UK National Cyber Security Centre recommends approach for improved combination of usability and safety It is far better to concoct passwords made up of three random words than to use more complex variations involving streams of letters, numbers and symbols, UK government experts have said. The National Cyber Security …
Ransomware isn’t new; the idea dates back to 1986 with the “Brain” computer virus. Now, it’s become the criminal business model of the internet for two reasons. The first is the realization that no one values data more than its original owner, and it makes more sense …
This is an interesting development : Just days after President Biden demanded that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia shut down ransomware groups attacking American targets, the most aggressive of the groups suddenly went off-line early Tuesday. [...] Gone was the publicly available “happy blog” the group maintained, listing some of …
As ransomware becomes more common, I’m seeing more discussions about the ethics of paying the ransom. Here’s one more contribution to that issue: a research paper that the insurance industry is hurting more than it’s helping. However, the most pressing challenge currently facing the industry is …
Exclusive: Finding raises questions for security services weeks after similar revelations about PM’s number For UK foreign secretary, simply having a mobile represents a security risk The private mobile number of Dominic Raab, the UK foreign secretary, has been online for at least 11 years, raising questions for …
Analysis: UK prides itself on GCHQ’s cyber capability – so availability of Raab’s number will have been embarrassing for him Dominic Raab’s mobile number freely available online for last decade Finding Dominic Raab’s mobile phone online is more than just embarrassing for the foreign secretary: it …
The New York Times has a long story on the DarkSide ransomware gang. A glimpse into DarkSide’s secret communications in the months leading up to the Colonial Pipeline attack reveals a criminal operation on the rise, pulling in millions of dollars in ransom payments each month. DarkSide offers …
Modern ransomware has two dimensions: pay to get your data back, and pay not to have your data dumped on the Internet. The DC police are the victims of this ransomware, and the criminals have just posted personnel records — “including the results of psychological assessments and polygraph tests; driver …
This is a major story : a probably Russian cybercrime group called DarkSide shut down the Colonial Pipeline in a ransomware attack. The pipeline supplies much of the East Coast. This is the new and improved ransomware attack: the hackers stole nearly 100 gig of data, and are threatening to …
Excellent New Yorker article on North Korea’s offensive cyber capabilities. [...]
Gustafsson’s firm, founded when she was 30, is marketed as a digital parallel of a human body fighting illness Poppy Gustafsson runs a cutting-edge and gender-diverse cybersecurity firm on the brink of a £3bn stock market debut, but she is happy to reference pop culture classic the Terminator …
Vice is reporting on a cell phone vulnerability caused by commercial SMS services. One of the things these services permit is text message forwarding. It turns out that with a little bit of anonymous money — in this case, $16 off an anonymous prepaid credit card — and a few lies …
A coordinated effort has captured the command-and-control servers of the Emotet botnet: Emotet establishes a backdoor onto Windows computer systems via automated phishing emails that distribute Word documents compromised with malware. Subjects of emails and documents in Emotet campaigns are regularly altered to provide the best chance of luring …
Insider data theft : Dutch police have arrested two individuals on Friday for allegedly selling data from the Dutch health ministry’s COVID-19 systems on the criminal underground. [...] According to Verlaan, the two suspects worked in DDG call centers, where they had access to official Dutch government COVID-19 systems and …
Exclusive: former cybersecurity chief calls for law change and warns situation is ‘close to getting out of control’ Insurers are inadvertently funding organised crime by paying out claims from companies who have paid ransoms to regain access to data and systems after a hacking attack, Britain’s former top …
Kaspersky investigators uncover evidence that may support US claims Moscow was behind attack A Moscow-based cybersecurity company has reported that some of the malicious code employed against the US government in a cyber-attack last month overlaps with code previously used by suspected Russian hackers. The findings by Kaspersky investigators …