Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President, Customer Security & Trust for Microsoft, explains: Today we took action to disrupt a botnet called Trickbot, one of the world’s most infamous botnets and prolific distributors of ransomware. As the United States government and independent experts have warned, ransomware is one of the largest threats to the upcoming elections. Adversaries can use ransomware to infect…
Category: Of Note
Hacker groups chain VPN and Windows bugs to attack US government networks
Catalin Cimpanu reports: Hackers have gained access to government networks by combining VPN and Windows bugs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a joint security alert published on Friday. Attacks have targeted federal and state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) government networks. Attacks against non-government…
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fines Morgan Stanley $60 million for 2016 data breach
Brendan Pedersen reports: Morgan Stanley was slapped with a $60 million fine by regulators Thursday for risk management problems tied to a 2016 data breach. The consent order by the Comptroller of the Currency cited failures at both Morgan Stanley Bank, N.A., and Morgan Stanley Private Bank, N.A. related to the shutdown of two wealth…
Chinese Hackers Steal Personal Data of Half of Taiwan’s Workforce, What Next?
Krishnendu Banerjee reports: Amid escalating tensions between China and Taiwan, Chinese hackers have allegedly stolen data of nearly six million Taiwanese. The largest data breach in the country’s history, Chinese hackers targeted a Taiwanese job bank and sold the data on the dark web as per authorities. […] During the search, authorities found an account…
Was OFAC’s Advisory an October Surprise or More of the Same?
Lee A. Casey and Theodore J. Kobus III of BakerHostetler comment on the recent OFAC advisory that made a lot of headlines this past week. As I had pointed out in my preface to coverage of the advisory, it was footnoted that the advisory does not have the force of law or change any regulations…
NY: Former Information Technology Employee Of Hospital Sentenced To 30 Months In Prison For Computer Intrusion
From the SDNY, a press release involving an unnamed hospital in NYC. I’ll tell you more about this one after the press release: Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that RICHARD LIRIANO was sentenced yesterday to 30 months in prison for engaging in a scheme to…