Alleged crim bought SmartScreen Killer, Cobalt Strike on dark-web markets A criminal claiming to be an ALPHV/BlackCat affiliate — the gang responsible for the widely disruptive Change Healthcare ransomware infection last month — may have ties to Chinese government-backed cybercrime syndicates.... [...]

Jump in overall cybercrime reports, $60M-plus reportedly lost to extortionists alone, Feds reckon Digital crimes potentially cost victims more than $12.5 billion last year, according to the FBI's latest Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) annual report.... [...]

As the crooks behind the attack - probably ALPHV/BlackCat - fake their own demise The US government has stepped in to help hospitals and other healthcare providers affected by the Change Healthcare ransomware infection, offering more relaxed Medicare rules and urging advanced funding to providers.... [...]

Insurance giant blames Infosys, LockBit claims credit Criminals have probably stolen nearly 30,000 Fidelity Investments Life Insurance customers' personal and financial information — including bank account and routing numbers, credit card numbers and security or access codes — after breaking into Infosys' IT systems in the fall.... [...]

Claims to protect against DDoS, sensitive data leakage Cloudflare has tweaked its web application firewall (WAF) to add protections for applications using large language models.... [...]

No honor among thieves? ALPHV/BlackCat, the gang behind the Change Healthcare cyberattack, has received more than $22 million in Bitcoin in what might be a ransomware payment.... [...]

Kim Jong Un's all in for home-built silicon says warning North Korean government spies have broken into the servers of at least two chipmakers and stolen product designs as part of attempts to spur Kim Jong Un's plans for a domestic semiconductor industry, according to Seoul's security agency.... [...]

Misinformation is rife, AI makes it easier to create, and 42 percent of the planet’s inhabitants get to vote this year Feature Two US intelligence bigwigs last week issued stark warnings about foreign threats to American election integrity and security – and the nation's ability to counter these adversaries …

Turns out bragging on Discord has unfortunate consequences Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guardsman accused of leaking dozens of classified Pentagon documents, is expected to plead guilty in a US court on Monday.... [...]

Choose your own FISA Section 702 adventure: End-run around lawmakers or business as usual? The Biden Administration has asked a court, rather than Congress, to renew controversial warrantless surveillance powers used by American intelligence and due to expire within weeks. It's a move that is either business as usual …

Analysts warn of big leap in cred-harvesting malware activity last year There appears to be an uptick in interest among cybercriminals in infostealers – malware designed to swipe online account passwords, financial info, and other sensitive data from infected PCs – as a relatively cheap and easy way to get a …

Brags it lifted 6TB of data, but let's remember these people are criminals and not worthy of much trust Updated The ALPHV/BlackCat cybercrime gang has taken credit – if that's the word – for a ransomware infection at Change Healthcare that has disrupted thousands of pharmacies and hospitals across the …

Biden readies executive order targeting China, Russia, and pals US President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order today that aims to prevent the sale or transfer of Americans' sensitive personal information and government-related data to adversarial countries including China and Russia.... [...]

Canadian network box maker floats in denial The US Commerce Department has blacklisted Sandvine for selling its networking monitoring technology to Egypt, where the Feds say the gear was used to spy on political and human-rights activists.... [...]

Or so says opsec firm, which confirms 70% of all industrial org ransomware in 2023 targeted manufacturers Analysis Cybercriminals follow the money, and increasingly last year that led them to ransomware attacks against the manufacturing industry.... [...]

US government's bounty hasn't borne fruit as whack-a-mole game goes on Updated The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang is reportedly responsible for the massive Change Healthcare cyberattack that has disrupted pharmacies across the US since last week.... [...]

Officials have until March 2 to cough up or stolen data gets leaked Updated LockBit claims it's back in action just days after an international law enforcement effort seized the ransomware gang's servers and websites, and retrieved more than 1,000 decryption keys to assist victims.... [...]

Thieves broke into IT system using stolen login U-Haul is alerting tens of thousands of folks that miscreants used stolen credentials to break into one of its systems and access customer records that contained some personal data.... [...]

Prescription orders hit after IT supplier Change Healthcare pulls plug on systems Updated IT provider Change Healthcare has confirmed it shut down some of its systems following a cyberattack, disrupting prescription orders and other services at pharmacies across the US.... [...]

Easy to defend against stuff that may never actually work – oh there we go again, being all cynical like Apple says it's going to upgrade the cryptographic protocol used by iMessage to hopefully prevent the decryption of conversations by quantum computers, should those machines ever exist in a meaningful …

Hacking your way in is so 2022 – logging in is much easier Identity-related threats pose an increasing risk to those protecting networks because attackers – ranging from financially motivated crime gangs and nation-state backed crews – increasingly prefer to log in using stolen credentials instead of exploiting vulnerabilities or social engineering …

Unsettling reading as Presidents' Day approaches In time for the long Presidents' Day weekend in the US there have been multiple warnings about what will undoubtedly be a challenging and potentially dangerous year for voting processes and government workers.... [...]

Will cough up less than two days of annual profit in settlement – and California calls this a win Quest Diagnostics has agreed to pay almost $5 million to settle allegations it illegally dumped protected health information – and hazardous waste – at its facilities across California.... [...]

Beijing, now Moscow.... Who else is hiding in broadband gateways? The US government today said it disrupted a botnet that Russia's GRU military intelligence unit used for phishing expeditions, spying, credential harvesting, and data theft against American and foreign governments and other strategic targets.... [...]

Jeez, not now, Xi. Can't you see we've got an election and Ukraine and Gaza and cost of living and layoffs and... The Chinese government's Volt Typhoon spy team has apparently already compromised a large US city's emergency services network and has been spotted snooping around America's telecommunications' providers …