Security

HSBC claims to have successfully trialed the first application of quantum-secure technology for buying and selling tokenized physical gold. One year after the bank started tokenizing gold bullions using distributed ledger technology (DLT), HSBC announced on September 19 that it successfully tested quantum-secure methods to protect these assets against potential future quantum computing attacks. For

Whoever the next US president is, they will have cyber policy measures to consider implementing in order to protect the US from both nation-state adversaries and cybercriminals. In its fourth annual report on implementation, published on September 19, the US Cyberspace Solarium Commission 2.0 (CSC 2.0) has provided the incoming administration and Congress with a

A lack of cyber security expertise and employee training threatens the protection of cloud environments, according to new research by Check Point Software. In its 2024 Cloud Security Report, the firm found that 61% of organizations experienced at least one security incident related to public cloud use in the past year, a significant increase from

Security researchers have found new evidence of TeamTNT activity dating back to 2023, despite a commonly held belief that the group “evaporated” in 2022. TeamTNT was a prolific threat actor known for cryptojacking attacks, which use victims’ IT resources to illegally mine for cryptocurrency. The likely German-speaking actor first emerged in 2019 and became infamous for

AT&T has agreed to pay $13m to the US telco regulator to settle a long-running investigation into whether it failed to protect customer data stored in the cloud. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) explained that the incident stemmed from a supply chain breach in January 2023 when threat actors exfiltrated AT&T customer data from a

Ransomware attacks are surging in the UK, with threat actors possibly encouraged by the propensity of victim organizations to pay up, according to a new study from Cohesity. The security vendor polled over 3100 IT and security decision-makers in eight countries and multiple sectors to compile its Global cyber resilience report 2024. It revealed that,

Socia media giant Meta is resuming its controversial plans to use Facebook and Instagram user posts to train generative AI (GenAI). The practice is effectively banned in the EU at present after the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) requested the firm pause its project, in a move Meta branded as “a step backwards for European

A case involving a medical record hack affecting hundreds of patients and employees at a Pennsylvania healthcare company has been settled for a record-breaking $65m. Filed in March 2023, the case involved nearly 135,000 patients and employees of Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN), an independent healthcare network based in Pennsylvania. The plaintiffs, represented by class-action

Read more about disinformation campaigns targeting the US Presidential Elections Malicious actors are spreading false claims that US voter registration databases have been breached, according to a new alert issued by the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The agencies said the claims are designed to manipulate public opinion and undermine confidence

Ireland’s data protection authorities have launched a probe into Google’s AI model, and whether it complies with GDPR. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), An Coimisiún um Chosaint Sonraí, is the EU’s lead privacy regulator for Google. The DPC has opened a cross-border statutory inquiry into Google Ireland, under Section 110 of the Data Protection

Nearly all (95%) version upgrades of open source software contain at least one breaking change that causes other components to fail, with patches having a 75% chance of causing a break, according to Endor Labs. The security vendor revealed the findings in its third annual Dependency Management Report, which is based on Endor Labs vulnerability

Microsoft heaped more work onto sysadmins this week after fixing four zero-day vulnerabilities being actively exploited in the wild. First on the list is CVE-2024-43491 – a CVSS 9.8 remote code execution (RCE) bug in Microsoft Windows Update which requires no privileges or user interaction, and of low attack complexity. “This vulnerability emerged due to a

SonicWall customers have been urged to patch a critical vulnerability in their firewalls after security researchers warned it is being actively exploited in ransomware attacks. The CVSS 9.3-rated vulnerability (CVE-2024-40766) was originally published on August 22 by the security vendor, before an update on September 6 claimed it was being actively exploited. “An improper access

London’s transport authority has confirmed that several services are temporarily suspended, as it scrambles to respond to a cyber-attack that occurred a week ago. Transport for London (TfL) first revealed news of the incident on the evening of September 2 but played down its impact on transport services in the capital. However, an update on

The US, UK and seven other governments have accused the Russian military of launching cyber-attacks targeting critical infrastructure for espionage and sabotage purposes. The joint advisory, published on September 5, highlighted the cyber activities of Unit 29155, which the agencies assess to be affiliated with the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed

