North Korea Cyber Attacks being copied by other hacking groups in the world

Finland based Cybersecurity startup F-Secure claims that cyberattacks launched by hacking groups linked to the North Korean government are now being copied by other hacking groups across the world.

While cyber-attacks on financial corporations have become an objective for hackers backed by the government-run by Kim UN Jong, organized crime groups across the world are said to be following the same traits while launching motivated attacks against the banking sector.

North Korea has a history of running organized crimes around the world such as drug mafia, stealing cryptocurrency and emptying bank accounts and diverting the funds to the dark world says a source from F-secure group.

F-Secure which is headquartered in Helsinki and operates with over 20 offices in over 100 countries claims that most of the financial frauds were linked to North Korea Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group also called as Lazarus. This includes ‘Payment Switch Application Compromise’, Diversion of funds from ATMs via Malware, and stealing of digital currency from user wallets operating in the west.

Security analysts from F-Secure say that cyber crooks are not only seen hacking banks but are also seen targeting financial institutions big and small like insurance companies, lending units, and claim authorities.

From the research perspective, the only way to counter such attacks is by reading the minds of cyber crooks. Like why the threat actors might target your firm, how they can infiltrate into your network and for what sake? By getting answers to these questions the risks associated with attacks can easily be mitigated.

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August 01, 2019 at 10:24AM

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US Tech Giants follows the new standard to allow users to access health data with ease

Technology giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have joined hands to provide online consumers easier access to their medical records by joining a new data model at a White House Blue Button Developers Conference recently.

CARIN Blue Button API is the data model which offers a specific standard to share health data with ease which includes doctor visits, test reports, and medical procedural info.

All the health insurance companies operating in the United States or those offering services from outside are reported to have joined the CARIN Alliance which has a drafted guideline for more than 240 claim data elements approved by a multiple regional and national health plans.

Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services assisted in formulating the standards aimed at providing data related to historical claims-all at one place irrespective of the user’s application.

As the data model is scheduled to be launched in 2020, all the organizations which have agreed to participate in the draft testing process will perform “ real-world” testing of the CARIN model in real-time from early next month.

Technically speaking, Apple has been allowing its users to view their lab reports, medications, prescriptions via its Health App available on iPhones and iPads. And Microsoft has also done the same with its HealthVault service which also stores data related to fitness info along with the regular health data.

Now, all that data will be available for access through a central repository called ‘Blue Button API’ developed and maintained by CARIN.

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August 01, 2019 at 10:22AM

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New Android ransomware uses pornographic posts to infect devices

By Uzair Amir

The new Android ransomware was initially spread through Reddit and XDA-Developers' forum.

This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: New Android ransomware uses pornographic posts to infect devices

August 01, 2019 at 02:10AM

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Can facial recognition and artificial intelligence humanize air travel?

Facial recognition and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies can help us make the travel experience less alienating. This may seem like a very controversial statement, but let’s explore it further before we jump to any conclusions.

Many of us have experienced a marathon journey through an airport, dreading the endless queues and repeated security processes, leaving us feeling like an item on a manufacturing line. So, how could technologies help make our airport experience smoother?

Facial recognition technology has started to be deployed in airports worldwide in the last couple of years as a response to streamlining the passenger experience at airports. Today, some airlines are letting travelers board or self-drop their bags with just a facial scan. In particular, in the US there are many ongoing trials for biometric boarding such as the one launched in Los Angeles Airport last December, as part of the EXIT Program which launched in October 2017.

Biometric on-boarding will only continue to expand further. The objective of this innovative way to board a plane is to speed up the average boarding time as well as increase the level of customer service for passengers. So far, facial recognition is holding its promise as most passengers enjoy being verified in just seconds by walking past a camera. Furthermore, this technology allows airlines to board 285 passengers in less than 20 minutes. This is two times faster than the manual process, whereby the airline staff verifies each passenger’s passport and boarding pass.

What is AI and how does it benefit the travel experience?

Kaplan and Haenlein define AI as “a system’s ability to correctly interpret external data, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation”.

But what does this mean in the context of a journey through an airport?

I smile in anticipation when I imagine myself explaining what AI is to my two wonderful children, aged 8 and 10. I can picture their empty looks and nervous giggles while I attempt to explain such conceptual things in simple words. I like this exercise of trying to explain a concept that can be difficult to understand to your child or your grandmother as I find it always helps to put things in simple and basic terms.

If I had to transpose what AI is in simple terms and explain how it could make traveling easier to my two little smarties, here’s what I’d do. First, I’d describe the context: a typical airport journey.

Airports can be overwhelming for children as well as for any first-time traveler and can even make seasoned travelers anxious too. From the moment you book your ticket to the moment you finally settle on your assigned seat, it’s quite an expedition on its own. You need to make sure you have all the necessary documents, grab your things, rush to the airport, park right, get the terminal right, find the right hall, etc. Sometimes you can already use a coffee break after that, especially if you are travelling with children. But getting to the airport is just the beginning of the journey!

The next step is joining the queue at check-in to get your boarding pass and present your passport. If you’ve already checked-in from home, this is great as it might mean one step less for you, but you still need to queue to drop off your bags and present your passport and boarding pass to a member of staff.

Feeling lighter? Good, you’re now ready to stand in a line for the security check. This could take at least 15 minutes in the best-case scenario! And then you get to hear “Your boarding pass please!” all over again.

At this point, after undressing and dressing again, moaning about having picked the wrong pair of shoes and missed the hole in your right sock, dropped your phone twice and forgotten a bottle of shampoo in your hand luggage, you can usually use a shower.

But you feel valiant, it’s great that we have 5 minutes to get some duty-free perfumes! But again, you need to present your boarding pass when purchasing. Boarding pass, boarding pass, where did I put my boarding pass….

So, there you are, finally queuing to get in the plane after a race through the halls to your gate. The voice says: “Please have your boarding pass and your ID handy!”

Feel familiar?

The benefits of using our faces as a unique mark to prove who we are and let us access an area or a plane instead of pulling out passports and boarding passes all the time is quite easy to understand. Then comes the less obvious part.

AI and what it brings to face recognition technology

I’d again need to set the scene straight for my two little monsters here, explaining what AI actually does. AI is a machine or computer system that is programmed by us humans to be able to learn from the information it has stored and be able to use it to solve problems – just like our brains work. I’d probably ask them what intelligence is and get a flurry of contradictory answers. So, to settle the debate, I’d say there’s no single right answer, as there are many different types of intelligence.

We often take shortcuts when trying to define what intelligence is, and in most cases we end up with a definition that is too restrictive, culturally anchored and limited to a certain group of people at a given point in time, while circumstances and our understanding of the latter are continuously changing. So to remain simple, yet open, I’d offer to agree on defining intelligence as our capacity to connect information, such as things we’ve seen, read, heard, felt, smelled, sensed, etc. to new situations and being able to use our past experiences to deal with unknowns or anticipate possible outcomes. Transposing this to a computer system, AI could do all that but in a much faster way, and with exponential capacity. A bit like pulling together the experiences and intelligence of thousands of human brains!

As AI is able to capitalize on enormous amounts of collected data that can be used to solve problems, this allows facial recognition to continue getting better, enhancing our trust in such technology and the potential uses for it.

