CyberSecure Specialist

27 Jan

Dutch suspect locked up for alleged personal data megathefts

Information

by Paul Ducklin The Public Prosecution Service in the Netherlands [Dutch: Openbaar Ministerie] has just released information about an unnamed suspect arrested back in December 2022 for allegedly stealing and selling personal data about tens of millions of people. The victims are said to live in countries as far apart as Austria, China, Columbia, the Netherlands itself, Thailand and the UK. Apparently, the courts have taken a strict approach to this case, effectively keeping the…

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27 Jan

Data Analytics for Small Businesses: How to Manage Privacy Risks

Insights

Perhaps you’ve been hearing about data analytics, which is being promoted as a way for even small businesses to analyze communications with customers, enhance customer experience, save money, and ultimately improve your brand. However, data analytics can have big privacy implications. You may think of managing privacy risk as protecting sensitive customer information, such as credit cards. As the Venn diagram to the right demonstrates, data security is certainly one aspect of privacy risk, but…

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27 Jan

FBI takes down Hive ransomware group in an undercover operation

Data Breaches, Malware, Social Engineering

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) along with international partners have taken down the Hive ransomware group. The operation that began in July 2022 resulted in the FBI penetrating Hive’s computer networks, capturing its decryption keys, and offering them to victims worldwide, preventing victims from having to pay the $130 million in ransom demanded, DOJ said in a release on Thursday.  “Last night, the Justice Department dismantled an international ransomware network responsible for extorting and…

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27 Jan

US Reiterates $10 Million Reward Offer After Disruption of Hive Ransomware

Information, News

Following the shutdown of the Hive ransomware operation by law enforcement, the US government has reminded the public that a reward of up to $10 million is offered for information on cybercriminals. Authorities in the United States and Europe announced on Thursday the results of a major law enforcement operation targeting the Hive ransomware. More than a dozen agencies collaborated to take down the Tor-based leak website used by the group and other parts of…

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26 Jan

JCDC Announces 2023 Planning Agenda

Attacks, Insights, Malware

Original release date: January 26, 2023 Today, the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) announced its 2023 Planning Agenda. This release marks a major milestone in the continued evolution and maturation of the collaborative’s planning efforts. JCDC’s Planning Agenda brings together government and private sector partners to develop and execute cyber defense plans that achieve specific risk reduction goals focused on systemic risk, collective cyber response, and high-risk communities. Through this effort, CISA and partners across…

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26 Jan

IOTW: Hackers steal the data of 37 million T-Mobile customers

Attacks, Data Breaches

T-Mobile, the Deutsche Telekom-owned mobile communications brand, has suffered a data breach that exposed the records of 37 million customers. The breach was first discovered by T-Mobile on January 5 after the company noticed “unusual activity” on its American networks and was then reported to the general public on January 19. The company said that it believed the hacker had gained access to customer information “using a single Application Programming Interface (or API)”. T-Mobile said…

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26 Jan

Mastodon vs. Twitter: Know the differences

Information

Looking for an alternative to Twitter and thinking about joining the folks flocking to Mastodon? Here’s how the two platforms compare to each other. From restructuring their workforces to facing big fines, big tech companies have been on a roller coaster ride recently – but certainly none quite as much as Twitter. Indeed, Twitter has entered a whole new era since Elon Musk became the company’s owner and CEO last October, and you can bet…

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26 Jan

UK Gov Warns of Phishing Attacks Launched by Iranian, Russian Cyberspies

Information, News, Uncategorized

The United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has published an advisory to warn organizations and individuals about separate spearphishing campaigns conducted by Russian and Iranian cyberespionage groups. The advisory focuses on activities conducted by the Russia-linked Seaborgium group (aka Callisto, Blue Callisto and Coldriver) and the Iran-linked TA453 (aka Charming Kitten, APT35, Magic Hound, NewsBeef, Newscaster and Phosphorus).  The NCSC noted that the two groups covered by the advisory have similar tactics, techniques and…

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26 Jan

9 API security tools on the frontlines of cybersecurity

Data Breaches, Malware, Social Engineering

Application programming interfaces (APIs) have become a critical part of networking, programs, applications, devices, and nearly everything else in the computing landscape. This is especially true for cloud and mobile computing, neither of which could probably exist in its current form without APIs holding everything together or managing much of backend functionality. Because of their reliability and simplicity, APIs have become ubiquitous across the computing landscape. Most organizations probably don’t even know how many APIs…

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26 Jan

Recent legal developments bode well for security researchers, but challenges remain

Data Breaches, Malware, Social Engineering

Despite the hoodie-wearing bad guy image, most hackers are bona fide security researchers protecting users by probing and testing the security configurations of digital networks and assets. Yet the law has often failed to distinguish between malicious hackers and good-faith security researchers. This failure to distinguish between the two hacker camps has, however, improved over the past two years, according to Harley Geiger, an attorney with Venable LLP, who serves as counsel in the Privacy…

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