Read more about the international crackdown on spyware US Moves to Ban “Anti-Democratic” Spyware US Cracks Down on Spyware with Visa Restrictions Governments and Tech Giants Unite Against Commercial Spyware Global scrutiny on hack-for-hire services and spyware tools has heightened over the past few months, with many countries strengthening their legal response to human rights

A new software supply chain attack is being exploited in the wild, according to security researchers. The technique targets Python applications distributed via the Python Package Index, or PyPI. Researchers at software supply chain security firm JFrog believe that the attack, dubbed “Revival Hijack,” could affect 22,000 existing Python packages. That, in turn, could lead

The US government has set out measures to improve the security for a key part of the internet. The Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) has released a roadmap to improve internet routing security, by tackling weaknesses associated with the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). The ONCD’s roadmap calls for wider adoption of Resource Public

Civil society and journalists’ groups in Europe are calling on the EU to take tougher action against spyware applications. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT Europe), and the fellow organizations in a “co-ordination group”, argue that spyware “poses a significant threat to EU democratic values, public debate and healthy civic spaces.” In a joint

Fota Wildlife Park, in County Cork, Ireland, has been forced to advise customers to cancel their payment cards following a cyber-attack. The attraction is warning customers who carried out “financial transactions on our website” between 12 May and 27 August 2024, to cancel their debit or credit cards via their bank. The park says it has

The ransomware group BlackByte, believed to be a spin-off of the infamous Conti group, has been observed by cybersecurity experts exploiting a recently disclosed VMware ESXi vulnerability to gain control over virtual machines and escalate privileges within compromised environments.  The pivot, discovered by Cisco Talos Incident Response, shows BlackByte’s ability to quickly integrate new vulnerabilities

In a world-first, a Russian state-sponsored hacking group has used software vulnerability exploits “identical or strikingly similar” to ones previously used by NSO Group and Intellexa, two infamous commercial spyware vendors. In a new report, Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) shared insights on two watering hole attacks targeting Mongolian government websites between November 2023 and

Published vulnerabilities rose by 43% in H1 2024 compared to H1 2023, with attackers heavily targeting flaws in virtual private networks (VPNs) and other perimeter devices for initial access, a new report from Forescout has found. A total of 23,668 vulnerabilities were reported in the first six months of 2024, with an average of 111

A recent surge in malicious activity involving North Korean-linked threat groups has been identified by cybersecurity researchers, revealing a coordinated campaign targeting thenpm ecosystem. The campaign began on August 12 2024, and involved publishing malicious npm packages designed to infiltrate developer environments and steal sensitive data. The newly discovered packages, including temp-etherscan-api, ethersscan-api and telegram-con, exhibit

Ransomware attacks on US schools and colleges have surged in recent years, with 491 incidents recorded since 2018, impacting over 8000 educational institutions and exposing 6.7 million individual records. According to a new report by Comparitech, estimated costs exceed $2.5b in downtime alone as schools struggle to restore systems, recover data and strengthen cybersecurity measures.

A vulnerability in Microsoft 365 Copilot that allowed attackers to steal users’ sensitive information has been disclosed by a cybersecurity researcher. Johann Rehberger, who discovered the flaw, described the exploit chain in a blog post published on August 26. The attack combines several advanced techniques, including prompt injection, automatic tool invocation and a novel method called

A long-standing but stealthy group allegedly helping cyber-attackers penetrate IT systems by offering CAPTCHA-solving services has recently been discovered. In a new report, Arkose Cyber Threat Intelligence Research (ACTIR) shared that it had identified a cyber-attack enabling business it named Greasy Opal after observing the group’s tools being used to attack Arkose Labs’ customers. Greasy

YouTube has released a new AI troubleshooting tool to help users recover their accounts after they’ve been hacked. The AI chatbot “support assistant” will act as a guide for users to resecure their login and recover their account after its been hacked. Eligible users will be able to access the tool in the YouTube Help

Qilin, the ransomware group believed to be behind the recent Synnovis attack, has been observed stealing credentials stored in Google Chrome after gaining access to a target’s network. Researchers at Sophos X-Ops, who detected the activity, said this is an unusual tactic for ransomware groups, and one that could be a bonus multiplier for the

The US government has filed a lawsuit against the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and its affiliate Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC) for alleged cybersecurity violations. The Department of Justice (DoJ) has joined a whistleblower to file a “complaint-in-intervention” against the institutions for “knowingly” failing to implement cybersecurity controls as required by their Department