News

The Evilnum hacking group have been targeting European organisations that are involved in international migration, showing renewed signs of malicious activity within the group. Evilnum is an advanced persistent threat (APT) that has been active since at least 2019 and had its campaign and tools exposed in 2020. In 2020, ESET published a technical report describing the threat group's tactics against compaines in the financial technology sector, using "homemade", custom malware. Zscaler's analysts have discovered...

Wiltshire Farm Foods, a leading producer of frozen ready meals in the UK, has revealed that its systems are currently down after experiencing a serious cyber-attack. The producer said on Sunday that it is "currently experiencing severe difficulties" with its computer system. They said, “If you are expecting a delivery this week (w/c 27th June) or have other concerns, please contact your local depot." “Unfortunately, as our systems are not currently working, we will be...

A report released by Mandiant on June 28th found a coordinated effort to generate outrage and protests against an Australian rare earth mining company, Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. Lynas, the world's largest rare earth mining company outside of China, is planning an expansion into Texas to extract materials which are valuable to consumer and defense products. This influence operation aligns with the geopolitical goal of the PRC to curtail the United States' ability to compete...

The pandemic tested the business resilience of every organisation. Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) had to maximise their digital footprint to keep operational, service their customers and survive. Just as companies are starting to return to some semblance of new normal, another threat is on the horizon. The pandemic has fuelled an increase in cybercrime that shows no signs of abating. Small and medium sized enterprises caught in the cross hairs The speed with...

More news concerning the notorious spyware group NSO Group Technologies was released last week in discussions with European legislators. At least five EU countries have been using its powerful Pegasus surveillance malware raising questions about how commercially-available spyware is increasingly being abused. The capabilities of Pegasus are something out of an Orwellian novel. The software allows governments to hack into iPhones and Android phones; turning on microphones and cameras, recording text messages, call logs, locations,...

An unidentified hacker group has stolen more than $100million from Californian cryptocurrency firm Harmony. Last Thursday, the company made the announcement via Twitter. They said that they had identified a theft occurring on the Horizon bridge amounting to approximately $100m. The first Tweet reads, “we have begun working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds." Harmony published the cryptocurrency address of the malicious actor and reassured customers that...

The ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) Black Basta has struck 50 victims in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand within two months of its emergence in the cybersecurity landscape. The speed at which it has accumulated victims in such a short time frame has made it a prominent new threat for the cybersecurity of governments and a range of different industries. "Black Basta has been observed targeting a range of industries, including manufacturing, construction, transportation,...

Police from South America and Europe have teamed up to take action against an organised crime group involved in human trafficking for sexual exploitation. Between the 20th and 23rd June, the police swooped on 14 locations, arrested 10 and interviewed eight victims. Among the items seized in the searches were vehicles, hard drives, electronic equipment, over 40 mobile phones, SIM cards, payment cards, and documents. Europol supported the French Border Police, the Portuguese Judicial Police,...

On Tuesday President Biden signed two pieces of legislation into law which were aimed at enhancing the cybersecurity capabilities of federal, state and local governments. The signing was preceded by an earlier law which increased the ability of the federal government to collect data about cyberattacks. These laws are a direct response to the marked increase in cybersecurity attacks following the Covid-19 pandemic and the rise in the digital marketplace as well as the infamous...

A "dangerous piece of functionality" has been discovered in Microsoft 365 suite that could be potentially abused by a malicious actor to ransom files stored on SharePoint and OneDrive and launch attacks on cloud infrastructure. The cloud ransomware attack allows file-encrypting malware to launch and "encrypt files stored on SharePoint and OneDrive in a way that makes them unrecoverable without dedicated backups or a decryption key from the attacker," according to a Proofpoint report. The...