Google trending Cyber Attack news headlines

Firstly, it is the US Department of Defense which is topping the headlines when it comes to cyber-attacks. News is out that the systems related to Defense Information Systems Agency(DISA) affiliated to DoD have been hacked the incident reportedly exposed personal data of more than 200,000 people.

DISA is the agency that looks into the operations related to military communications and white house and it includes calls and web traffic monitoring of US President Donald Trump.

It has to be notified over here that data related to names and social security numbers were also exposed to hackers during the incident and this was confirmed to the correspondent related to BBC.

Coming to the second news which is trending on Google and related to Cyber Attack, UK’s National Cyber Security Center shortly acclaimed as NCSC has discovered that the cyber attack carried out on over 2000 websites in Georgia was carried out by hackers working for Russian Military Intelligence agency- GRU.

Law enforcement agencies from the UK and the US formed a team to investigate the 2019 cyberattack launched in the country of Georgia. And the Russian involvement in the attack was confirmed by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab who described the incident as “totally unacceptable”.

Thirdly, a cyber attack on INA Group which happens to be Croatia’s biggest oil company having the largest petrol station chain is said to have disrupted some business operations of the company.

INA has confirmed that the incident took place on the Valentines’ day of this year at 22:00 hours local time and was a CLOP ransomware attack variant.

No disruption was reported on the fuel station transactions related to payment and fuel dispense. However, a source reports that the company’s backend servers were deeply encrypted by the file-encrypting malware.

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February 21, 2020 at 08:35PM

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DNA data become a soft target for hackers who are stealing it via Cyber Attacks

A team of security experts from Israel has warned that hackers are seen sweetly preying on DNA Research repositories these days as it proving lucrative to them. Researchers from Ben Gurion University (BGU) have released a white paper on the issue and published the same in their recent Journal Eurosurveillance.

 

Speaking about the dangers unfolding in microbiology advances, the experts have highlighted the fact that data related to genome sequences of pathogens which might bring a revolution into the detection of infectious diseases is said to be topping as a favorite subject for hackers to infiltrate related databases.

 

As DNA Sequencing has become cost-effective, scientists are trying to move their scientific inventions and discoveries in the related field from labs to the field and eventually into the homes of humankind. As this data is valuable, hackers are seen preying on these subjects as they are being funded to do so in some state-sponsored attacks.

 

BGU researchers say that such data should be proactively protected from digital invasions rather than indulging in an afterthought. Otherwise, it can lead to a bio-war where hackers eject false threats or use tools to delay recognition of epidemics in time.

 

Note- The recent Wuhan Virus, widely known as Coronavirus or Covid 19 might be a test sample of a bio war which China could have devised it for future use and spilled it midway due to a human error or a cyber attack on its database which resulted in the spread of the infection due to an altercation in lab chemical composition- resulting in a world crisis.

 

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February 21, 2020 at 11:00AM

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Ransomware attack on ISS World

ISS World, a Denmark based company that is into catering, cleaning and security business is reported to have become a victim of a ransomware cyberattack. The company’s website has been inaccessible since Feb 17th of this week and the management at the London’s Surrey, Canary Wharf and Weybridge offices consisting of 43,000 staff members are unable to access emails since then.

 

ISS (International Service System) officials say that the database has been locked from being accessed due to file-encrypting malware infection and details on the ransom demand are yet to be disclosed.

 

As the impact will affect more than 500,000 global employees of the company at some point in time, authorities are working round the clock to restore the services as quickly as possible.

 

ISS says some servers and services have been restored. But a lot of work is pending which is due to be completed by this month-end.

 

Note 1- Nowadays hackers are seen stealing data before encrypting a database and this ensures that they do not remain empty-handed if the victim fails to pay as the stolen data can be sold on the marketplace of the dark web.

 

Note 2- In the recent ransomware threat report compiled by SonicWall, its sensors and researchers have detected a whopping total of 187.8 million ransomware attacks in 2019. Here, attackers are seen making more money from few, but high profile victims.

 

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February 21, 2020 at 10:58AM

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Is the cybersecurity skills gap real?

An independent guest blogger wrote this blog.
If you do a web search for “cybersecurity skills gap,” you’ll get many, many pages of results. It’s certainly a hot topic in our industry. And it’s a matter that security practitioners and human resources people often disagree on.
But before I get further into the matter, it would help to know what it is we’re talking about when we use the phrase “cybersecurity skills gap.”
From the perspective of employers, it means that potential job applicants don’t have the specific cybersecurity skills they’re looking for, and possibly the people they already employ don’t have the skills to be promoted into new cybersecurity related positions. This can be a really tricky area, because computer technology evolves very quickly, and often universities, colleges, and vocational schools…

Posted by: Kim Crawley

Read full post

      

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February 21, 2020 at 09:09AM

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Google Adsense users facing extortion Cyber Threats with fake web traffic

If you maintain a website, then you will surely know what Google does if you flood your website with fake web traffic. Yes, for the first count it bans you on a temporary note and as soon as it detects a ‘repeat’, the web search giant completely blocks your website from being indexed on its search engine permanently. Then you probably have the other choice rather than buying a new domain.

