Jonathan Greig / The Record: The US and UK sign an MOU to investigate and share info on organized crime syndicates behind online scam centers, many of which are based in Southeast Asia — The United States and United Kingdom will work together on an initiative to shut down scam centers stealing billions of dollars through investment and romance fraud schemes.
Suzanne Smalley / The Record: Pennsylvania's Supreme Court rules that police can get Google search data without a warrant; an expert warns it may encourage warrantless searches nationwide — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police did not need a warrant to obtain a convicted rapist's Google searches when investigating the crime.
Suzanne Smalley / The Record: Unit 42: “commercial grade” spyware called Landfall, likely zero-click, was used in a hacking campaign aimed at Samsung Galaxy phones in the Middle East — Security researchers on Friday revealed the discovery of “commercial grade” spyware used in a 9-month-long hacking campaign aimed …
Suzanne Smalley / The Record: Switzerland proposes regulations forcing service providers to collect user IDs and disable encryption, threatening its status as a haven for privacy tech firms — The Swiss government could soon require service providers with more than 5,000 users to collect government-issued identification …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: SentinelOne researchers detail over 10 offensive cybersecurity patents filed by Shanghai Firetech, a company allegedly involved in Beijing's Silk Typhoon hacks — Researchers have discovered more than 10 patents for powerful offensive cybersecurity technologies filed by a prominent Chinese …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: A US judge sentences an Arizona woman to 8.5 years in prison for running a “laptop farm” that enabled North Korean workers to secure IT jobs at 309 US companies — A U.S. District Court judge sentenced an Arizona woman to eight and a half years in prison for running a laptop farm used …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: The US Treasury sanctions three senior North Korean officials accused of tricking companies into hiring North Koreans using stolen identities as IT workers — Three senior North Korean officials involved in IT schemes have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Jonathan Greig / The Record: A US federal jury gives five Nevada men varying prison sentences for their roles in running Jetflicks, one of the largest illegal TV streaming services — A federal jury slapped five men from Nevada with varying sentences for their roles in running Jetflicks, one of the largest illegal TV streaming services …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Google says its Big Sleep AI agent for finding unknown software vulnerabilities recently discovered a critical SQLite flaw that “was at risk of being exploited” — Google said a large language model it developed to find vulnerabilities recently discovered a bug that hackers were preparing to use.
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Insurance giant Aflac says a cybercrime group breached its systems and may have stolen data; source: the attack bears the hallmarks of Scattered Spider — Insurance company Aflac said a “sophisticated cybercrime group” breached its systems and may have stolen data.
Martin Matishak / The Record: Sources: US State Dept.'s freeze on foreign aid applies to a bureau that uses cyber diplomacy to fight threats and pursues international norms for emerging tech — The U.S. State Department's move to halt nearly all existing foreign assistance applies to the programs and funds …
Martin Matishak / The Record: President Biden signs the $895B 2025 defense policy bill, including $3B for the FCC's “rip and replace” program to get rid of Chinese networking equipment — The annual defense policy bill signed by President Joe Biden Monday evening allocates $3 billion to help telecom firms remove …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: An Ohio man is sentenced to three years for running crypto mixer Helix, which laundered $311M+ from 2014 to 2017; he must forfeit $311M+ and assets worth $400M+ — The operator of the cryptocurrency mixing service Helix was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday.
Suzanne Smalley / The Record: How Italy became an unexpected spyware hub, going under the radar by specializing in cheaper tools, as authorities carry out thousands of operations since 2021 — In April 2022, about four months after Kazakhstan's government violently cracked down on nationwide protests …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Google's Mandiant says dozens of Fortune 100 companies have unwittingly hired North Korean IT workers in a scheme, active since 2018, operated by group UNC5267 — It's difficult to imagine a bigger hiring blunder. — Google said it has been contacted by several major U.S. companies recently …
Alexander Martin / The Record: Law enforcement officials and experts: criminal groups are shying away from large ransomware-as-a-service platforms after disruption operations and an exit scam — Veteran cybercriminals involved in ransomware attacks are increasingly shying away from large ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) …
Daryna Antoniuk / The Record: Bangladesh orders a nationwide shutdown of its mobile internet amid student protests that killed dozens of people to “ensure the security of citizens” — Authorities in Bangladesh have reportedly ordered a nationwide shutdown of mobile internet networks amid student protests …
Alexander Martin / The Record: The UK bans default guessable usernames and passwords for some IoT devices, to help avoid a situation like the 2016 Mirai botnet, the first country to do so — Seven years ago, a cyberattack left many of the most popular websites based in the United States inaccessible.