Now back to our first statement.

How can facial recognition & AI help make air travel more human?

We are already seeing the benefits in terms of efficiency brought by facial recognition technology, allowing passengers to be cleared to board using their face and a computer program enhanced with AI, instead of showing their documents to airline staff who will compare names and faces manually.

But the most interesting part is that we are learning from current deployments. The introduction of such technology is welcomed by both operators and travelers, who see the benefits in terms of security, time saving and ease of use, as well as the positive impact on the overall experience. So yes, technology is actually improving humanity, in the sense that it helps us focus on the human interaction and on things that cannot be automated such as a welcoming smile, assistance for special needs, answers to particular questions.

When technology reaches the point where it has the computing power and maturity to automate repetitive, time consuming processes that are mandatory to ensure security but also make passengers and operating staff feel alienated, it is ready to become mainstream. We have reached this point with AI-powered facial recognition and will start witnessing how it can really help improve the travel experience and bring back the notion of humanity that is often lost in heavy and time-consuming airport processes.

How can AI revolutionize the airport ecosystem?

Now, besides the use of AI to constantly improve the speed and accuracy of facial recognition algorithms, it also has the potential to revolutionize the entire airport ecosystem. There are already many systems deployed in airport and airline processes that collect passenger data through a diverse network of devices and applications, such as airline reservation systems, frequent flyer apps, passport readers, fingerprint scanners, cameras etc. In the future, AI could help stitch together the data collected by all those sensors and clearly establish that a passenger is who they claim they are.

From there you can ensure an identity is valid and you are eligible to pass a check point or use a service. This trusted identity is then the key to solve more inefficiencies of existing airport processes that are held by different parties and operated in isolation, which is precisely what is making the journey through an airport feel so inhuman. AI will be at the heart of the entire journey through the airport, allowing for a smooth yet secure walk through all the passenger touchpoints.

This full digitization of the traveler experience is the playground for the future attractiveness of air travel, where airports will race to become zero-queue environments that are able to ensure the best experience and anticipate hiccups from curb to gate.

At the Paris Air Show last week, we demonstrated how we’re making flight boarding easier, smoother and faster with facial recognition technology for airport security.

Get ready for a new era of airport travel where friendly agents and responsive flight attendants, who are there to focus on service rather than procedures, will greet you at paperless terminals!

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July 31, 2019 at 09:09PM

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Our insights from the latest European Banking Authority’s paper on PSD2 readiness, advances and challenges

The PSD2 directive, a fundamental piece of payments legislation in Europe, is set to introduce security requirements for the initiation and processing of electronic payments and the protection of customers’ financial data, starting in September 2019.

Since the European Banking Authority (EBA) published its first paper in June 2018 on exactly what the PSD2 legislation would mean for businesses affected, many more questions have arisen. Because of this, the EBA has since published a second paper, one year later, entitled the “Opinion on the elements of strong customer authentication under PSD2”. This paper has been highly anticipated by key stakeholders in the financial and retail sectors to clarify some of the uncertainties around preparing for compliant practices. As the implementation deadline for PSD2 draws nearer, the EBA’s second paper provides vital insight about what the future holds after the 14^th of September. We have taken a look at some key takeaways from this paper to see what has changed.

Strong Customer Authentication

The latest paper from the EBA exclusively focuses on “the elements of strong customer authentication” and does not cover other aspects of the PSD2 directive, including open banking. A such, it seems this paper has been created to act as a guideline for National Competent Authorities (NCAs), such as central banks and their delegates. This is because it is these institutions that will be in charge of orchestrating and controlling the application of PSD2 and its Regulatory Technical Specifications.

As part of this paper the EBA has also confirmed and summarized which methods can or cannot be considered as “authentication elements” under PSD2. This is important as its first paper on the subject was somewhat ambiguous and left many stakeholders with unanswered questions.

SMS One-time Password Solutions (OTPs) as an authentication method

The EBA’s desire for two-factor authentication to become mandatory under PSD2 legislation has been reinforced by its latest paper. However, interestingly, the EBA have stated that SMS one-time password (OTP) solutions, one of the most used ways to authenticate customers today, will still be an acceptable solution under PSD2. This is somewhat a surprise as the June 2018 paper seemed to conclude that SMS OTP should be replaced by more secure authentication methods, such as biometrics.

However, the EBA’s most recent paper also clearly points out the weaknesses of this solution compared to more secure alternatives. This is partly because SMS OTP includes possession as a factor of authentication, which is less secure than inherence factors that cannot be replicated, such as an iris pattern. Therefore, in the medium term some sort of inherence factor will still be necessary to implement, as security concerns, including SIM swapping and confidentiality, will need to be addressed.

Nonetheless, as SMS OTP remains an authentication method for now, improving SMS security, for example by using SIM monitoring, is definitively an area to investigate further in the next few years. It is also good practice to keep SMS possession authentication as an option for customers who cannot be reached by other authentication methods.

Dynamic Card Verification (DCV) security codes as a possession factor

As stated in the EBA’s first paper, the use of DCV, where a PIN code is not printed but instead changes every hour, may now count as evidence of possession authentication, in line with Article 7 of the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS). This is significant as Article 7 offers increased protections for the possession factor, requesting that security must be in place to prevent replications. Importantly, this reiterates the fact that the EBA no longer believes a customer simply typing their card number into a portal is an acceptable possession authentication factor.

It is also important to note that come September 2019, under PSD2, device binding will also be mandatory for mobile apps to be considered compliant as a type of possession authentication. Device binding allows users to transact on trusted devices without repetitive authentications. This process securely links an authorized user to their device using their SIM card hardware or the secure element of their mobile device. In this way, transactions are given increased scrutiny but there is no added friction for the customer. On the other side of this, card details and the security code that are printed on the card do not constitute either a knowledge element or possession element according to Article 7 of the RTS.

National Competent Authorities (NCAs) and compliance delays

One final comment from the EBA, which has received a significant amount of attention from stakeholders, is that it officially gives NCAs the ability to negotiate compliance delays with Payment Service Providers (PSPs). To a large extent this announcement was to be expected, but this latest paper makes it official. From September 2019, NCAs will have the final word on what Strong Customer Authentication practices are acceptable by a PSP. This will come as good news to many, who have been requesting more time to become PSD2 compliant since the legislation was first passed in November 2015.

While this second paper has provided a lot more clarity to stakeholders concerned by PSD2, the directive does not mention what we can expect to happen with Open Banking and the relationships between banks and FinTechs. Therefore, it is expected that there will be more questions concerning the more challenging side of the PSD2 implementation discussion that the EBA will need to answer before the September deadline.

 

You can download our white papers about PSD2 at https://www.gemalto.com/financial/ebanking/psd2 or contact me at Jean.Lambert@thalesgroup.com for more information.

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July 31, 2019 at 09:09PM

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Why You Should Consider A Security Certification (and why now is the time)

By Mike Wills, CISSP, SSCP

Let’s face it: Opportunity goes to the well-prepared. And living in dangerous and dynamic times, each of us needs to be so much better prepared to face tomorrow than we were today.

We’re all at risk. Everything we value, everyone we hold dear are held hostage to the badly misinformed decisions of the well-intended; are targets of opportunities to those with malice at heart. Those people, the “bad guys,” the black hats, are already outspending most legitimate businesses and organizations when it comes to investing in their knowledge, skills and abilities to attack.

