Cyber Bites

Government, security firms and technology companies should be doing the heavy lifting when it comes to protecting against hacking and cyberattacks, says the UK's intelligence service. The UK could one day create a national cyber-defence system built on sharing real-time cybersecurity information between intelligence agencies and business, the head of GCHQ has said.  Source: ZDNet

Company blames February 2019 security breach on phishing email received in July 2018. Bodybuilding.com, the internet's biggest online store and online forum for fitness and bodybuilding enthusiasts, has disclosed last week a security breach that impacted its IT systems.Source: ZDNet

Briton hailed as WannaCry hero finally pleads guilty to charges of writing and distributing malware but urges security researchers to stay away from the “dark side”. British security researcher Marcus Hutchins is urging security researchers to stay on the right side of the law after pleading guilty to two charges relating to developing and distributing password-stealing malware Kronos between July 2014 and July 2015. Source: Computer Weekly

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) expects 42% of Britain online users to lose money due to fraud, according to its first UK Cyber Survey. Released over the Easter weekend (April 21, 2019), the report also found that the most-used password from global cyber breaches was "123456," with "ashley" the most-used name as a password. The global password-risk list was published to disclose passwords already known to hackers.Source: Infosecurity Magazine

April’s Microsoft Windows update has apparently been causing headaches for users who had previously installed anti-virus software from vendors such as Avast, Avira, ArcaBit, McAfee and Sophos. Users with these AV products who installed the 9 April Windows update may find that their machines become slow or unresponsive following restart, according to the "Known Issues" section of Microsoft’s Monthly Rollup update web page. Source: SC Magazine UK

The proportion of UK firms reporting a cyber-attack has jumped, despite most businesses admitting they are under-prepared for breaches, according to research from Hiscox. The insurer found 55% had faced an attack in 2019, up from 40% last year. But almost three quarters of firms were ranked as "novices" in terms of cyber readiness. Hiscox said a lot of businesses "incorrectly felt that they weren't at risk". Source: BBC News

The Ecuadorean government says that it has been targeted with 40 million cyber attacks in the few days since WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was removed from the country’s London embassy. Source: Engineering & Technology

A Point-of-Sale (PoS) data breach exposed more than 2 million debit and credit cards that belongs to the diners at Earl Enterprises. Earl Enterprises is a restaurant company owning national chains such as Earl of Sandwich, Buca di Beppo, and Planet Hollywood. Although the chain restaurant operator have not disclosed themselves how many customers got affected, but Brian Krebs, the cybersecurity expert, said evidences were found by him that 2 million debit and credit cards...

The attack uses a legitimate remote access system as well as several families of malware.A new wave of cyberattacks uses legitimate remote access software to take over user accounts in financial services and retail organizations. Source: Dark Reading

A French team of security experts has emerged the winner of a NATO-backed “live-fire” cybersecurity exercise, Locked Shields, that involved nearly 1,200 cybersecurity experts competing in a red team-blue team engagement to defend a fictional country, “Berylia”. Source: Computer Business Review