News – September 2024


  • Should State Governments Ban Ransomware Payments?

    September 3, 2024

    In 2021, North Carolina became the first state to prohibit public ransomware payments, even going so far as to ban negotiations with cyber criminals. It was a groundbreaking move. Florida followed suit in 2022, but its legislation took a less stringent approach, covering a narrower range of entities and omitting some of the stricter provisions ...

  • Stone Wolf employs Meduza Stealer to hack Russian companies

    September 2, 2024

    BI.ZONE Threat Intelligence reports an increase in criminal activity employing commercial malware available on underground resources. Recently, the researchers identified a malicious campaign by a cluster later dubbed Stone Wolf. The adversaries send out phishing emails on behalf of a legitimate provider of industrial automation solutions. The goal of the attackers is to deliver Meduza Stealer ...

  • Head Mare: adventures of a unicorn in Russia and Belarus

    September 2, 2024

    Head Mare is a hacktivist group that first made itself known in 2023 on the social network X (formerly Twitter). In their public posts, the attackers reveal information about some of their victims, including organization names, internal documents stolen during attacks, and screenshots of desktops and administrative consoles. By analyzing incidents in Russian companies, Kaspersky researchers ...

  • Northern Ireland: Police Ombudsman sorry for ‘distressing’ data leak as investigation is launched

    September 1, 2024

    An investigation has been launched after a data breach led to the details of current and former Police Ombudsman staff members being accidently released. The Police Ombudsman (PONI) has apologised for the data leak incident involving 160 current and former staff. A document containing some of their personal details was “inadvertently released” to 22 people who ...

  • Misconfigurations in Microsoft Exchange open new doors to email spoofing attacks

    September 1, 2024

    A new report from the Acronis Threat Research Unit has uncovered a vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange Online settings that could enable email spoofing attacks. This issue primarily affects users with a hybrid configuration of on-premises Exchange and Exchange Online, and those utilizing third-party email security solutions. In July 2023, Microsoft introduced a major change in how ...