James Reddick / The Record: Sophos researchers find “crude”, cheap ransomware tools being sold on the dark web, enabling inexperienced freelancers to easily launch attacks — Cheap ransomware is being sold for one-time use on dark web forums, allowing inexperienced freelancers to get into cybercrime without any interaction with affiliates.
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Palo Alto Networks alerts customers that hackers are exploiting a zero-day in its popular GlobalProtect VPN product and promises a patch by April 14 — Cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks is alerting customers that a zero-day vulnerability in its firewall tool is being exploited by hackers.
The Record: Q&A with FBI Director Christopher Wray on taking down a GRU botnet, Volt Typhoon, critical infrastructure attacks, lessons from surveilling threat actors, more — We have active investigations working with partners into a whole range of cyber units within the different Russian intelligence services …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: CISA debuts a pilot program offering “cybersecurity shared services” to non-federal critical infrastructure entities in healthcare, education, and other sectors — The U.S. government is offering “cutting-edge cybersecurity shared services” to critical infrastructure organizations that need it most.
Suzanne Smalley / The Record: Privacy experts say that US state laws requiring data brokers to register are not adequately enforced, letting large numbers of brokers operate under the radar — Laws requiring data brokers to register are catching on at the state government level, but so far they have not been adequately enforced …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Progress Software, the company behind the widely exploited MOVEit file transfer tool, patches critical vulnerabilities in its WS_FTP Server file transfer tool — The company behind a popular file transfer service that was exploited by ransomware hackers has announced a new set of vulnerabilities affecting another file transfer tool.
James Reddick / The Record: Coalition: ransomware victims reported an average $365K+ loss in H1 2023, up from $227K+ in H2 2022; the average ransom demand was $1.62M, up 74% from 2022 — A cyber insurance firm reported a significant jump in the number of claims during the first half of the year, adding that damages caused by attacks has also increased.
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Cisco Talos: North Korea's Lazarus is using a new malware variant to target internet backbone infrastructure and healthcare entities in Europe and the US — A notorious hacking group working on behalf of the North Korean government is using a new strain of malware to attack healthcare entities …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: The FBI is investigating a ransomware attack on Prospect Medical Holdings, which runs 16 hospitals and 166 outpatient clinics and centers in CA, CT, PA, and RI — A major hospital network with arms in multiple states is dealing with widespread network outages due to a cyberattack, which the FBI confirms is ransomware.
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Microsoft says it has fixed an Azure flaw that could let hackers access sensitive data, following criticism from the CEO of cybersecurity company Tenable — Microsoft has resolved a vulnerability that allows threat actors to gain access to information managed by Azure AD …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: A report says the Microsoft key that Chinese hackers stole could have given them more access than originally assumed; Microsoft disputes the report — Microsoft is disputing a new report that claims hackers may have had access to more parts of victims' systems than previously known in a campaign …
Daryna Antoniuk / The Record: Hackers claim responsibility for an attack on Russian satellite service Dozor-Teleport; IODA project says the network has been offline since 10pm EST on June 28 — A group of previously unknown hackers has claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on the Russian satellite communications …
The Record: Q&A with the FBI's Bryan Smith on how the agency generated 300+ decryption keys from Hive's servers and gave them to victims, avoiding ~$130M in ransom payments — While there was excitement when they actually got that access, there was no time to kind of enjoy that moment …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Symantec says the advanced persistent threat Lancefly used custom malware to attack Asian governments, telcos, and other organizations from mid-2022 to Q1 2023 — A government-backed hacking group known as “Lancefly” has been seen using custom-made malware to attack governments, telecoms and other organizations across Asia.
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Google's Threat Analysis Group details two limited but highly targeted spyware campaigns using several zero-day exploits against Android, iOS, and Chrome — Two targeted spyware campaigns involving several zero-day exploits for Android, iOS and mobile versions of the Chrome browser were unmasked …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Pennsylvania-based NCB Management Services, which purchases debt, says sensitive financial info of 494,969 people was leaked during a cyberattack on the company — Nearly half a million people had their sensitive financial information leaked during a cyberattack on NCB Management Services - a company that purchases debt.
