Security

Election 2024 mobile political spam volumes have seen a threefold increase compared with 2022 midterms.  The data comes from recent research by Proofpoint, which also suggests that US voters increasingly turn to digital platforms for information, making them more susceptible to cybercriminal activities.  With 60% of US adults preferring digital media for news and 86% using

The EU Commission has informed Meta that its ‘pay or consent’ model breaches EU law as it does not allow users to freely consent to their personal data being collected for advertising purposes. The Commission’s preliminary view is that the tech giant’s new approach is not compliant with Article 5(2) of the Digital Markets Act

Google blocked over 10,000 instances of Dragon Bridge activity in Q1 2024, a China-affiliated influence operator that pushes pro-People’s Republic of China (PRC) views online. The tech giant also disrupted over 65,000 instances of Dragon Bridge activity across YouTube and Blogger in 2023. The Threat Analysis Group (TAG) at Google described the group as the

Large organizations have significantly strengthened their cyber workforce in 2024, according to cyber consultancy Wavestone. In its Cyber Benchmark 2024 report, Wavestone found that, on average, companies with over $1bn in revenues have one expert dedicated to cybersecurity for 1086 employees. In 2023, the same organizations had one cyber professional for 1285 employees – a

Remote software provider TeamViewer has been hit by a cyber-attack that it has attributed to Russian state-affiliated threat actor Midnight Blizzard/APT29. The firm revealed it identified suspicious behavior on a standard employee account within its corporate IT environment on Wednesday, June 26. It has tied the incident to the credentials of that account. TeamViewer said

A third (33%) of security leaders believe companies often sacrifice long-term security for cost savings. The data comes from Bugcrowd’s 2024 Inside the Mind of a CISO report, which also suggests that 40% of security leaders think fewer than one-third of companies understand their breach risks.  Despite these concerns, nearly 87% of security leaders are actively

Progress Software has disclosed two fresh vulnerabilities in its MOVEit file transfer products. The first is an authentication bypass affecting the MOVEit Transfer SFTP service in a default configuration (CVE-2024-5806). It affects the Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) service from version 2023.0.0 to 2023.0.11, 2023.1.0 to 2023.1.6 and 2024.0.0 to 2024.0.2. The second is an

New fraud campaigns have been discovered involving the Medusa (TangleBot) banking Trojan, which had evaded detection for nearly a year.  An analysis published by Cleafy researchers last week revealed that this sophisticated malware family, first identified in 2020, has resurfaced with significant changes.  This malware, known for its remote access Trojan (RAT) capabilities, includes keylogging,

Security researchers from Group-IB have unveiled the operations of a threat actor known as Boolka, whose activities involve deploying sophisticated malware and engaging in web attacks.  According to an advisory published by the company on Friday, the group has been observed exploiting vulnerabilities through SQL injection attacks since 2022, targeting websites across various countries. The

Threat actors have published nearly 400GB of data stolen from pathology provider Synnovis, including sensitive NHS patient information, according to reports. The data was apparently accessed by ransomware group Qilin following the attack on critical NHS supplier Synnovis on June 3, 2024. The gang reportedly posted the information on its darknet site and Telegram channel

The US government has banned cybersecurity provider Kaspersky from selling its products in the country because of the company’s alleged links to the Russian regime. On June 20, 2024, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a Final Determination prohibiting Kaspersky Lab, Inc., the US subsidiary of the Russian cybersecurity

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has revealed its Chemical Security Assessment Tool (CSAT) was breached by a malicious actor, and warned chemical facilities that sensitive data may have been exfiltrated. The attackers exploited a zero-day vulnerability in an Ivanti Connect Secure appliance to infiltrate CSAT from January 23 to 26, 2024. The

The notorious LockBit group has reemerged to become the most prominent ransomware actor in May 2024, according to a new analysis by NCC Group. LockBit 3.0 returned to the fold in May to launch 176 ransomware attacks, 37% of the total number for the month. This represents an enormous 665% month-on-month increase for the ransomware-as-a-service

Individuals in China have been targeted by a QR code-based phishing (quishing) campaign which uses QR codes in fake official documents to deceive victims, according to new research by Cyble Research and Intelligence Labs (CRIL). As part of the campaign, Microsfot Word files masquerade as official documents from the Chinese Ministry of Human Resources and

