Stopping Chinese cyberattacks is officially now the biggest priority for US security forces

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has shuffled its priorities to place battling the “cyber and other threats posed by the People’s Republic of China” at the top of the list, at least until the end of 2025. China Read More …

ExCobalt: GoRed, the hidden-tunnel technique

While responding to an incident at one of their clients, the PT ESC CSIRT team discovered a previously unknown backdoor written in Go, which they attributed to a cybercrime gang dubbed ExCobalt. ExCobalt focuses on cyberespionage and includes several members Read More …

Exposed and vulnerable: Recent attacks highlight critical need to protect internet-exposed OT devices

Since late 2023, Microsoft has observed an increase in reports of attacks focusing on internet-exposed, poorly secured operational technology (OT) devices. Internet-exposed OT equipment in water and wastewater systems (WWS) in the US were targeted in multiple attacks over the Read More …

Hellhounds: Operation Lahat. Part 2

In November 2023, the team at the Positive Technologies Expert Security Center (PT ESC) released their first research report on attacks by the hitherto-unknown group Hellhounds on Russian companies’ infrastructure: Operation Lahat. The report focused on the group’s attacks on Read More …

Most recent cyber attacks on water systems won’t be the last, says cybersecurity expert

More government agencies are taking steps to shore up their cybersecurity measures. Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would step up inspections of water facilities that may be vulnerable to cyberattacks. Why are government agencies more at Read More …

Bank of Russia reports rising number of cyber attacks on financial infrastructure

The Bank of Russia reported an increase in the number of attacks on suppliers of various IT solutions used in the financial market, the regulator said in its report. “It is particularly noteworthy that attacks on third parties – suppliers Read More …

U.K., U.S. and Canadian cyber authorities warn of pro-Russia hacktivist attacks on OT systems

The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and other international cyber authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), have warned about pro-Russia hacktivist attacks targeting providers of operational technology. OT is hardware and software that interacts with the physical Read More …

Governments issue alerts after ‘sophisticated’ state-backed actor found exploiting flaws in Cisco security boxes

A previously unknown and “sophisticated” nation-state group compromised Cisco firewalls as early as November 2023 for espionage purposes — and possibly attacked network devices made by other vendors including Microsoft, according to warnings from the networking giant and three Western Read More …

Are We Ready for a Cyber Attack on Food and Farming?

Federal officials and lawmakers are preparing to defend against cyber attacks that would leave residents without reliable access to food by targeting the food and agriculture sectors. The latest preparation effort is Cyber Storm — a massive, multiday tabletop exercise Read More …

More ways Israel could strike Iran, from cyber attacks to assassinations

For years, the two countries in the Middle East targeted each other’s military and intelligence sites in cyber attacks. The best known, from Israel’s side, was Stuxnet – reportedly developed jointly by the U.S. and Israel — that struck the Read More …