It was a steamy Friday two Augusts ago when Jason Whisler settled in for a working breakfast at the Coffee Ranch restaurant in the Texas Panhandle city of Borger. The most pressing agenda item for city officials like him that morning: planning for a country concert and anniversary event. Then Whisler’s phone rang. Borger’s computer […]
Cybersecurity
The Florida company whose software was exploited in the devastating Fourth of July weekend ransomware attack, Kaseya, has received a universal key that will decrypt all of the more than 1,000 businesses and public organizations crippled in the global incident. Kaseya spokeswoman Dana Liedholm would not say Thursday how the key was obtained or whether […]
Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant acknowledged Wednesday that leaked data from the company — files now apparently being used in a cyber-extortion attempt involving a $50 million ransom demand — likely came from one of its contractors. The Saudi Arabian Oil Co., better known as Saudi Aramco, told The Associated Press that it “recently became […]
French President Emmanuel Macron leads a list of 14 current or former heads of state who may have been targeted for hacking by clients of the notorious Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, Amnesty International said Tuesday. “The unprecedented revelation … should send a chill down the spine of world leaders,” Amnesty’s secretary general, Agnes Callamard, […]
A consortium of cybersecurity specialists launched on Tuesday an initiative to encourage companies to implement preventive security measures to end abusive online behavior experienced by workers. Respect In Security, launched by Lisa Forte from Red Goat Cyber Security and Trend Micro’s Rik Ferguson on July 14 on Twitter, is a long overdue plan that focuses […]
An investigation by a global media consortium based on leaked targeting data provides further evidence that military-grade malware from Israel-based NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire outfit, is being used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents. From a list of more than 50,000 cellphone numbers obtained by the Paris-based journalism […]
The State Department will offer rewards up to $10 million for information leading to the identification of anyone engaged in foreign state-sanctioned malicious cyber activity, including ransomware attacks, against critical U.S. infrastructure. A task force set up by the White House will coordinate efforts to stem the ransomware scourge. The Biden administration is also out […]
Facebook exposed on Thursday an Iranian cyber-spying operation that went after U.S. military personnel and people working at defense and aerospace companies. The tech giant said that group of Iranian hackers, known as Tortoiseshell, created fake social media profiles, and sent targeted malicious links to victims. The links that aimed to infect devices to enable espionage, used different tactics including setting up fake job recruiting sites. Facebook said the hackers tried to direct people to other websites, […]
China’s cyber-watchdog on Friday announced an on-site cybersecurity investigation of ride-hailing service Didi, stepping up scrutiny after earlier criticism of its handling of customer information caused the company’s New York-traded shares to tumble. The on-site inspection comes two weeks after the regulator said it would probe the ride-hailing company over concerns about national security and […]
The agency in charge of Ireland’s cyber security is to get an increased budget and a major staff increase, the Government announced today. The expansion would bring the strength of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) from 25 to 45 within 18 months, with a further promise to increase it to 70 within five years. […]