The right certification, earned at the right time in your journey, is part of being prepared.

Ninety-nine percent of the headline-grabbing data breaches, the ransom attacks, the intrusions into information systems have been blamed on management making the wrong decisions. Managers and leaders in every organization desperately need people who can marry the technologies of IT security to the business needs for dependability, safety, reliability, confidentiality, and privacy for their information and information systems. They need us.

I keep hearing recruiters and industry groups saying that the North American market has over a million jobs begging for people who can collaborate with end users and their managers to keep the lifeblood of their companies and organizations secure.

Getting certified – in any domain – can and should be mind-expanding. It’s the opportunity to see things in different ways, while at the same time benchmarking what you know, what you can do with that knowledge, and how you think.

Explore how (ISC)² credentials can prepare you to inspire a safe and secure cyber world – and enhance your career!

Mike Wills is an assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). He is also the Applied Information Technologies Programs chair and academic chair of the school’s Microsoft Software & Systems Academy (MSSA), which teaches foundational IT knowledge and skills to transitioning active duty military and honorably discharged veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces. To learn more, read his recent Q&A on the value of security certification.

The post Why You Should Consider A Security Certification (and why now is the time) appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 31, 2019 at 09:09PM

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Latest Android Ransomware spreading through SMS messages

According to researchers from ESET which is a Slovakia based Cybersecurity company a new malware is said to be on prowl on the web and is said to be targeting those using Android smartphones.

It is a kind of ransomware which encrypts files on mobile phones and is active since July 12 this year.

As per the details available to our Cybersecurity Insiders, the malware is being circulated via X-rated codes embedded into posts and published on Reddit and other developer forums. It is a kind of honey trap which is being laid as attackers are seen luring victims to their domains via posts and v*le comments.

Hackers are seen spreading it in over 42 languages which depends on the victim’s device’s language settings and encrypts all the android files which occupy more than 50MB space in the victim’s phone memory. Only those files ending with an extension of “ Zip, rar, JPEG, JPG and PNG” are being left unencrypted.

The main concern with this malware is that once infected, the malware transmits the virus to all the contacts which are noted on the contacts list of the victim via malicious links.

And as soon as the recipient gets the SMS, he/she trusts the sender and clicks on the link which leads them to an S$# simulator online game along with an auto download of a malicious X-rated app.
 
Details of the ransom being demanded by the hackers and where and what to be paid are yet to be disclosed to the media.

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July 31, 2019 at 08:51PM

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Capital One Credit Card data breach affects its 100 million customers

Virginia based Financial Corporation ‘Capital One’ which specializes in auto loans and credit card service offerings has made it official that a hacker had accessed credit card details of more than 100 million of its customers and probably could have taken information regarding their social security numbers and other bank details.

The recently disclosed hack of Capital One could turn into one of the largest data breaches of this year and possibly all times.

FBI is said to have taken a woman named Paige A Thompson from Seattle in this regard as more details are awaited!

“I am happy because the perpetrator has been caught, but at the same time deeply sorry for what has happened”, said Richard D Fairbank, the Chairman and the CEO of Capital One.

Security researchers say that the cyber incident and its disclosure could cost the McLean based company over $150 million which includes credit monitoring service offering to its customers for free, share market crisis after disclosure, loss of reputation in the market and such.

Capital One data breach disclosed by the company officials confirms that no log-in credentials of the credit cards were compromised in the incident and the exposed details related to social security numbers was meager.

When the female suspect was presented in the court last week, Ms. Thompson agreed that the way she has acted was illegal and she recognized her deeds as a crime. Till further investigation is conducted, she was sentenced to jail for a fortnight.

A few weeks back, Paige A Thompson whose online name was “Erratic” is said to have posted on her social media account that she had access to the database of Capital One Credit Card customers. This attracted the attention of law enforcement who laid a honey trap to arrest her last week.

Note 1- On July 17th this year, a hacker alerted the authorities of Capital One of the data breach and posting of data on a technology discussion forum. This made the bank authorities report the incident to the FBI who caught hold of Thompson within two days.

Note 2- Ms. Thompson is said to have accessed data related to over 140,000 social security numbers and info related to more than 77,000 accounts of credit card users from the said bank.

Note 3- Whether the hacker succeeded in selling that data in the dark world is yet to be probed.

Note 4- Paige A Thompson was a former Amazon Web Services Engineer who reportedly stole the info from Capital One’s AWS Cloud Server. Highly placed sources say that she already knew about the technicalities to break into the secured server. But whether she succeeded in breaking the encryption is yet to be probed.

Note 5- As per a source reporting to Cybersecurity Insiders, the fault was not with the Amazon Storage Services and was probed to be with the way Capital One’s IT staff was using the storage buckets with a firewall misconfiguration.

The post Capital One Credit Card data breach affects its 100 million customers appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 31, 2019 at 10:36AM

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Online shopping in the UK now needs a security code to buy Online

Most of the UK’s online shopping customers from now on may face chaos while making their favorite purchases via the web as the new anti-fraud rules will make it mandatory for consumers to enter an online banking security code received via their smartphone to complete a purchase.

Yes, what you have read is right! Those shopping across Britain might have to keep their mobile phone numbers updated with their banking institutions to enjoy the benefits of online shopping. If they fail to do so, they might miss a golden opportunity to shop on the web during the fast-approaching shopping season.

But critics say that those without mobiles or face network issues at their homes with mobile phones might feel the online shopping benefits ridiculed as their accounts could be locked out if they fail to enter the security codes on time.

But banks such as Santander and HSBC argue that the online shopping process only attains success only if the shopping code is entered correctly within a stipulated time. If the consumer misses it by any chance, the transaction gets canceled sending the alert to the online shopper about the failed purchase.

Most of the major banks haven’t warned their customers about the new rules and will surely refuse their customers from whitelisting their favorite retailers.

How the thing is supposed to work is as follows-

Just go to the shopping website and click on the good you want to buy. It will then take you to the payment page where you need to enter your CVV, card expiry date or long card number. To get the transaction verified, you just need to enter the banking code sent by the bank server to your mobile via SMS or email account. And to succeed the transaction, one needs to input the security code to complete the payment for the product/service purchase.

Note 1- Banks suggests that all these procedures are being implemented to benefit their customers who could otherwise find their accounts drained with fraudulent transactions.

Note 2- The official deadline announced by the Financial Conduct Authority for the online retailers and banks is September 14th, 2019. But there is a high probability of the deadline getting extended by 4-6 months.

The post Online shopping in the UK now needs a security code to buy Online appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 31, 2019 at 10:32AM

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Capital One data breach: 106m customers affected; suspected hacker arrested

By Uzair Amir

The hacker behind the breach (Paige Adele Thompson) has been arrested after they bragged about hacking Capital One.

This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Capital One data breach: 106m customers affected; suspected hacker arrested

July 31, 2019 at 12:12AM

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Money 2020: the latest industry thinking on Open Banking

Money 2020, which took place in Amsterdam at the start of the month, covered a host of topics on the mind of European fintech executives – from AI’s impact on the financial services sector to the changing payment value chain.

