Cyber Bites

Clearview AI has been fined by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for breaking UK data protection laws. The £7.5m fine is a huge reduction from the £17m the ICO initially planned to fine the web-based intelligence platform in November 2021. The initial fine was proposed following a joint investigation conducted in accordance with the Australian Privacy Act and the UK Data Protection Act 2018. The company has been punished for building an online database...

A minimum of two research institutes in Russia and third likely in Belarus have suffered an espionage attack carried out by a Chinese nation-state advanced persistent threat grout (APT).  Codenamed "Twisted Panda," the attacks come in the wake of Russia's military invasion of Ukraine, an event that has prompted many threat actors to switch tactics and stage opportunistic attacks. Check Point, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, disclosed details of the latest intelligence-gathering operation, attributing it to...

Deep fakes depicting videos of Elon Musk and other prominent figures in the cryptocurrency scene are promoting a BitVex trading platform scam that steals deposited currency. The spoof BitVex crypto trading platform claims to be owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, saying in the deep fake that he created the site to allow investors to earn up to 30% returns on cryptocurrency deposits. The videos are created by modifying legitimate interviews with deep fake technology...

Conti ransomware gang has shut down their operation, taking infrastructure offline and informing team leaders that the brand ceases to exist. Yelisey Boguslavskiy, head of research at Advanced Intel, tweeted yesterday that the gang's internal infrastructure had been switched off. Although public-facing ransom negotiation sites and the "Conti News" data leak are still online, Boguslavskiy told BleepingComputer that Tor admin panels are no longer online.  

A programming issue at the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) exposed the personal information of nearly two million Texans for nearly three years. The department revealed that information such as Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers was made publicly available from March 2019 to January 2022. The information belongs to 1.8 million Texan workers who have filed compensation claims. The TDI issued a public notice on March 24, saying that it...

US authorities have warned that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is sending IT workers to get freelance jobs at companies worldwide, with the goal of obtaining privileged access that could be used to open the door for cyber intrusions. Thousands of "highly skilled IT workers" have been directed or forced to target freelance jobs at organisations in wealthier nations by the North Korean state. It's believed that said workers use a variety of...

Omnicell, a US based multinational healthcare company, has confirmed it suffered a data breach in the a wake of a suspected ransomware attack. The company disclosed the ransomware attack on May 9 2022 in a 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In the filing, Omnicell stated: “Our IT systems and third-party cloud services are potentially vulnerable to cyber-attacks, including ransomware, or other data security incidents, by employees or others, which may expose...

The US Department of Justice announced yesterday that Moises Luis Zagala Gonzalez, a 55-year-old cardiologist currently residing in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, created and rented Jigsaw and Thanos ransomware to cybercriminals. Known online as Nosophoros, Aesculapius, and Nebuchadnezzar, Gonzales supported cybercriminals in their use of the ransomware, and shared in the profits made. "As alleged, the multi-tasking doctor treated patients, created and named his cyber tool after death, profited from a global ransomware ecosystem in which...

It has been revealed that Italian authorities derailed efforts by pro-Russian cybercriminals to disrupt the Eurovision song contest. Throughout both the performances and voting rounds, police were mobilised to block attacks on network infrastructure - Reuters reports that the attacks have been attributed to the Russian "Killnet" group and its affiliate "Legion". Several Italian institutions were attacked in the week leading up to the contest, including the upper house of parliament, the National Health Institute...

The UK government has announced cybersecurity plans for the country's civil nuclear sector in the newly published 2022 Civil Nuclear Cyber Security Strategy. The country's nuclear program is growing into one of the most vital elements of the government's plans to reach net-zero carbon emissions, but poses a significant risk as a target for state-backed cyber criminals. The strategy outlines four key objectives to be met before 2026: Prioritizing cybersecurity as part of a holistic...