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The world has had a rough time following the spread of Coronavirus, also referred to as COVID-19. Following the pandemic’s impact on economical, political, and social aspects, one of the biggest adoptions was working from home, also referred to as remote working. If companies and businesses were to continue operating and cut down losses, remote working was the solution.  However, remote working is completely different compared to working at the office in numerous ways, but...

The UK Prime Minister's Office has been targeted by Pegasus spyware over the past two years. Citizen Lab, a Canadian non-profit, has been tracking the use of the spyware, produced by Israel's NSO group, in recent years. NSO Group is being sued by WhatsApp and Apple as their customers were targeted by the covert malware. It also emerged last year that the iPhones of nine US State Department officials were compromised by the spyware. Citizen Lab revealed...

Cash App, a popular stock trading app, has suffered a data breach impacting up to 8.2 million former and current users. It has been reported that the breach was caused by a former employee illegitimately accessing customer information. Block, Cash App's owner, notified the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the breach on Monday. The filing reported that a former employee downloaded investing reports containing information belonging to US customers, including full names, brokerage account numbers,...

A relatively new Ransomware, LokiLocker, uses the standard extortion-through-encryption racket but also incorporates disk-wiper functionality. Double extortion soared in popularity last year, with ransomware gangs stealing files before encrypting them to threaten victims with a sensitive data leak if they didn't pay up. BlackBerry Threat Intelligence is warning that LokiLock, first seen in August 2021, now features an "optional wiper functionality" to put increased pressure on victims. Instead of using the threat of leaking a...

New research suggests that mobile applications boasting tens of millions of downloads are leaking sensitive user data due to the misconfiguration of back-end cloud databases, according to Check Point. Check Point's three-month study began with a simple query on VirusTotal for mobile apps listed on the malware scanning service that communicates with the Firebase cloud database. Using this method, the vendor discovered 2113 mobile apps that had their Firebase back-end exposed due to misconfigurations. The vendor...

The German BSI has warned against the use of Kaspersky antivirus security products as the company is headquartered in Russia. The BSI suggested moving away from any Kaspersky product to another vendor, as the company may be forced to carry out offensive cyber operations by the Russian state. The BBC translated the BSI announcement: "A Russian IT manufacturer can carry out offensive operations itself, be forced against its will to attack target systems, or be...

Many organisations have been considering a network transformation initiative to support the adoption of SaaS, cloud-based applications, and an increasingly remote workforce. Given the connectivity needs of a remote workforce - and knowing a hybrid workforce is here to stay - many IT teams have had to make sudden changes in the way workers connect to corporate systems that could introduce new cyber risks and vulnerabilities.   When developing a security strategy for supporting a hybrid...

Research by ReasonLabs suggests that hackers will return their focus to consumers in 2022. The detailed report claims that a number of factors have led to consumers being a more lucrative target for hackers when compared to large companies. One of these factors is the continued shift to remote working and bigger budgets for on-site cybersecurity. This means that for threat actors, remote employees act as a path of least resistance.

The UK government has announced plans to provide free cyber skills training secondary school pupils. The program, dubbed Cyber Explorers, intends to educate 30,000 11 to 14-year-olds on many cybersecurity concepts, including open-source intelligence, digital forensics and social engineering. Students will use a new online learning platform to explore a range of scenarios, collecting virtual badges for making smarter choices online. The platform includes characters, quizzes and activities, demonstrating how digital, computing and cyber skills...

The UK’s Secretary of State for Defence has reportedly warned Russia that they will retaliate with cyber attacks if the Kremlin targets British networks. The House of Commons statement from Ben Wallace follows President Putin's order to Russian troops to invade the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. “I’m a soldier – I was always taught the best part of defence is offense,” Wallace is reported to have said in the Commons. The statement comes...