Cyber Bites

Vodafone has confirmed that vulnerabilities were found in equipment supplied by Huawei to bolster the telecom giant's Italian fixed-line network. The vulnerabilities, described as "hidden backdoors" by Bloomberg, could have been utilized to give the Chinese networking giant unauthorized access to Vodafone infrastructure, the publication reported on Tuesday. Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/huawei-denies-existence-of-backdoors-in-vodafone-networking-equipment-brands-them-technical-flaws/

Hackers hid sophisticated malware on Puma Australia's website that could steal your credit card information at checkout, a security researcher found. Sanguine Security forensic analyst Willem de Groot said he found suspicious code tucked away on Puma Australia's page containing a script that logged people's credit card numbers, names and addresses when they typed them in on the website. The code sent victims' data over to a server registered in Ukraine, de Groot said. The security researcher said...

Hackers have stolen $1.75 million from the Saint Ambrose Catholic Parish following a successful BEC (Business Email Compromise) attack which was discovered on April 17 after payments related to the church's Vision 2020 project were not received by a contractor. BEC (also known as Email Account Compromise - EAC) scams are a highly prevalent attack used by crooks to quickly make bank, most times not requiring that much technical skill given its focus on tricking people into wiring money to trusted...

Research published on Monday by cyber threat intelligence company Intsights paints a bleak picture for cybersecurity across the global financial services industry. According to the report, more than 25% of all malware attacks hit banks and other financial services organizations, more than any other industry, and there were huge year-on-year increases in the numbers of compromised credit cards (212%), in credential leaks (129%) and in malicious apps (102%). Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/04/29/new-cyber-report-25-of-all-malware-hits-financial-services-card-fraud-up-200/#63da469f7a47

The US has warned that its intelligence sharing with other countries would have to be re-evaluated if those countries use Huawei to build their 5G networks. Senior US official Rob Strayer said any such role for the firm posed an "unacceptable risk" to security. It has been reported that the UK might allow the Chinese telecoms firm into the non-core parts of its 5G network. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48098362 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48098362

The Weather Channel confirmed that it fell victim to a malicious ransomware attack. On Thursday, April 18, 2019, The Weather Channel live broadcast went offline for about an hour according to The Wall Street Journal, which the company later confirmed in a Twitter statement was due to a ‘malicious software attack.’ The FBI is now investigating the ransomware attack that shut down the Weather Channel’s live program, which forced the cable channel to resort to a...

Demand for cybersecurity roles jumped over 7% in the last year, leading to increasing salaries, according to Indeed. In the wake of a number of high-profile breaches that leaked the personal information of millions, demand for cybersecurity professionals continues to grow, jumping up 7% from 2017 to 2018, according to a Wednesday report from job search site Indeed. But job seeker interest in these roles is diminishing, meaning companies often need to offer top dollar to attract and...

Widespread abuses of privacy, biometric information and artificial intelligence mean the internet is in poor health, but growing popular awareness of its problems gives some cause for hope, says the Mozillla Foundation. Increasing levels of government censorship, more widespread abuses of biometric information and unethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) to amplify systemic injustices are all making the internet a more dangerous and unhealthy place to spend time, but there are encouraging signs of growing movements seeking to...

Storing passwords in plain text and harvesting email contacts have landed the firm in hot water - again. Facebook's damage control teams must be busy these days with data scandal after scandal appearing out of the woodwork on what seems to be a monthly basis -- all of which are gaining the interest of regulators worldwide. Source: ZDNet

Dr Henry Pearson will help UK companies bid for contracts with foreign governments and central banks, Sky News understands. A former executive at BAE Systems' cybersecurity division is being drafted in by Liam Fox to aid British companies' efforts to defend foreign governments and central banks against cyberattacks. Source: Sky News