Security

Over 40% of companies globally are struggling to fill critical cybersecurity roles, particularly in information security research and malware analysis, as highlighted by a recent report from Kaspersky. This shortage is particularly acute in Europe, Russia and Latin America. Additionally, security operations center (SOC) and security assessment and network security roles are understaffed, with figures

Operation Cronos, the global law enforcement operation that took down LockBit, one of the world’s most harmful ransomware groups, is a major breakthrough in the fight against cybercrime. The operation, announced on February 20, was led by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and the FBI. Key Takeaways from the Biggest Ransomware Takedown The results

A rising trend in cryptocurrency counterfeiting has been identified by security researchers, particularly targeting Fortune 100 companies.  According to a report published by Resecurity researchers today, these efforts involve the creation of tokens that impersonate major brands, government bodies and even national fiat currencies.  In decentralized finance (DeFi) and crypto, where rapid growth is prevalent,

PDF threats are on the rise with cybercriminals spreading malware, including WikiLoader, Ursnif and DarkGate, through PDFs, a new report by HP Wolf Security has found. The company’s analysis saw a 7% rise in PDF threats in Q4 2023, compared to Q1 of the same year. It noted that previously PDF lures have been used

Organizations based in the EU are being targeted by spear phishing campaigns leveraging EU political and diplomatic events, according to the bloc’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-EU). In its Threat Landscape Report 2023, published on February 15, 2024, CERT-EU found that lures exploiting the EU agenda have been rife in 2023. “In recent years, 2023

Read more on Ivanti vulnerabilities: Bad news continues to pile up for Utah-based IT software provider Ivanti as a new vulnerability has been discovered in its products. On February 8, Ivanti disclosed a new authentication bypass vulnerability impacting its Connect Secure, Policy Secure, and ZTA gateways. This new vulnerability, identified as CVE-2024-22024, is the latest

Prudential Financial has disclosed a cybersecurity breach. Detected on February 5 2024, the breach involved unauthorized access to certain company systems. In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on February 12 2024, Prudential said it immediately activated its cybersecurity incident response protocol and is working with external experts to investigate and mitigate the

A substantial 55% of recent Data Loss Prevention (DLP) events have involved attempts to input personally identifiable information (PII), while 40% included confidential documents.  The figures come from Menlo Security’s report The Continued Impact of Generative AI on Security Posture, published earlier today. According to the new data, from July to December 2023, the landscape

Read more about cyber-threats to 2024 elections: Upcoming US, UK, and South Korea elections are the most likely to face cyber interference, according to a new report published by threat-informed defense solution provider Tidal Cyber. These three countries face adversaries from all four ‘priority’ adversary countries – namely China, Iran, Russia and North Korea. Other

Cybersecurity firm Proofpoint has observed a new malicious campaign targeting dozens of Microsoft Azure environments. Threat actors have targeted hundreds of individuals with multiple operational and executive roles across different organizations. These include sales directors, account managers, finance managers, vice presidents, presidents, chief financial officers, and CEOs. The campaign started in November 2023 and is

Raspberry Robin, a malware initially identified in 2021, has demonstrated remarkable adaptability and sophistication in its recent operations, according to a new report.  The findings come from Check Point researchers, who published a new analysis on Wednesday revealing unique and innovative methods employed by the malware, including exploiting vulnerabilities to gain higher privileges. According to

February 2024 marks 20 years of Facebook’s existence. Despite the brand being well established worldwide and in our day to day lives, only 6% of people trust it and other social media companies with their personal data. In a survey of 12,000 people across the globe, the Thales 2024 Digital Trust Index found that trust in social media

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has introduced a ban on robocalls that contain voices generated by AI to protect US voters from spamming ahead of the November presidential election. Callers must obtain prior express consent from the called party before making a call that utilizes artificial or pre-recorded voice simulated or generated through AI

The personal information of 33 million French citizens could be exposed after two French health insurance operators suffered a data breach in early February. Viamedis, France’s leading provider of medical third-party payment, confirmed on February 1 that it had suffered a data breach. Medical third-party payment is a French system in which a health insurance

Meta will start labeling AI-generated images posted on its Facebook and Instagram platforms before the 2024 US presidential election. Nick Clegg, the social media giant’s president of global affairs, announced in a February 6 blog post that images generated by AI tools and published on Facebook, Instagram and Threads will appear with an AI label

Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) infections were the biggest threat to organizations in the second half of 2023, according to a new Darktrace report. The 2023 End of Year Threat Report highlighted the cross-functional adaption of many of the malware strains. This includes malware loaders like remote access trojans (RATs) being combined with information-stealing malware. Through reverse engineering

The US has slammed Iran for “destabilizing and potentially escalatory” cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure. The remarks were made in a statement that announced sanctions against six Iranians for last year’s cyber-attack against Unitronics, an Israeli manufacturer of programmable logic controllers used in the water sector and other critical infrastructure organizations. The Department of the Treasury’s

Cloudflare has revealed its systems were compromised on Thanksgiving last year, leading to source code being accessed by threat actors. The IT service provider believes the attack, which took place on November 23, 2023, was perpetrated by a nation-state actor, who used credentials stolen during a breach of identity and access management (IAM) specialist Okta.

Romance scam victims surged by more than a fifth (22%) in 2023, compared to 2022, according to new figures from Lloyds Bank. The average amount lost per incident was £6937 ($8847) last year. This was lower than in 2022, when the average loss was £8237 ($10,505). Romance scams have exploded in prominence in recent years,

Wizz, a growing social media app among US teenagers, was removed from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store on January 30. Apple and Google had been contacted by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a US conservative anti-pornography organization, who thanked the two giants on X “for booting the Wizz app from

Security researchers have recently unearthed a supply-chain vulnerability within Bazel, one of Google’s flagship open-source products.  The flaw centered around a command injection vulnerability in a dependent GitHub Actions workflow, potentially allowing malicious actors to insert harmful code into Bazel’s codebase.  According to Cycode researchers, the gravity of this situation means it could affect millions of projects

A substantial 91% of runtime scans are failing within organizations, signaling a significant reliance on identifying issues rather than preventing them, according to Sysdig’s latest report. The new research also revealed that 69% of enterprises have yet to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their cloud environments. Even among the companies that have embraced AI frameworks,

Payloads recently found on compromised Ivanti Connect Secure appliances could be from the same, sophisticated threat actor, according to incident response provider Synacktiv. A new malware analysis from Synacktiv researcher Théo Letailleur showed that the 12 Rust payloads discovered by Volexity as part of its investigation into two Ivanti Connect Secure VPN remote code execution

Teenagers from Western English-speaking countries are increasingly targeted by financial sextortion attacks conducted by Nigeria-based cybercriminals, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) has found. A majority of these happen on social media platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Wizz. Financial sextortion, the illegal act of adults manipulating minors, or other adults, into sharing sexually suggestive

More than a quarter (27%) of organizations have banned the use of generative AI among their workforce over privacy and data security risks, at least temporarily, according to the Cisco 2024 Data Privacy Benchmark Study. Most organizations have also instituted controls on these tools. Nearly two-thirds (63%) have established limitations on what data can be

Ukrainian security services have arrested a hacker for allegedly targeting government websites and providing intelligence to Russia to carry out missile strikes on the city of Kharkiv. Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) revealed that its cyber unit has identified the individual, who it accused of following instructions from Russia’s intelligence service, the FSB. Hacker Spied

New evidence shows that Iran’s intelligence and military services are associated with cyber activities targeting Western countries through their network of contracting companies. A string of multi-year leaks and doxxing efforts led by anti-Iranian government hacktivists and dissident networks has uncovered an intricate web of entities associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) involved

North Korea-backed threat actors hacked more crypto platforms than ever in 2023 but stole less of the digital currency in total than in 2022. Crypto research firm Chainalysis has found that North Korean adversaries stole slightly over $1.0bn in 2023, compared with around $1.7bn in 2022. The 2022 spike, which set a record of stolen

The emergence of cybercrime-as-a-service (RaaS) has lowered the entry barrier into cybercrime by allowing cybercriminals to specialize in only one aspect of the attack supply chain. This can be coding malware, developing phishing kits, crafting initial access methods, releasing vulnerability exploits, or sharing data dumps listing potential victims. However, at the end of the chain,

The UK government has published a new Code of Practice on cybersecurity governance, targeting directors and other senior business leaders. The draft document aims to establish cybersecurity as a key focus for businesses, on par with financial and legal risks. The code highlights a number of areas business leaders should focus on to enhance their