The world is getting smaller, as trade, communication and infrastructure on a global scale brings us closer together. However, there is another, darker, side to the coin: our interconnected world is being abused by criminals who have created an underground economy to sustain their illegal operations. Europol’s first ever threat assessment on the topic, ‘The…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
IOCTA spotlight report on malware-based cyber-attacks published
Following the Internet Organised Crime Assessment (IOCTA) 2023, today Europol published the spotlight report “Cyber Attacks: The Apex of Crime-as-a-Service”. It examines developments in cyber-attacks, discussing new methodologies and threats as observed by Europol’s operational analysts. The report also outlines the types of criminal structures that are behind cyber-attacks, and how these increasingly professionalised groups are exploiting…
HC3: Sector Alert: Akira Ransomware
September 12, 2023 TLP:CLEAR Report: 202309121400 Akira Ransomware Executive Summary Akira is a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) group that started operations in March 2023. Since its discovery, the group has claimed over 60 victims, which have typically ranged in the small- to medium-size business scale. Akira has garnered attention for a couple of reasons, such as their…
Disclose data breaches to us proactively, and we’ll lower any fines — ICO
Emma Woollacott reports: British businesses could face lower fines if they proactively report data breaches, thanks to an agreement between the UK’s data protection regulator and cybersecurity agency. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) say they plan to encourage engagement with the NCSC in the event of a breach, and allow meaningful…
Facebook Messenger phishing wave targets 100K business accounts per week
Bill Toulas reports: Hackers use a massive network of fake and compromised Facebook accounts to send out millions of Messenger phishing messages to target Facebook business accounts with password-stealing malware. The attackers trick the targets into downloading a RAR/ZIP archive containing a downloader for an evasive Python-based stealer that grabs cookies and passwords stored in…
Hospital Sisters Health System’s CFO exits as it continues to handle ‘cybersecurity incident’
On August 29, DataBreaches reported that Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) and Prevea Health appeared to have been the victims of a ransomware attack. As of today, the notice on Prevea Health states, “HSHS and Prevea are experiencing a systemwide outage of clinical and administrative applications.” Prevea continues to describe it as a temporary outage….