Security

The UK could be heading for a “cyber disaster” if it continues with its current approach to cybersecurity. This was the message of Professor John Goodacre, challenge director – Digital Security by Design, UKRI, and Professor of Computer Architectures, The University of Manchester, speaking during the latest leg of the DSbD roadshow, in Newport, Wales,

Social media sites and search engines will be forced to prevent fraudulent adverts from appearing on their platforms under new proposals published by the UK government. The new legal duty will require the most popular social media platforms to stop paid-for fraudulent adverts from appearing on their services. This measure is designed to protect internet

Ciaran Martin will present the headline keynote on day one Infosecurity is excited to announce two leading industry figures headlining the upcoming Infosecurity Magazine Spring Online Summit, taking place on March 22 and 23 2022. Day one (EMEA) of the event will see a headline keynote from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)’s founding CEO Ciaran Martin, currently Professor

A Romanian man has been extradited to the United States to face charges relating to the sale of stolen financial data on the dark web.  Sorin Becheru is suspected of conspiring with others to sell stolen credit card numbers obtained using malware.  Romanian authorities arrested the 34-year-old resident of Bucharest on January 1 2022 at the request

Pro-Ukraine hackers have compromised a large number of Russian cloud databases, deleting data, renaming files and potentially exfiltrating information for future attacks, researchers have confirmed. Jeremiah Fowler and a team at Website Planet decided to look at the campaign to “hack back” at Russian entities following the invasion of Ukraine. The Anonymous hacking collective announced

Most consumers prefer to bank digitally rather than in person but are worried about the risk of fraud, according to new research by payments and data security company, Entrust. A survey of 1350 consumers who made or received digital payments in the past 12 months found that 88% of respondents prefer to do their banking online in some

A lengthy investigation into the online trade of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) has led to the arrest of dozens of individuals based in New Zealand. Led by New Zealand’s Te Tari Taiwhenua Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), the two-year international operation identified more than 90,000 online accounts that possessed or traded CSAM.  DIA’s Digital

by Paul Ducklin When the Apple AirTag hit the market in 2021, it immediately attracted the attention of hackers and reverse engineers. Could AirTags be jailbroken? Could AirTags be simulated? Could the AirTag ecosystem be used for purposes beyond Apple’s own imagination (or at least beyond its intentions)? We soon found ourselves writing up the

by Paul Ducklin WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date just as keenly as WordPress itself… …especially if those plugins are designed to help you look after the entirety of your WordPress site data. That’s why we thought we’d write about a recent warning from the creators of Updraft and Updraft Plus, which are free

by Paul Ducklin We monitor a range of email addresses related to Naked Security, so we receieve a regular (a word we are using here to mean “unrelenting”) supply of real-world spams and scams. Some of our email addresses are obviously directly associated with various Sophos-related social media accounts; others are more general business-oriented addresses;

by Paul Ducklin If you use Mozilla Firefox or any Chromium-based browser, notably Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, you’ll know that the version numbers of these products are currently at 97 and 98 respectively. And if you’ve ever looked at your browser’s User-Agent string, you’ll know that these version numbers are, by default, transmitted to

by Paul Ducklin LISTEN NOW Click-and-drag on the soundwaves below to skip to any point. You can also listen directly on Soundcloud. With Doug Aamoth and Paul Ducklin. Intro and outro music by Edith Mudge. You can listen to us on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and anywhere that good podcasts are found.

by Paul Ducklin Just over a year ago, graphics card behemoth Nvidia announced an unexpected software “feature”: anti-cryptomining code baked into the drivers for its latest graphics processing units (GPUs). Simply put, if the driver software thinks you’re using the GPU to perform calculations related to Ethereum cryptocurrency calculations, it cuts the execution speed of

by Paul Ducklin Mozilla has published Firefox 97.0.2, an “out-of-band” update that closes two bugs that are officially listed as critical. Mozilla reports that both of these holes are already actively being exploited, making them so-called zero-day bugs, which means, in simple terms, that the crooks got there first: We have had reports of attacks

by Paul Ducklin LISTEN NOW Click-and-drag on the soundwaves below to skip to any point. You can also listen directly on Soundcloud. With Doug Aamoth and Paul Ducklin. Intro and outro music by Edith Mudge. You can listen to us on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and anywhere that good podcasts are found.