One subject took center stage at this year’s event; Open Banking. Over a year since the directive came into play – and three months until the European PSD2 mandatory deadline arrives – Money 2020 gave the industry a chance to take stock and reflect on the impact Open Banking has had since it was introduced.

It’s also fitting that after 12 months defined by the public slip-ups of Silicon Valley tech giants that the event would choose to focus on Open Banking. After all, the essence of Open Banking is about transparency and fairness, so the topic felt like a suitable palate cleanser and a chance to move the conversation on.

Broadly, the mood music around Open Banking was of cautious optimism, but with the caveat that more can be done to make PSD2 truly effective. On the one hand, speakers praised its democratizing ethos by allowing new players access to consumers’ financial data, but on the other voiced concerns about the speed of its rollout in different countries, security issues and the lack of fundamental consumer awareness of Open Banking and its implications for them.

Certain themes came up time and again, including a few key areas raised by industry speakers and panel guests:

• The Open Banking rollout is piecemeal

One of the key recurring criticisms of Open Banking was the inconsistency of its rollout, with different regions showing varying degrees of deployment. While the UK was praised for being a frontrunner its implementation of Open Banking, other European countries didn’t receive the same plaudits. Several speakers also noted that some banks and incumbent financial providers were dragging their feet in handing over data to customers, hiding behind their compliance and risk scenarios, and not doing enough to make consumers aware of the benefits of PSD2.

• Other sectors need to follow financial services’ lead

A range of speakers did underline how the principles of Open Banking should be applied to other industries such as telecoms and insurance. Frank Jan Risseeuw of Yolt called Open Banking the ‘Spotify of the financial world’, emphasizing its ability to essentially hand customers back their financial details. A number of speakers highlighted that other industries with entrenched incumbents could learn from the democratizing ethos behind the directive in order to hand more powers to the consumer.

• Digital identities are key for engendering trust

Security was a recurring theme across the event with speakers worrying that Open Banking left consumer financial details open to exploitation as APIs carried their financial information outside of the safe confines of bank’s ecosystems. Douwe Lycklama at Innopay sought to quell these fears by suggesting that digital identities were a crucial element in creating a “unified trust model”. This would then help service providers to build trust with customers by preventing fraud, encouraging them to give consent to their data being used.

• The man on the street is largely unaware of Open Banking

Another theme that popped up again and again was the amount of navel-gazing and back-slapping from the industry around the implementation of Open Banking, but the man on the street was still mostly in the dark about the implications of it for them. Daniel Kjellén, co-founder of Tink, made the point that from September, the industry will be operating in a fully regulated environment. Once this has happened, and Open Banking initiatives are being adapted by the population, “Europe will be set alight”.

The event also took the opportunity to look beyond Open Banking, towards a completely Open Data Economy. PSD2 and Open Banking, it was suggested, would in the future be regarded as a footnote of an even more egalitarian system where owning your own financial data was a human right. This would be a truly democratic data-driven society where data would become a transactional currency.

What the series of panels and discussions at Money 2020 did make clear was the fact that to achieve this ideal, a lot more was needed to be done to reassure consumers that their data was in safe hands. Consistent, versatile and, above all, secure digital identities would help to achieve the degree of trust needed to make the Open Banking revolution a genuine success. This year’s Money 2020 served to underline that while the industry is on the way to reaching this ideal, it still has a long way to go.

The post Money 2020: the latest industry thinking on Open Banking appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 30, 2019 at 09:09PM

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Join Us at the Identity and Access Morning Briefing – August 15, 2019

Thinking about attending the upcoming Identity and Access Morning Briefing on Thursday 15th August 2019, in Sydney, Australia?
Since the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) started on 22 Feb 2018, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) noted that there were 964 data breaches¹ reported between 1 Apr 2018 and 31 March 2019, with compromised credentials being the majority of malicious breaches.

As a sponsor at this briefing, we will be discussing the key findings from the 2019 Thales Access Management Index report.

If you do plan to attend this briefing, please drop by the Thales Stand and grab a copy of this report. Come meet our cyber security experts and discuss how to develop an access management strategy that includes multi-factor authentication to protect your organisation from identity theft.

We would also be happy to discuss strategies to protect your organisation’s sensitive data that will help you to transform your cybersecurity, risk management and compliance strategies to meet the pace and scale of today’s digital business whether on-premise or in the Cloud.

We hope to see you at this breakfast briefing!

In the meantime, if you have any questions, don’t be shy; please do contact us. We’d love to hear from you.

¹https://www.oaic.gov.au/resources/privacy-law/privacy-act/notifiable-data-breaches-scheme/quarterly-statistics/ndb-scheme-12%E2%80%91month-insights-report.pdf

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July 30, 2019 at 09:09PM

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Every business in the world faces these Cyber Threats

Every hacker launches a cyber attack with a motive to gain heavy on a financial note. And in most cases cyber crooks prove successful in proving their superiority over the target network.

Security analysts suggest that attacks launched on businesses yield more to hackers and that’s obvious as data happens to be life-blood for them. Although cyber criminals are seen using numerous ways to orchestrate attacks, here are a few common methods to detail them-

Phishing– This has turned into a most common form attack on firms operating around the globe today. It is a form of social engineering attack where hackers are seen sending emails to businesses posing as genuine customers/clients to extract personal data that used for malevolent purposes on a later note.

Zero Day Attacks- These attacks are launched by criminals on network vulnerabilities and usually take place in-between the times of patch release to obtain maximum success.

BOT attacks- These attacks are automated and involve infected devices on a network to increase intensity of the attack on threat scale. Such attacks are launched usually with a motive to disrupt the services of a company or a service provider on a temporary of a permanent note. For instance Distributed Denial of Service attack aka DDoS attack stands as a perfect example to prove the point.

Malware- A malware attack is a kind of software attack launched on the digital assets of public and private companies. Virus, ransomware, spyware all constitute for a malware attack. Such attacks are launched by cyber crooks as soon as they find flaws in a network after which they install malicious software through phishing emails and then extort money to decrypt data, steal data or disrupt services in most cases.

Man in the middle attack– This is a cyber attack which helps hackers steal data of users infiltrating a network to tap the data flow. Usually, open Wi-Fi Networks lead to such attacks.

Businesses should remain isolated from such situations by enabling data backups for disaster recovery, monitoring their networks on an automated note for threat detection and educating their staff of what’s happening in the current cyber landscape and what should be done to keep their company assets safe and secure from hackers.

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July 30, 2019 at 10:35AM

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Cyber attack news trending on Google

1.) Hackers reportedly targeted the mobile phones used by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro early last week and the incident was confirmed by the Brazilian Justice Ministry through a press statement yesterday.

The announcement comes just after a statement released by the Brazilian police on July 25th claiming a cyber attack probe launched on the mobile phones used by Mr. Jair led to the arrest of 4 people who are accused of hacking into the digital assets of other government authorities which includes two federal judges, 2 fed police investigators and also a messaging account of Brazilian Justice Minister Sergio Moro.

2.) In other news related to Cyber attack, British Telecom Company SURE has disclosed that data of a small section of its users was subjected to a cyber attack leaking vital info such as names, addresses, account numbers and sort codes.

The company which happens to be a main mobile and broadband services provider across Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey and Falkland Islands says that evidence about the data access and data steal was zero after the incident probe. However, all those affected will be contacted by the service provider and precautionary measures to stay vigilant with such attacks will be taken soon.

