CyberSecurity Updates

26 Dec

The top 12 tech stories of 2022

Data Breaches, Malware, Social Engineering

The technology sector’s vulnerability to the vagaries of geopolitics and the macroeconomy became clearer than ever in 2022, as IT giants laid off workers en masse, regulators cracked down on tech rule-breakers, nations negotiated data privacy, the EU-China chip war widened, and the Ukraine war disrupted business as usual. Through it all the classic tech themes—including innovation, constant change, and the fight to bolster cybersecurity—continued as ChatGPT was released, Broadcom sought to purchase VMWare, a…

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23 Dec

S3 Ep114: Preventing cyberthreats – stop them before they stop you! [Audio + Text]

Information, Malware

by Paul Ducklin STOP THE CROOKS BEFORE THEY STOP YOU! Paul Ducklin talks to world-renowned cybersecurity expert Fraser Howard, Director of Research at SophosLabs, in this fascinating episode, recorded during our recent Security SOS Week 2022. When it comes to fighting cybercrime, Fraser truly is a “specialist in everything”, and he also has the knack of explaining this tricky and treacherous subject in plain English. Click-and-drag on the soundwaves below to skip to any point.…

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23 Dec

LastPass finally admits: They did steal your password vaults after all

Information

by Paul Ducklin Popular password management company LastPass has been under the pump this year, following a network intrusion back in August 2022. Details of how the attackers first got in are still scarce, with LastPass’s first official comment cautiously stating that: [A]n unauthorized party gained access to portions of the LastPass development environment through a single compromised developer account. A folllow-up announcement about a month later was similarly inconclusive: [T]he threat actor gained access…

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23 Dec

Microsoft Patches Azure Cross-Tenant Data Access Flaw

Information, Malware, News

Microsoft has silently fixed an important-severity security flaw in its Azure Container Service (ACS) after an external researcher warned that a buggy feature allowed cross-tenant network bypass attacks. The vulnerability, documented by researchers at Mnemonic, effectively removed the entire network and identity perimeter around  internet-isolated Azure Cognitive Search instances and allowed cross-tenant access to the data plane of ACS instances from any location, including instances without any explicit network exposure. According to Mnemonic researcher Emilien…

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23 Dec

Facebook Agrees to Pay $725 Million to Settle Privacy Suit

Information, News

Facebook parent Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a long-running lawsuit that accused the social network of allowing third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, to access users’ private data. The amount was disclosed in a court filing late on Thursday. “The proposed settlement of $725,000,000 is the largest recovery ever achieved in a data privacy class action and the most Facebook has ever paid to resolve a private class action,” lawyers for the…

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23 Dec

Customer details compromised in LastPass data breaches

Attacks, Data Breaches

The data breaches LastPass suffered in August and November 2022 resulted in confidential customer information being compromised. In a statement, LastPass explained that the August breach saw a malicious actor steal source code and technical information from LastPass’ development environment that was then used to target an employee. This allowed the hacker to gain access to credentials and keys, which they then used to access LastPass’ third-party cloud storage service in November 2022. Using the…

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23 Dec

BetMGM Confirms Breach as Hackers Offer to Sell Data of 1.5 Million Customers

Information, News

MGM Resorts-owned online sports betting company BetMGM confirmed suffering a data breach the same day hackers offered to sell a database containing the information of 1.5 million BetMGM customers. In a statement posted on its website on December 21, BetMGM said “patron records were obtained in an unauthorized manner”. The company said the compromised information includes name, email address, postal address, phone number, date of birth, hashed Social Security number, account identifier, and information related…

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23 Dec

China’s ByteDance Admits Using TikTok Data to Track Journalists

Information, News

Employees of Chinese tech giant ByteDance improperly accessed data from social media platform TikTok to track journalists in a bid to identify the source of leaks to the media, the company admitted Friday. TikTok has gone to great lengths to convince customers and governments of major markets like the United States that users’ data privacy is protected and that it poses no threat to national security. But parent company ByteDance told AFP on Friday that…

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22 Dec

Zerobot Botnet Emerges as a Growing Threat with New Exploits and Capabilities

Attacks, Malware

The main methods that Zerobot uses to infect a system, via brute-force or vulnerability exploitation, can easily be prevented by following a few recommended steps. The first recommendation would be to make sure all devices on a network are up-to-date on their patches, particularly any Internet-facing devices. The threat actors rely on devices remaining unpatched to infect systems and grow their botnet, so by making sure all devices are up-to-date and not vulnerable, an organization…

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22 Dec

FIN7 Cybercrime Syndicate Emerges as Major Player in Ransomware Landscape

Attacks, Malware

To protect against ransomware attacks, organizations should: • Regularly back up data, air gap, and password protect backup copies offline.• Ensure copies of critical data are not accessible for modification or deletion from the system where the data resides.• Implement network segmentation.• Implement a recovery plan to maintain and retain multiple copies of sensitive or proprietary data and servers in a physically separate, segmented, secure location• Install updates/patch operating systems, software, and firmware as soon…

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