Alexander Martin / The Record: Q&A with two of Meta's leading security experts about its Online Operations Kill Chain, a framework for responding to threat activity like influence operations — Next year will feature some of the most geopolitically significant elections of our times.
Jonathan Greig / The Record: CISA and FBI: hackers used vulnerabilities in Progress Telerik products to gain access to an unnamed US federal agency's server from August 2022 to January 2023 — Cybercriminals and a government-backed hacking group had access to the systems of an unnamed federal civilian executive branch agency from August 2022 to January 2023.
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Semiconductor industry supply giant Applied Materials predicts a $250M hit in Q2 after a ransomware attack at an unnamed supplier, likely MKS Instruments — Multibillion-dollar corporation Applied Materials, which provides technology for the semiconductor industry, said during an earnings call …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: The City of Oakland confirms reports of a ransomware attack on its networks but says 911, financial data, and fire and emergency resources were not impacted — The City of Oakland confirmed reports that its networks had been hit with ransomware after rumors emerged online that several agencies …
Martin Matishak / The Record: Joe Biden signs into law an $858B defense policy bill conferring more power and obligations on US Cyber Command, such as offensive operations on foreign powers — President Joe Biden signed a $858 billion defense policy bill on Friday, conferring more power — and obligations — on U.S. Cyber Command.
Alexander Martin / The Record: Meta reports taking down 200 coordinated inauthentic behavior operations since 2016, spread across over 100 countries, most focused on domestic audiences — Six years on from the shock discovery of Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election — and in the face …
Jonathan Greig / The Record: Microsoft accuses China-backed nation state hackers of abusing the country's vulnerability disclosure requirements to discover and develop zero-day exploits — Microsoft on Friday accused state-backed hackers in China of abusing the country's vulnerability disclosure requirements in an effort to discover and develop zero-day exploits.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record: Sources: Iranian hackers were behind the ransomware attack that took down some live streams for Cox radio and TV stations in early June — The ransomware attack that crippled the IT systems and live streams of Cox radio and TV stations earlier this year was the work of Iranian hackers, The Record has learned.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record: The Apache Software Foundation releases a security fix for log4j zero-day, which was discovered during a bug bounty engagement against Minecraft servers — The Apache Software Foundation has released an emergency security update today to patch a zero-day vulnerability in Log4j, a Java library that provides logging capabilities.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record: The FBI says Cuba ransomware actors earned at least $43.9M from ransom payments and breached at least 49 US critical infrastructure organizations this year — The US Federal Bureau of Investigations said today that the operators of the Cuba ransomware have earned at least $43.9 million …
Olatunji Olaigbe / The Record: How one Nigerian university student turned to cybercrime during the pandemic to pay his bills, driven by high unemployment, few well-paying jobs, and boredom — ILORIN, Nigeria—Around November 2020, Kayode said he was invited to a house party—the kind attended mostly by others involved in the country's illicit digital economy.
Martin Matishak / The Record: DHS issues an interim rule that will, once finalized, let it hire cybersecurity professionals at salaries of up to $255,800 and up to $332,100 in special cases — The Homeland Security Department on Monday unveiled a new program that gives it more flexibility to recruit and retain cybersecurity personnel.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record: DeFi platform bZx says a hacker stole an estimated $55M worth of cryptocurrency assets after spear-phishing one of its employees and swiping two private keys — A hacker has stolen an estimated $55 million worth of cryptocurrency assets from bZx, a decentralized finance (DeFi) …
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record: CISA creates a catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities, including from Apple and Google, and orders federal agencies to apply patches within timeframes — The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has established today a public catalog of vulnerabilities known to be exploited …
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record: The criminal group behind BlackMatter ransomware announces plans to shut down the operation, citing “pressure from the authorities” — The criminal group behind the BlackMatter ransomware have announced plans today to shut down their operation, citing pressure from local authorities.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record: Europol says it has detained 12 suspects that were orchestrating ransomware attacks that hit 1,800+ victims across 71 countries since 2019 — - Twelve members of a ransomware group were detained this week in Ukraine and Switzerland, Europol said. — Suspects are believed to have orchestrated …