Now, the news is out that Google Adsense users are getting extortion threats on a digital note via email saying that their website will be flooded with fake web traffic which can lead to a ban by the search giant. And they are demanding a $5,000 ransom to be paid in Bitcoins to remove their website from the extortion campaign.

Krebs On Security reports that the extortion campaign seems to be intense as hackers are threatening to a cyber attack the website for the second time with fake traffic which will initiate the Alphabet Inc’s subsidiary to impose a permanent ban on the website.

Google has however reassured that it has all the necessary tools to protect websites from fake traffic. And a dedicated help page for form submission has been set up for the Adsense Publishers if in case they feel threatened due to Sabotage. So, for now, there is nothing much to worry about for the Adsense users.

However, the internet juggernaut is clueless about how the email Ids of its Adsense users have reached the workstations of the hackers.

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February 20, 2020 at 08:40PM

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What is a Gen 6 Cyber Attack

As the cyber attack vectors are ever-evolving, it is becoming increasingly challenging for companies and individuals to protect themselves from the dangers lurking in the digital landscape.

 

Recent research carried out by security researchers of Check Point has concluded that most companies operating these days are lacking the basic cyber defenses and those which have are only capable of combating with 3rd generation of cyber-attacks while the demand now is for 6th generation.

 

Now to those who are unaware of the “Generation” difference of cyberattacks, here’s a timeline denoting them-

 

Gen 1– Started in the 1980s, the Generation 1 Cyber Attacks had hackers spreading the virus to PCs and workstations via Floppy disks. And this led to the invention of signature-based anti-virus solutions- with first being probably from Norton.

 

Gen 2– In the Mid 90s/ cyber attacks on networks paved way to the next generation of attack evolution which made companies introduce firewalls to secure the perimeters of IT infrastructures from cyber crooks.

 

Gen 3- This generation of cyber attacks was witnessed at the start of the 20th century where attackers started to focus their exploitation on industrial applications- which paved the way to hackers to see cybercrime as a business. Botnets were being used to send out spam paving way for companies to introduce Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS).

 

Gen 4- Rise of targeted attacks began in 2010 where governments around the world started to use cyber tools as weapons for mass destruction. And this led to the introduction of Behavioral Analysis solutions.

 

Gen 5- The year 2016 witnessed the emergence of multi-vector attacks which were mostly state-sponsored and thus had the potential to destruct at a greater note.

 

Generation 6 cyber attacks– In the evolution timeline of cyber attacks, the Gen 6 attacks happen to be most destructive as hackers are devised with tools to attack everything and anything digital. Also, in the coming days i.e. after the introduction of the 5G network, attacks on IoT might increase at an alarming rate which will pave way for complex security requirements.

 

“From IP cameras to smart TVs and from smartphones to connected cars, everything will become vulnerable to Gen 6 attacks,” says Itai, Greenberg, VP Product Management at Check Point.

 

 

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February 20, 2020 at 10:34AM

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Ransomware data recovery on Amazon Cloud

Ransomware attacks have become a menace to companies and so Cloudian in association with Veeam has built an Object Storage on Amazon S3 Cloud platform to help companies combat ransomware attacks.

 

The usage framework is simple to understand- When a file-encrypting malware hits a database; the encrypted files can be replaced by a Veeam backup stored behind a firewall on a Cloudian HyperStore appliance. And what’s astonishing about this arrangement is that the entire storage framework is certified by US Government certified data immutability.

 

“Escaping a ransomware attack has become extremely difficult for companies as hackers are becoming highly sophisticated. Therefore, we are ensuring that our users are assisted with a quick backup system which helps thwart the repercussions of a ransomware attack”, said Danny Allan, the CTO of Veeam.

 

Mr. Allan added that the data restoration process takes place at a faster pace from HyperStore as the network link between the on-premises storage and the cloud is hyper-fast.

 

Also, businesses should well- prepare themselves before any ransomware incident hits their data center. And that can be done by taking some preventive measures like-

 

• Maintaining data backups and checking their integrity at regular intervals

 

• Training staff by creating awareness among them about the threats lurking in the cyber landscape and preparing them for dos and don’ts if anything unexpected takes place

 

• Using a threat monitoring solution do help

 

• Conducting a penetration test and vulnerability assessment on a half-yearly note do helps

 

 

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February 20, 2020 at 10:31AM

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