The Information Commissioner’s office of Isle of Man was informed about the incident.

3.) According to the new European law which kicked in recently, websites which use Facebook ‘Like’ button must get explicit permission from users before their info is transmitted to the social media giant which in-turn makes that brand products more visible on the user’s webpage.

Generally such kind of data discrepancies take place on shopping websites which from now on should seek the permission of the user before their shopping information is transmitted to Facebook servers.

This law was in-line with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Rules which came into force in May 2018. But gained focus when one of the facebook users’s sued a fashion website for transmitting her data to facebook servers which thereafter started to bombard her WebPages with ads related to the same brand.

The post Cyber attack news trending on Google appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 30, 2019 at 10:32AM

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Whistleblower says Apple contractors listen to your Siri conversions

By Uzair Amir

A whistleblower is claiming that the tech giant Apple is listening to Siri recording and allegedly, the Apple Watch is also playing a big role in collecting these records.

This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Whistleblower says Apple contractors listen to your Siri conversions

July 30, 2019 at 01:51AM

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More Than 10M Australians Affected by a Single Data Breach, Reveals OAIC

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) found that a single data breach affected more than 10 million Australians.

In its latest Notifiable Data Breaches Quarterly Statistics Report, the OAIC reveals that it received 215 notifications of data breaches under the Notifiable Data Breach Scheme between 1 January and 31 March 2019. Nearly all of those security incidents (189) affected between one and 1,000 Australians. But there were a few events that claimed even more victims. Twelve of these data breaches affected 5,000 individuals, for instance, while two incidents compromised 25,000 people’s data. One data breach even affected more than 10 million Australians.

A closer look at report reveals that the majority of these data breaches (186 incidents, or approximately 88 percent) compromised Australians’ contact information. Slightly half of those security events (98) exposed victims’ financial details. Meanwhile, 55 data breaches compromised individuals’ identity information.

Malicious actors and criminals were responsible for most of the breaches disclosed to the OAIC within this reporting period. Indeed, malicious or criminal attacks accounted for 61 percent of data breach notifications in Q1 2019. Human error came at 75 data breaches, or 35 percent of the total, while system faults were responsible for just nine breaches or four percent of the total.

Those human error incidents warrant additional analysis, as a vast array of faults were behind those events. Personal information sent to the wrong recipient via email came in on top at 23 of the 75 human error data breaches. Close behind it was unauthorised disclosure (unintended release or publication) at 21 cases, which was followed by 12 instances of loss of paperwork/data storage device and nine occurrences where someone sent personal information to the wrong recipient via mail. Unauthorised disclosure (verbal or failure to redact), other occasions where someone sent personal data to the wrong recipient and a failure to use BCC when sending email were all responsible for three or fewer security instances each.

The first quarter of 2019 represents the first time that the number of data breaches reported to the OAIC decreased. Between Q2 2018 and Q3 2018, for instance, the total number of security incidents increased slightly from 242 to 245. The rate of growth was even more significant between Q3 2018 and Q4 2018 from 245 to 262.

But that doesn’t mean that organisations are any less safe now than they were in 2018. In acknowledgment of the NDB’s scheme, Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk explained that organisations need to take steps to protect themselves against digital threats. She said that one of the best ways they can do this is by investing in their users:

By understanding the causes of notifiable data breaches, business and other regulated entities can take reasonable steps to prevent them. Our report shows a clear trend towards the human factor in data breaches — so training and supporting your people and improving processes and technology are critical to keeping customers’ personal information safe.

To be sure, should balance these investments in their people with appropriate investments in technology. Specifically, they should encrypt all sensitive data at rest and in transit, securely store and manage all encryption keys and control user access and authentication. By implementing each of these measures, companies can protect themselves against data breaches.

The post More Than 10M Australians Affected by a Single Data Breach, Reveals OAIC appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 29, 2019 at 09:09PM

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Survey Results: The State of Data Security in APAC – Are Businesses Ready for Their Digital Transformation?

Asia-Pacific (APAC) organisations across various industry verticals are undergoing a digital transformation or have transformed their business in order to move into the digital economy. Some are offering multiple touchpoints for customers & employees, moving to the cloud, building new applications to connect and engage with customers and the list goes on.

At the heart of this transformation is the explosive growth of sensitive information such as payment data, personal information and other sensitive Personal Identifiable Information (PII) that is created, collected and shared. What is scary though is that all these sensitive information have become a treasure trove for cybercriminals to steal and monetise!

While digital transformation presents APAC organisations with many business advantages but is data security top of mind when they are planning to transform their business to meet the digital age? Or is security an afterthought, causing panic after a data breach? So what are organisations in APAC doing to adapt to these changes safely?

To find this out, Gemalto engaged Ecosystm to conduct market research on the state of data security in Asia-Pacific.

To see how your organisation compares, check out the results of this survey.

And if you have any questions or like to discuss this more, don’t be shy; please do contact us. We’d love to hear from you.

The post Survey Results: The State of Data Security in APAC – Are Businesses Ready for Their Digital Transformation? appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 29, 2019 at 09:09PM

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Why IaaS requires cloud security automation

Public cloud infrastructure is a significant and powerful part of an enterprise’s competitive arsenal but to protect such fast-moving environments requires such as Iaas require cloud security automation.

In our cloud-driven economy, software has become the battleground of innovation, and public cloud infrastructure, or IaaS, — along with its cousins, DevOps and Continuous Delivery — offers the strategic advantage of speed. 

It also brings new challenges in maintaining security and compliance requiring the application of the Shared Responsibility Model.  

Within this model based on shared responsibility, customer  security responsibilities revolve around ensuring cloud infrastructure is architected, deployed and operated in a safe manner. The security team must ensure that the flexibility and power of cloud infrastructure is not used improperly –  either accidentally or intentionally. 

Enterprises need the critical ability to quickly detect and remediate security issues, then prevent them from recurring – all at cloud scale and cloud speed. That’s not easy to do in an environment that’s constantly changing and rapidly growing exponentially.

The good news is that when it comes to working in public cloud infrastructure – many have come before you. There are already ways to automate cloud security processes and integrate them into automation workflows, making DevOps a force multiplier. 

Fast-moving IaaS requires powerful, comprehensive security

By now most security professionals are actively working to address current or future cloud infrastructure adoption. According to Forrester, nearly 60% of North American businesses now rely on cloud on public cloud platforms–five times the percentage of five years ago.

Businesses must innovate quickly to compete in today’s markets and that’s contributing to the continued adoption of public cloud infrastructure. Staying agile, innovative and competitive is no longer an “if, it’s a “must.”

Almost every company is now a software company by default, because they all have a relevant software component driving their products or overall business. 

Ford essentially sells computers-on-wheels. FedEx boasts a developer skunkworks to further their technological edge. The era in which traditional industries and technology industries operated in different arenas is over. Every industry is now software driven. Those who fail to adapt to this major shift will soon find themselves obsolete. 

Software is typically the fastest and easiest mechanism for delivering faster innovation, because it inherently moves faster than physical product innovation. The app that monitors and tracks your digitally-enabled shoes can be now be iterated much faster than the shoes themselves.

