OK, I think this one may win my headlines today. Stephen Sorace reports: A Canadian teen’s bizarre call to police on Tuesday to report that the fake ID they ordered online never arrived has authorities stepping up efforts to warn of potential identity theft scams. Const. Ed Sanchuk, of the Ontario Provincial Police, West Region, shared in a video message Wednesday that an unnamed Norfolk…
Category: Of Note
BitPyLock Ransomware Now Joins the Ranks of Those Threatening to Publish Stolen Data
As I anticipated, it is only getting worse. Now Lawrence Abrams reports: A new ransomware called BitPyLock has quickly gone from targeting individual workstations to trying to compromise networks and stealing files before encrypting devices. BitPyLock was first discovered by MalwareHunterTeam on January 9th, 2020 and has since seen a trickle of new victims daily. What is…
Bipartisan bill in Congress proposes cybersecurity coordinators for every state
Fahmida Y. Rashid writes: A bipartisan group of Senators are interested in establishing a cybersecurity leader for each state in order to increase the states’ abilities to respond to cyberattacks. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the lead sponsor of the bill, highlighted the wave of ransomware attacks which have crippled cities and government entities in recent…
N.Y. Senator Carlucci Introduces Bill That Prohibits Paying Ransom
Security Magazine reports: New York Senator David Carlucci introduced Senate Bill S7289 that would ban the paying of ransom. The bill prohibits municipal corporations or other government entities from paying ransom in the event of a cyber-attack against them. In addition, the bill defines a cyber attack as “a virtual attack against the critical infrastructure, as defined in subdivision five of section eighty-six of…
Microsoft discloses security breach of customer support database
Catalin Cimpanu reports on another leak discovery by Bob Diachenko: Microsoft disclosed today a security breach that took place last month in December 2019. In a blog post today, the OS maker said that an internal customer support database that was storing anonymized user analytics was accidentally exposed online without proper protections between December 5…
Saudi Arabia denies hacking Jeff Bezos’ phone
Jill Petzinger reports that Saudi Arabia has denied a blockbuster claim reported by The Guardian yesterday: The Saudi Arabian embassy in the United States has denied that the kingdom breached the mobile phone of Amazon (AMZN) owner Jeff Bezos, saying that the reports are “absurd” and calling for an investigation. According to an investigation by the…