More than nine in 10 (92%) organizations experienced an average of six credential compromises caused by email-based social engineering attacks in 2023, according to a new report by Barracuda. Scamming and phishing continued to make up the vast majority (86%) of social engineering attacks last year. There were some notable trends in how attackers are

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) has disclosed a data breach impacting  more than 200,000 individuals. The data stolen includes personal, medical and financial information. The incident, which took place between February 19 and 20, 2024, was caused by an attacker gaining the log-in credentials of 53 Public Health employees through a phishing

Researchers at cybersecurity provider ESET detected five cyber espionage campaigns starting in 2022, targeting Android users with trojanized apps in Egypt and Palestine. In a new report, ESET provided further details on these campaigns, which it attributed with medium confidence to the Arid Viper hacking group. The ESET researchers named the multistage spyware used to

Microsoft President Brad Smith had admitted security failings by the firm in enabling Chinese state hackers access the emails of US government officials in the summer of 2023. In testimony at Congress to members of the US House Committee on Homeland Security on June 13, 2024, Smith said the tech giant accepts responsibility for all

Three weeks before the UK general election, Matthew Feeney, head of tech and innovation at the UK-based Centre for Policy Studies, warned about the deepfake threat to election integrity in a new report. The tech policy expert said that technological advances have made deepfakes easier and cheaper than ever to produce. However, he cautioned against

Ascension has revealed that ransomware attackers gained access to its systems after an employee accidently downloaded a malicious file. The incident, which took place in May 2024, forced the US private healthcare provider to divert ambulances and postpone patient appointments. Additionally, the attack prevented access to electronic health records (EHR), and took down various systems

Vulnerabilities in edge services and infrastructure devices are being increasingly exploited by cyber threat actors, according to a new report by WthSecure. Edge services, pieces of software installed at the edge of a network and accessible from both the internet and the internal network, are attractive to threat actors because they make a perfect initial

Phishing continues to be one of the most favored ways of compromising systems for hacking groups, Abnormal Security has found. In its latest report, Email Security Threats in Europe: Insights into Attack Trends, the email security provider observed that the volume of phishing attacks targeting organizations in Europe increased by 112.4% between April 2023 and

The winners of the European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards were announced at a ceremony held at Tapa Tapa, London, on June 5 at Infosecurity Europe 2024 . The awards celebrated the industry’s best blogs, podcasts, and vlogs, as well as the exceptional talent who contribute to these forums. The award ceremony was organised by Eskenzi PR, sponsored

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been found in the WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates (WZone) plugin, according to Patchstack.  This premium WordPress plugin, developed by AA-Team and boasting over 35,000 sales, is designed to assist site owners and bloggers in monetizing their websites via the Amazon affiliate program.  The vulnerabilities identified are serious, impacting all tested versions, including

Most CISOs now plan on the basis that a cyber-attack or data breach will happen, but there is still work to do to if organizations are to survive a crisis and recover, warned industry experts. Effective cyber crisis management is a key part of resilience. According to a panel of CISOs and cyber experts at

A new vulnerability has been found in the EmailGPT service, a Google Chrome extension and API service that utilizes OpenAI’s GPT models to assist users writing emails within Gmail.  The flaw discovered by Synopsys Cybersecurity Research Center (CyRC) researchers is particularly alarming because it enables attackers to gain control over the AI service simply by

Both enterprises and consumer-facing organizations should look to move away from passwords in favor of more secure, and convenient, forms of authentication. This was the view of experts on authentication, speaking at Infosecurity Europe 2024. The sheer number of passwords the average business user, or consumer, now needs to remember causes practical difficulties as well as

Smaller firms and charities face the same growing security risks as their larger peers, but lack of budgets and resources need not be a barrier to improving security, according to industry experts. Security leaders from smaller organizations told Infosecurity Europe 2024 that it is not just financial constraints that limit options in smaller organizations. A

Leading London hospitals have been forced to cancel operations and divert emergency patients following a cyber-attack on a critical supplier. The incident has affected Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts and primary care services in South East London, according to a statement from NHS England on June 4. This follows a

Ransomware activity increased in 2023 compared to 2022, according to Google-owned Mandiant. This is despite broadscale law enforcement operations against prominent ransomware groups, including ALPHV/BlackCat. Mandiant shared ransomware research findings in a new report published on June 3, 2024. The threat intelligence firm observed a 75% increase in posts on ransomware groups’ data leak sites