Faster and modern application cloud infrastructure is changing the way we do business

As more businesses are being run on software and delivered as online services — from movies to agriculture to national defense —  more of them need public cloud infrastructure. For many others, software is their business and they need IaaS to run it.

To build a faster and modern application infrastructure, enterprises are leveraging public cloud infrastructure to improve operational agility, as well as optimize costs and resources. 

Coupling automated public cloud infrastructure with its cousins — DevOps  and Continuous Deployment — allows for software innovation at a wildly faster rate. With this software-defined infrastructure in place developers can now provision all the critical operational support features —  in a fraction of the time currently required as changes are instantaneous and can be sweeping. 

Bottom line, cloud infrastructure is a powerful new tool in the race to stay competitive, and it’s here to stay.

This new application environment is changing the way we do business for the better by enabling DevOps teams to develop and operate as a continuous process, often meaning realtime changes in production and faster delivery. That’s the good news.

The downside is that within these new environments it’s easy for mistakes to find their way in and stay there. Often undetected. Many of them commonly caused by misconfiguration of cloud services can easily expose cloud infrastructure to security threats. To identify and remediate those configurations mistakes that may be exposing your public cloud infrastructure requires a solution utilizing cloud security automation to uncover and reduce potential risk.

Halo delivers cloud security automation

Read our product brief to learn more about Halo can help you maintain continuous security and compliance by automating best practices across your multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments on major cloud provider platforms.

The post Why IaaS requires cloud security automation appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 29, 2019 at 09:08PM

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Improve security of your Linux OS with simple steps

By Waqas

It’s normal to hear Linux users brag about security and sometimes tease Windows users however Linux devices are now under malware attacks as well.

This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Improve security of your Linux OS with simple steps

July 29, 2019 at 04:03PM

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Security features on Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Google, which happens to be one of the largest tech companies in the world after Amazon has for years warding off security threats by following certain guidelines in its day to day operations. In the last weekend, the internet juggernaut decided to disclose some security features of its Google Cloud Platform to help customers show their data and services are being offered securely to help build ‘Trust’ among its patrons.

Going by the disclosure it appears that the web search giant has customized most of its cloud security features as per its needs and demands from customers and a summary of it is as follows-

Google Data Center security on the physical note- When it comes to the protection of its data center assets, the Alphabet Inc’s subsidiary seems to be very serious. The company is seen protecting its infrastructure with the help of biometric detectors, alarms, cameras, security lasers with minimalistic human indulgence. So, as everything is automated at this segment, errors are almost negligible or mere zero.

Highly customized Hardware and Software- Google has announced to the world in the year 2015 that it builds its hardware like server boards, networking devices, and customized server machines- all as per its needs and security requirements. And when it comes to software’s like firmware stack, curated OS images, and hardened hypervisors are all tuned as per its requirements.

Data storage and destruction- As the Sundar Pichai firm happens to have tons of Petabytes of data moving to and fro, at the end of the data it also has to do persistent disk cleanups to make way for the new lot. Google says that data destruction at its premises is done scientifically by using a logical disk cleaning technique for cleanups and the results of erasure are securely stored and logged in the disks in a perfect way for future weekly audits. Then the erased disk is released into the inventory for reuse.

Data encryption is also done at two points on GCP. As the encryption is automatic it requires no action from the user’s side. An AES- 256 algorithm is applied with master keys which are again termed by the Google servers.

Network monitoring, data access monitoring, intrusion detention are all kept operational at the server farms of Google. DDoS protection, login abuse protection, and authentication are being given a priority by the tech giant these days.

Note- As Mountain View-based company offers different services, the above-specified security standards are being followed to render services related to Gmail, Google Search, Google Photos, and other enterprise services like G-Suite and GCP.

The post Security features on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 29, 2019 at 10:19AM

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Trending news headlines on Google related to Cyber Attacks

1.) Bellingcat, an investigative journalism website which offers open-source intelligence and fact-finding tools has revealed that a recent cyberattack on its database has been sourced to Russian intelligence.

Eliot Higgins, who happens to be the founder of the British based Bellingcat website said on last Friday that Russia backed hackers have been consistently trying to hack its database which has been probing into the incidents such as Malaysia MH17, the Skripal Nerve attack and the GRU investigations on the bombings in Syria.

Higgins disclosed on Friday that the infiltration into their network was being done through ProtonMail- a Swiss-based email service provider which Journalism website used for internal communication.

2.) In the second news which is related to cyber attacks, security analysts have discovered that the San Mateo County’s election infrastructure was highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. This includes the results declaring website and the official social media accounts of the San Mateo County’s Online Election Information Channels.

A report released by the Civil Grand Jury in the last weekend, says that foreign intervention might lead to two possibilities if in case the elections get rigged on a digital note. In the first case, the attack might discourage the populace from participating in the elections due to frustration that the results were already rigged. And secondly, misinformation spread might also lead to a situation where the general public might boycott their participation in the event on the whole.

The Grand Jury is encouraging the officials of San Mateo County to go for a free consultation being offered by US Department of Homeland Security to help the local government assess and enhance the security of their online systems.

3.) According to a news report published in ZDNET, ransomware spreading hackers have started to target Synology company NAS devices with Brute Force password attacks to deliver file-encrypting malware payloads.

As such devices are packed with data such as backups from primary systems, these systems become as goldmines to hackers.

Early this year, security researchers from LookOut found that NAS devices manufactured by Western Digital My Cloud were being targeted by StorageCrypt ransomware which can only be reversed on payment of 2BTC.

At the start of this month, news reports flew in that NAS device maker QNAP from Taiwan was being targeted by ransomware attackers with eCh0raix malware.

Synology is urging its NAS users to use Synology Network and Account Management settings to prevent the data from getting encrypted as this configuration allows engaging the firewall in the control panel by allowing public ports for essential services, as well as enables 2-factor authentication.

The post Trending news headlines on Google related to Cyber Attacks appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 29, 2019 at 10:15AM

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Be the leader in the new password-volution: memorized secrets

Remember when you were younger, and you wanted to do something that all your friends were doing, yet you knew your parents would never approve?  Perhaps it was skating in that home-made “Half-Pipe”, or that time you wanted to try some equally dangerous stunt?
Of course, your parents disapproved, to which you probably responded with the time-honored refrain: “But everyone is doing it!”  That was never a convincing argument.  This probably added to the thrill, so you did it anyway (and you have the scars to prove it).
Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you were the first person to build that half-pipe?  Would the parental support have been different?  Would being the first be a special accomplishment?  Would others follow?
As with many “firsts”, sometimes it is better to be second, third, or even…

Posted by: Bob Covello

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The post Be the leader in the new password-volution: memorized secrets appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 28, 2019 at 09:09PM

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Prevent WordPress hacking using this Pen Testing guide

Welcome back to the next edition of “Hacking WordPress”. Find Part 1 if you missed it. Let me start with a PSA message. It is illegal to hack, log in to, penetrate, take over or even hack, a system or network of systems without the explicit permission of the owner. Criminal hacking is illegal and punishable under Federal Law. I am describing methods to learn more about WordPress so you can protect your sites better.
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, enacted into law today as United States Code Title 18 Section 1030, is the primary federal law governing cybercrime in the United States today. It has been used in such famous cases as the Morris Worm and in the prosecution of notorious TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez.
Stress testing your own WordPress site with penetration testing
Now, in this edition we are going to use Kali Linux and WPScan…

Posted by: Tony DeGonia

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July 27, 2019 at 09:09AM

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WannaCry hero Marcus Hutchin aka MalwareTech won’t serve prison time

By Waqas

The British cyber security researcher and WannaCry ransomware hero Marcus Hutchin was initially facing up to 10 years in a US prison.

