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Following the cyber attack on the Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE), the attackers have sought a ransom. HSE has, however, stated they will not be paying the hackers, even while the country's healthcare and social services continue dealing with the disruption of the ransomware, which has been described as potentially the 'most significant' case of cybercrime experienced against the Irish State. The HSE has said: "Following an initial assessment we know this is a variant...

Recently, KrebsOnSecurity discovered that close to all ransomware strains have a particular built-in failsafe: they will not install on a device that uses specific virtual keyboards, specifically Russian or Ukrainian. Several Russian-language affiliate moneymaking programmes, including Darkside, prevent their criminal associates to install any malicious software on devices in several Eastern European countries. This is an attempt to minimise the chances of investigation against them by local authorities. For example, in Russia, authorities have a...

It has been confirmed that Ireland's healthcare system fell victim to two cyber-attacks on Thursday and Friday last week. The Department of Health reported that its IT systems were shut down after the first ransomware attack on Thursday. On Friday a similar attack was launched against the Health Service Executive (HSE) causing "substantial" cancellations to services. Both incidents were allegedly carried out by the same cyber-crime group.  

Over the weekend AXA, an insurance giant based in Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Philippines, reported falling victim to a ransomware attack. The attack is claimed to have been perpetrated by the Avaddon ransomware group, which has said it stole 3 TB of sensitive data from AXA's Asian operations. The attack was not limited to ransomware, as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) was also observed, taking AXA's global websites down for part of...

A CISOs workday is riddled with high-stress situations as they constantly battle the deluge of threats emerging from the ever-expanding threat landscape. Therefore it is no wonder that the majority of technology leaders are feeling stressed.    In recent years the challenges that CISOs face have only intensified. Since the pandemic, security professionals have had to carry out a mass overhaul of their companies systems and infrastructure in order to facilitate a work-from-anywhere environment. When...

The skills gap in cybersecurity is a much-discussed problem in the industry. Diversity is another issue that employers and educational institutions are trying to tackle, but changes are somewhat slow to come. And as the economy moves further into the digital age, it was clear to see people need help changing their career. These were the premises that brought Lorna and Andrea, the co-founders of CAPSLOCK and both former university lecturers, to assemble a world-class...

Following a ransomware attack on the administrative services company, CaptureRx, at least three US healthcare providers suffered a data breach. The attach occurred on February 6, and an investigation was launched almost two weeks later, discovering that several files had been accessed by an unauthorised user. The personal health information (PHI) of more than 24,000 individuals was exfiltrated. Under the providers affected were Faxton St. Luke's Healthcare, Thrifty Drug Stores and Gifford Health Care. The...

Despite the increased use of mobile device management (MDM), mobile phishing among financial services was at an all-time high last year. A report conducted by endpoint security expert, Lookout, revealed a 125% increase in exposure to considerable risk in both financial services and insurance organisations. The financial report also uncovered that the risk exposure to malware and risky applications increased by over 400%, leaving employees and customers in this industry vulnerable to a breach. Phishing...

The recent cyber-attack against Oldsmar Water Plant in Florida has increased concerns over cybercriminals targeting industrial organisations and highlighted that the cyber-physical attacks that have been predicted for years, are now happening. In February this year, it was announced that cybercriminals had broken into the water plant and changed the level of sodium hydroxide being fed to people’s homes from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million. It took over five hours for an...

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has released a set of security principles for local authorities to help protect smart city technology from cyber threats. Along with the guidance, it is warning that compromise of a single system in a smart city could have a negative impact across the network if badly designed, this includes internet of things (IoT) devices and underlying infrastructure. The NCSC document, dubbed 'Connected Places Cyber Security Principles', is aaims to...