News

Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games have trained a number of cybersecurity professionals in order to defend against potential cyber-attacks. It has been reported that 220 ethical hackers were trained by a programme led by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, with most of the experts coming from Japanese telecommunication companies. As part of the training, participants attended lectures on 20 subjects, while also being split into groups to protect their systems from...

On Tuesday the police released a warning to members of the public of a new phishing scam where government officials are being impersonated. The scams have been ongoing since December 2020, with victims reporting that they have received text messages and phone calls claiming to be government agencies. These messages would alert the recipient that there was an issue with their bank account and would request them to verify their credentials, such as identity card...

On Tuesday the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence said that it is "likely" that Russias are behind a number of hacks that took place last month where hackers gained access to federal agencies. The office, as well as the National Security Agency, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and FBI, shared in a joint statement that the hackers aimed to collect intelligence from the government agencies. The agencies have said that the hacker...

Ticketmaster has just received a $10 million fine after one of their staff admitted to hacking into their competitor's systems in order to affect their presale ticket business. It has been reported that a Ticketmaster employee repeatedly infiltrated their competitor's computers in order to restrict their presale ticket business. It appears that a former employee of the victim firm joined Ticketmaster in 2012 and brought with them confidential information which allowed Ticketmaster to disrupt their...

A data breach broker has stolen the user records from twenty-six companies and is selling them on a hacker forum. Last Friday the hacker began to sell the 368.8 million stolen records on a hacker forum, with prices ranging from $1,800 to $4,000 depending on the company that the data was stolen from. Eight of the twenty-six companies involved in the breach have not been previously disclosed, including Anyvan.com, MyON.com, Chqbook.com and Sitepoint.com.  

In December T-Mobile suffered a security breach which could have possibly exposed customers' phone numbers and call-related information. Fortunately, T-Mobile confirmed that only 0.2 per cent of their users were affected and that the information exposed in the breach did not include customers' names, financial data, credit card information, tax IDs, PINs, addresses or Social Security numbers. Although only 0.2 per cent of their users were affected, this still means that 200,000 customers have had...

RESEARCHERS FROM IBM Trusteer say they’ve uncovered a massive fraud operation that used a network of mobile device emulators to drain millions of dollars from online bank accounts in a matter of days, reported WIRED. The scale of the operation was unlike anything the researchers have seen before. In one case, crooks used about 20 emulators to mimic more than 16,000 phones belonging to customers whose mobile bank accounts had been compromised. In a separate...

Tripwire, Inc., announced on Tuesday the results of a new research report that assessed retail cybersecurity programs in 2020. Conducted for Tripwire by Dimensional Research last month, the survey evaluated the opinions of 203 security professionals working in the retail industry. According to the survey, 78% of retail businesses have taken additional IT security precautions for the 2020 holiday shopping season, compared with prior years. Of those, 87% said they took additional precautions explicitly because...

To lean on the cliché, these unprecedented times have brought about significant challenges for everyone. Practically every organisation, person and industry has been forced to make unexpected changes and significant sacrifices in a variety of different forms. The rush to equip organisations and employees with the tools needed to work from home has greatly exacerbated the already underlying condition of poor cybersecurity hygiene. While businesses and individuals were focused on staying safe and operational, cybercriminals...

The US Department of Energy, who is responsible for managing nuclear weapons, have been victim to a hacking campaign, thought to be executed by Russian hackers. A spokesperson for the department has confirmed that they are responding to the breach, and they have also said the security of the nuclear weapons are unaffected. "At this point, the investigation has found that the malware has been isolated to business networks only, and has not impacted the...