This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: WannaCry hero Marcus Hutchin aka MalwareTech won’t serve prison time

July 27, 2019 at 05:13AM

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Apple acquires Intel Smartphone Modem business for 5G

In Feb this year, there were rumors that Apple is all set to acquire a business unit of Intel to strengthen its stand on 5G network transformations around the world. And as speculated, Apple Inc made an official announcement early today which states that it has acquired Intel’s Smartphone Modem business for $1 billion.

If history is taken into account, Apple and Intel’s latest deal can be termed as a most high profile deal in recent times i.e in the past months.

Apple has also included in its statement that approximately 2,200 of Intel employees will be joining Apple’s business along with the customers, leases and intellectual property along with wholesome equipment produced till date.

What Apple deal of Intel means to the iPhone users and the world?

    1. Well, its crystal clear that Apple is all set to hold wireless technology patents of over 17,000 from Intel which includes official rights related to cellular standards, modem operations & architecture.

    2. Intel has cleared the air that it still holds modem development rights for non-smartphone applications such as PCs, IoT devices and autonomous vehicles.

    3. Apple will launch its first 5G phone in 2020 with Intel architecture embedded in it.

    4. Apple will be using Intel’s technology to induce special features into its iconic A12 Bionic processor.

    5. Apple will design its processors for iPhones and iPads and will induct Intel’s modem architecture into its System-on-a-Chip(SoC) architecture.

    6. Apple will offer iPhones and iPads with unique features which will help the device maker take an edge over Android smart phones in business.

    7. As Apple will make its modems, it will have more control over its products.

    8. Apple’s reliance on Qualcomm will reduce as its newly acquired technology from Intel will lead the pack.

    9. As Apple has indirectly declared that it is going to enter 5G mobile business in near future, its competitors like Huawei might find it hard in capturing the market of west.

    10. Apple is working on its modems since 2017. But those devices will reportedly be ready only by 2025. Till then Intel’s business acquisition will prove fruitful.

Note 1- A modem is a device that converts data into a format suitable to be transmitted via a medium so that two devices can communicate with each other. Means a modem modulates one or more carrier wave signals to encode digital info for transmission and demodulates signals to decode the transmitted data.

Note 2- A router is a hardware device which sits between your internet connection and your private network and helps your devices like smartphones, laptops and other IoT communicate with each other.
 

The post Apple acquires Intel Smartphone Modem business for 5G appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 26, 2019 at 08:51PM

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Universities need to protect their data from Cyber Attacks

As more and more Universities are falling preys to cyberattacks, security researchers say that educational universities should appropriately defend their digital assets before it’s too late.

Oxford, Warwick, Greenwich and Lancaster Universities were among the many of the higher educational institutes which have fallen prey to cyber attacks in recent years, and the list might persist if these institutes do not improve their security posture says a security alert issued by UK’s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC).

As research info is turning profitable to hackers, Universities have no other choice to take rather than to up their Cybersecurity defense-line. Adding to it is the growing sophistication of malware and an increase in several potentially vulnerable endpoints which in-turn paves the way to hackers to illegally access the university’s network.

Here training staff and students might help to a certain extent. Also educating them with what is happening in the cyber world will make them learn the modalities for following healthy Cybersecurity hygiene.

Also keeping the software up to date by patching it up from time to time and installing threat detection software will surely help protect the network even further.

What is more, is that the university heads like Vice-Chancellors and Deans should no longer consider cybersecurity as a mere IT issue. But they should first learn for themselves that a cyber attack can show its implications on a wide range of applications & users which could be devastating and everlasting.

Finally, as cyber crooks are seen architecting new ways to steal, exploit, and demand ransom by holding valuable data assets, University heads also should be prepared for the worst by going for a layered approach of security and ensuring that staff and students are adequately trained on the issue.

The post Universities need to protect their data from Cyber Attacks appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 26, 2019 at 10:45AM

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Ransomware attack forces Louisiana Governor to declare an emergency

Ransomware attack has forced Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards to declare emergency after three school districts in the region were hit by a ransomware attack early this week. The names of the school districts are Ouachita, Morehouse and Sabin and sources confirm that the digital files about the three schools remain encrypted and remain inaccessible to the staff and students even today i.e Friday.

With the declaration of the emergency, Louisiana happens to join the list standing second in line following Colorado Department of Transportation which decided to forcefully shut down its services and declare an emergency after a malware attack on its database took place in Feb’18.

SamSam ransomware was the malware which hit the database of Colorado Department of Transportation early last year. But with Louisiana, the malware variant has to be diagnosed yet.

As the schools have been shut down for month or so, the IT staff of the three schools will be working hard to revive the lost data as early as possible. And State officials have declared that they will rebuild the data by the start of the upcoming academic year which is likely to start from September first week.

After signing the Emergency Declaration John Bel Edwards has announced that the state resources will be available to impacted schools from now on and this includes official assistance from Cybersecurity experts working for Louisiana National Guard, Louisiana State Police, the Office of Technology Service, the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP).

Louisiana Governor Edwards said that the state of emergency will remain in place till Aug 21st of this year or until all the digital assets of the 3 schools are fully recovered.

Note- In Dec’17, three ransomware outbreaks- namely NotPetya, Bad Rabbit, and WannaCry took place across the world and companies, educational institutes and some government utilities were affected in Louisiana. As soon as the digital disruption outbreak took place, North Louisiana established a Cybersecurity Commission to assemble and coordinate ‘smart response teams’ to assist the victims in the event of a cyber attack.

The post Ransomware attack forces Louisiana Governor to declare an emergency appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 26, 2019 at 10:41AM

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Ransomware attack on Power supply leaves Johannesburg citizens in the dark

A ransomware attack which took place on the network of Johannesburg Electricity Supplier ‘City Power’ is said to have left thousands in dark without power. The company which purchases, distributes and sells power to the city’s financial hub admitted that it became a victim of a malware attack which disrupted the network of pre-paid electric power services for residents and local companies operating in the largest city of South Africa.

Details of the attack are yet to be known. But highly placed sources have confirmed that a malware blocked certain critical applications of the power supplying municipal entity leaving many without power.

The official website of the company is unreachable from the morning hours and officials say that the website will be up & working in the next 12 hours.

Data restoration program has already been implemented by the authorities and details of the demanded ransom are being withheld for reasons.

Those suffering from the power outage kept calling the local radio stations to complain about the power disruption and consequences after.

City Power officials have confirmed that reports related to data theft and data access are false as the company’s IT staff have succeeded in containing the malware in the initial spread.

Note– Ransomware is a kind of malware which encrypts files in a database and makes it inaccessible. The victim is then left with two options- either to rebuild the database with backup data or to pay a ransom in return of a decryption key from hackers. Law enforcement agencies such as US FBI and Homeland Security are discouraging victims from bowing down to the demands of hackers as they say that there is no guaranty that the hackers will return a decryption key as soon as they receive the ransom and will not demand more.