by Paul Ducklin Max Kellermann, a coder and security researcher for German content management software creators CM4all, has just published a fascinating report about a Linux kernel bug that was patched recently. He called the vulnerability Dirty Pipe, because it involves insecure interaction between a true Linux file (one that’s saved permanently on disk) and

by Paul Ducklin Popular open-source computer hardware company Adafruit Industries accidentally exposed customer data… …via the GitHub account of a former employee. As you’ve probably figured out already, Adafruit is named after after Ada Lovelace, a nineteenth-century British intellectual who was a computer programmer long before any programmable computers existed. As mysterious as that might

Renowned documentarist Louis Theroux described the growing societal dangers posed by social media use during the keynote interview at the Digital Transformation EXPO Europe 2021. The session came ahead of the release of Theroux’s new three-part documentary series, exploring how tech is increasingly coalescing with human psychology. In one prominent example of this, he noted that

by Paul Ducklin Back in June this year, we wrote about a ransomware-related bust in Ukraine, featuring a police video in which a high-security door was dismantled with a BFG (Big Fat Grinder), substantial piles of cash were counted out and packed into evidence bags, and numerous fancy cars were seized. Well, here’s another bust

The offshore assets of 35 current and former world leaders have been exposed in an unprecedented leak of financial records dubbed the Pandora Papers.  The cache of 11.9 million confidential files was leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington, DC. Containing 2.94 terabytes of data, the Papers represent the largest trove of

by Paul Ducklin As you probably know (or, at least, as you know now!), October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which means it’s a great opportunity to do three things: Stop. Think. Connect. Those three words were chosen many years ago by the US public service as a short and simple motto for cybersecurity awareness. 5

The United States Coast Guard has launched a new program that gives cyber professionals the chance to become Coast Guard Cyber Officers.  With the launch of the Direct Commission Cyber Officer (DCCO) program, the maritime security branch of the United States military is hoping to attract top cyber talent to work in cyberspace operations, information assurance, cyber

A Kittitian soccer player has made a charitable donation of the compensation he received after being racially abused on social media.  Midfielder Romaine Sawyers, who is currently on loan at Stoke City Football Club from his parent club, West Bromwich Albion, was victimized by 50-year-old cyber-bully Simon Silwood of Kingswinford, West Midlands. Silwood was arrested

A tragic case making its way through the courts in the US could prove to be the first recorded death due to ransomware. According to papers filed in June 2020 (via NBC), Teiranni Kidd of Mobile, Alabama, is accusing Springhill Memorial Hospital and its owners of failing to mitigate a crippling cyber-attack and then conspiring to hide

The long-awaited release of the new James Bond movie is being exploited by cyber-criminals, according to cybersecurity company Kaspersky.  No Time to Die is actor Daniel Craig’s fifth and final fling with the internationally renowned 007 spy character created by author Ian Fleming. Bond first entered the public consciousness in 1952 with the publication of Fleming’s

Crime-fighters in Europe and the UK have signed a new agreement to boost cooperation on cybercrime and other investigations. The working agreement between the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), which investigates serious and organized crimes, and Europol will sit under the UK-EU trade and cooperation agreement (TCA). That’s the limited post-Brexit free trade agreement between

Two-fifths (40%) of business executives would be willing to pay at least a five-figure ransom to restore operations following an attack, going against the advice of governments and law enforcement, according to a new report. Arctic Wolf polled 500 decision-makers from UK firms with over 1000 employees to better understand their security challenges in the new

The UK Cyber Security Council has announced the appointment of four new trustees, taking its total number to eight. The new trustees come with a range of backgrounds and expertise, designed to add legal, governance and education expertise to the Board of Trustees of the Council. They were appointed following a recruitment and selection process overseen by

America’s head of state, Joe Biden, has announced plans to hold a meeting with representatives of 30 different countries later this month to discuss ransomware and other cybersecurity issues.  In a statement released to coincide with the first day of America’s annual Cybersecurity Awareness Month, President Biden said that the chief purpose of the confab would be to address

The owner of two chains of American luxury department stores has warned 4.6 million Neiman Marcus customers that their personal data may have been exposed in a security incident that happened 17 months ago.  Neiman Marcus Group, which owns the Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman department stores, as well as the high-end home goods line