A federal indictment unsealed today in Alaska charges a Canadian national with committing cyberattacks. According to court documents, Matthew Philbert, 31, of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, conspired to and did damage a computer belonging to the State of Alaska in April 2018. In a separate and parallel investigation, the Canadian authorities today also announced cyber charges…
Category: Of Note
Cloud Service Provider Compromises Use CeeLoader Malware
Lindsey O’Donnell-Welch reports: A series of campaigns, with links to the threat actor behind the SolarWinds supply-chain intrusion, have been targeting cloud service providers with a new malware loader variant called CeeLoader. Researchers with Mandiant in a Monday analysis said they identified two distinct clusters of activity, UNC3004 and UNC2652, which they associate with UNC2452 (also known…
U.S. Military Has Acted Against Ransomware Groups, General Acknowledges
Julian E. Barnes reports: The U.S. military has taken actions against ransomware groups as part of its surge against organizations launching attacks against American companies, the nation’s top cyberwarrior said on Saturday, the first public acknowledgment of offensive measures against such organizations. […] General Nakasone would not describe the actions taken by his commands, nor…
U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware – sources
Christopher Bing and Joseph Menn reports: Apple Inc iPhones of at least nine U.S. State Department employees were hacked by an unknown assailant using sophisticated spyware developed by the Israel-based NSO Group, according to four people familiar with the matter. The hacks, which took place in the last several months, hit U.S. officials either based…
Welcome surprise: threat actors give victim school district a free decryptor.
On November 23, DataBreaches.net reported that Avos Locker threat actors had added Beaverhead County High School in Montana to their leak site. At the time, this site reported: From their listing, Avos Locker is clearly aware that this is a tiny school district with only a few hundred students and less than two dozen teachers….
Former Ubiquiti employee charged with hacking and extorting company
Catalin Cimpanu reports: An Oregon man and a former employee of Ubiquiti Networks was arrested and charged today with hacking the company’s servers, stealing gigabytes of information, and then attempting to extort his employer for $2 million when Ubiquiti began investigating the breach. The suspect, arraigned in a courtroom earlier today, was identified as Nickolas Sharp,…