The post Ransomware attack on Power supply leaves Johannesburg citizens in the dark appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 25, 2019 at 08:49PM

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Hackers buy passwords of Deliveroo users and place fraudulent orders

Deliveroo, a London based online food delivery app is struggling to contain the number of fraudulent orders placed by hackers who purchased usernames and password credentials on the dark web for as low as £5

As each day is passing, Deliveroo account holders are sent scrambling to try to cancel the orders before the food is delivered HO% to hackers.

Some orders are small like a pack of cigarettes’ from Nisa Local while most are large- £450 worth chicken dishes from KFC.

A source from the British online food delivery company confirmed that her company’s database was secure and intact. And the password hacks might be taking place from customer’s end through phishing emails or other means.

Deliveroo, which is registered with the name of Roofoods LTD, says that it has introduced security measures in place to counter fraud by tracking down any account changes in the app in time and informing the customer.

From early this year, the food delivery company has been sending emails to its users on a regular note and urging them to change their passwords from time to time.

Note- Founded in 2013, Deliveroo offers its services in United Kingdom, Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and other countries through 20,000 of its technically self-employed courier agents. Their agents deliver the food and beverage parcels on Moped & Bicycles competing with the services offered by other companies like Just Eat, GrubHub and UberEats.

The post Hackers buy passwords of Deliveroo users and place fraudulent orders appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 25, 2019 at 10:47AM

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Cyber Attack on German companies BASF, Siemens, Henkel, and Roche

German media is buzzing with news headlines that a group of companies operating in its region was targeted by a cyberattack launched by Chinese hacking group.

Public Broadcaster ARD has specified in its news post that hackers targeted Hotels group Marriott, BASF, airliner Lion Air, Chemical firm Shin-Etsu, Siemens, Shampoo maker Henkel and Pharma company Roche with a malware called Winnti having the potential to access the computer network of the victims.

ARD specified in its news update that the source code of Winnti was the same which was used by the Chinese government on its adversaries in the past.

News is out that all the victim companies managed not to lose sensitive info by shutting down the systems in time after infection and so the disruption was meager.

As all the companies sell highly sophisticated and qualitative equipment they are termed as ‘Blue- Chip’ companies in the business world.

Reason to target Blue chip companies by hackers was simple- to steal highly sensitive info to create an economic and political crisis in the region.

Note- Winnti malware was created by a Chinese group hailing with the same name and was till date targeting companies operating in the video gaming industry. Then the objective was to steal the source of the online gaming projects and digital certificates along with new conceptual ideas.

The post Cyber Attack on German companies BASF, Siemens, Henkel, and Roche appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 25, 2019 at 10:41AM

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New malware attack turns Elasticsearch databases into DDoS botnet

By Waqas

The malware attack involves two stages including one in which existing cryptomining malware is removed and other remove configuration files.

This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: New malware attack turns Elasticsearch databases into DDoS botnet

July 24, 2019 at 11:32PM

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I resent my Email and my invite

Here is a short communication tip that may help you in your daily interactions.  How often have you “resent” an E-Mail?  How often have you told a person that you will “send an invite”?
You may be wondering why I am bringing this up in a post usually reserved for cybersecurity.  Am I just being overly pedantic? Am I just a rigid grammarian?  One could easily assert that (and my friends do so all the time, so feel free to jump on that bandwagon).  However, there is more to it than that.
While we tend to use the word “resent” to indicate sending a message again, as yet, there is no recognized usage in the English language. The same is true for the word “invite”.  It is not yet recognized in the way we are using…

Posted by: Bob Covello

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July 24, 2019 at 09:09PM

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How does legal identity strengthen a country’s institutional framework?

In our previous post we discussed why having legal identity was essential to exercising human rights. However, legal identity is also crucial to strengthening a country’s institutional framework and making sure governments can provide citizens with the best policy possible. Such questions were also raised at the ID4Africa event this week in Johannesburg.

To recap, legal identity is the legal registration and documentation of a citizen that entitles them to the rights and benefits of their country. There are a variety of forms legal identity can take, including examples such as, a birth certificate, passport or driver’s license. It is currently estimated 1.5 billion people globally do not have a legal identity, denying them access to basic human rights, such as healthcare and education.

However, the extent to which legal identity has been adopted in a country also has a significant impact on governments and other institutions. This is because efficient and integrated registration of the population provides civil registry authorities with data to input into the country’s system of vital national statistics. For example, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in the UK provides the UK government with information on how many people are unemployed. When a country includes a large percentage of citizens with no legal identity there is a lack of balanced quantitative data that a government can use to develop efficient public programs.

Using the example above, if the ONS unemployment figures were heavily skewed due to many citizens not having legal identity, the government might find it harder to effectively distribute unemployment benefits. Often this lack of information can result in incomplete and ineffective public policies that, in turn, creates and cements inequality. Unregistered and undocumented populations also challenge the accountability and transparency of the government, as the government cannot provide or share accurate information with its citizens.

Nonetheless, even when a state government has the best of intentions to provide its citizens with a legal identity, there are often unnecessary barriers that make it a complex process. For example, many countries have fragmented ID schemes, where there are multiple overlapping and incompatible systems in place. These come at a great financial cost, often only possible with high levels of donor support. Even tiny Somaliland is planning for two separate systems, each using fingerprints, and iris and face biometrics — massive financial overkill for an entity with some four million people. Meanwhile, citizens are put off by the inconvenience of having to enrol multiple times in multiple programs.

It is therefore essential for governments to use a system that both provides an accurate legal identity for everyone at a reasonable cost and is also user friendly, encourages fast adoption and has no barriers to access and use for citizens. A proportion of the population must not be excluded because of excessive charges, indirect costs, and convoluted processes, or simply because they don’t have physical access to the service.

By recognizing these factors as potential pitfall areas for countries, we make sure our biometric and digital data solutions are tailored to the specific needs of government’s and citizens. Our system can also be used for all registries including CRVS, population databases, voter registers, travel document databases and more. This creates an all-in-one solution easier for both governments and citizens to use.

As the world becomes increasingly digitized, legal identity will become all the more critical, as will the need for co-operation between organizations that have identified ways digital identity can achieve both protection and inclusion. For example, if biometric or other personal data is stored digitally this will help countries identify refugees who flee there in times of crisis and did not take their physical ID records with them. Biometric and digital data is therefore a much more robust way of providing citizens with a legal identity, if adopted and stored correctly.

The global era of networked communication and computing has ushered in a new enthusiasm for the potential of identification systems to efficiently and comprehensively reach and serve the world’s poor and vulnerable. The achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal, a legal identity for all, will only be possible through the power of digital technologies.

Gemalto as a board member of the Secure Identity Alliance is also fully supporting the OSIA initiative, which is an open standard set of interfaces (APIs) that enables seamless connectivity between all components of the identity management ecosystem – independent of technology, solution architecture or vendor. Now, governments around the world can exert full control over their national identity programs – to better protect citizens and their civil rights, to deliver equality of access to economic and social services, and to achieve their national development agendas.

The post How does legal identity strengthen a country’s institutional framework? appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

July 24, 2019 at 09:08PM

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