing for covert intelligence gathering in China

    December 4, 2024

    China’s Ministry of State Security revealed on Wednesday that foreign intelligence agencies are using crowdsourcing to gather sensitive data in China, posing a covert but serious threat to national security. This covert method, dubbed “crowdsourced espionage,” poses an escalating threat. Foreign intelligence agencies break down intelligence-gathering missions into smaller, discrete tasks and distribute them via legitimate ...

  • AI chatbot provider exposes 346,000 customer files, including ID documents, resumes, and medical records

    December 3, 2024

    Researchers have discovered a huge Google Cloud Storage bucket, found freely accessible on the internet and containing a treasure trove of personal information. AI startup WotNot provides companies with the ability to create their own customized chatbot. The company reportedly has 3,000 customers including some household family names. But the way its solution is set up ...

  • INTERPOL campaign warns against cyber and financial crimes

    December 3, 2024

    INTERPOL has launched a campaign to raise awareness on the growing threat of cyber and financial crimes against vulnerable individuals and organizations. The Think Twice campaign, which includes a series of short videos, focuses on five rising online threats: ransomware attacks, malware attacks, phishing, generative AI scams, and romance baiting. These sophisticated scams have seen a ...

  • Enhanced Visibility and Hardening Guidance for Communications Infrastructure

    December 3, 2024

    The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Australian Signals Directorate’s (ASD’s) Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), Canadian Cyber Security Centre (CCCS), and New Zealand’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ) warn that People’s Republic of China (PRC)-affiliated threat actors compromised networks of major global telecommunications providers to ...

  • Major SABS cyberattack raises questions about entity’s leadership

    December 3, 2024

    The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) has suffered a major ransomware cyberattack, resulting in critical IT systems going down, Engineering News has learned. This is not the first time the SABS IT infrastructure has been hacked, with previous incidents reported in 2023 and again in April this year. The SABS confirmed the attack, telling Engineering ...

  • Threat Assessment: Howling Scorpius (Akira Ransomware)

    December 2, 2024

    Emerging in early 2023, the Howling Scorpius ransomware group is the entity behind the Akira ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), which has consistently ranked in recent months among the top five most active ransomware groups. Its double extortion strategy significantly amplifies the threat it poses. Unit 42 researchers have been monitoring the Howling Scorpius ransomware group over the past ...