Hackers Are Targeting the Remote Workers Who Keep Your Lights On
In July alone, hackers took over the twitter accounts of U.S. politicians, stole terrabytes of coronavirus research and even infiltrated the U.K.’s Premier League soccer clubs. Can they cut off your electricity, too?
Even before the pandemic, hackers succeeded in infiltrating some energy infrastructure. In 2016, an Iran-based hacker gained remote access to an electric dam in New York for weeks. Earlier this year, ransomware shut down a natural gas facility for two days.
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China-Backed Hackers ‘Targeted’ COVID-19 Vaccine Firm Moderna, Reuters Reports
Last week, the U.S. Justice Department made public an indictment of two Chinese nationals accused of spying on the United States, including three unnamed U.S.-based targets involved in medical research to fight the novel coronavirus.
The indictment said the Chinese hackers “conducted reconnaissance” against the computer network of a Massachusetts biotech firm known to be working on a coronavirus vaccine in January.
Moderna, which is based in Massachusetts and announced its COVID-19 vaccine candidate in January, confirmed to Reuters that the company had been in contact with the FBI and was made aware of the suspected “information reconnaissance activities” by the hacking group mentioned in last week’s indictment.
BDA breach – hackers likely stole members' bank and contacts details – Dentistry Online
The British Dental Association (BDA) has confirmed its servers were illegally hacked this week – warning members to be extra vigilant.
The organisation concluded hackers likely secured access to users' names, contact details, transaction histories, bank details, logs of correspondence and notes of cases.
It says the association does not store card details. But it does hold members’ account numbers and sort codes in order to collect direct debit payments.
China is suspected of hacking the Vatican. Here's why - CNN
(CNN) When you think about cyber espionage, the Vatican doesn't come to mind as an obvious target. It's a tiny country whose leader has more moral authority than worldly power.
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First use of new EU sanctions against Russia, China hackers
The EU asset-freezes and visa bans , imposed Thursday (30 July), targeted four officers from Russia's military intelligence service, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU), as well as the GRU's Moscow-based tech branch, the Main Centre for Special Technologies (GTST).
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It said the GTST attacked several EU companies with "ransomware" in 2017 "blocking access to data [and] resulting ... in significant economic loss".
Hackers Have Been Using Dogecoin to Deploy Malware for 6 Months & No One Noticed
A new study indicates that hackers are actively relying on the Dogecoin ( DOGE ) blockchain to expand a malware payload named "Doki."
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"The attacker controls which address the malware will contact by transferring a specific amount of Dogecoin from his or her wallet. Since only the attacker has control over the wallet, only he can control when and how much dogecoin to transfer, and thus switch the domain accordingly."
Intezer says that using Dogecoin to deploy a crypto-unrelated malware may be "quite resilient" to both law enforcement and security products. That's why Doki has managed to stay undetected for over six months, despite having been uploaded to the VirusTotal database in January.
Hacker gang behind Garmin attack doesn't have a history of stealing user data | ZDNet
Everything you need to know about ransomware: how it started, why it's booming, how to protect against it, and what to do if your PC's infected.
The attack caused a five-day outage for the company, during which time, users feared that the hackers might have also stolen their personal details along with geolocation history from the Garmin's servers.
However, three cyber-security firms who spoke with ZDNet this week have said that the hacker group suspected of being behind the Garmin hack is one of the rare groups who don't engage in this particular practice and has no history of stealing customer data before encrypting files.
North Korea's Lazarus brings state-sponsored hacking approach to ransomware | Ars Technica
Lazarus—the North Korean state hacking group behind the WannaCry worm , the theft of $81 million from a Bangladesh bank , and the attacks on Sony Pictures —is looking to expand into the ransomware craze, according to researchers from Kaspersky Lab.
Further Reading New ransomware rakes in $4 million by adopting a "big game hunting" strategy
In short, VHD is no Ryuk or WastedLocker . Both are known as "big game hunters" because they target networks belonging to organizations with deep pockets and, after gaining entry, strike only after doing days or weeks of painstaking surveillance.
Happening on Twitter
A hacking campaign, targeting media sites from Poland to Lithuania, has spread false stories about US military aggr… https://t.co/Ocf1hrk7sI WIRED (from San Francisco/New York) Thu Jul 30 12:11:07 +0000 2020
The European Union just imposed its first-ever sanctions for cyber-attacks, targeting Russian, Chinese, and North K… https://t.co/caRUCR2E0f techreview (from Cambridge, MA) Fri Jul 31 14:19:56 +0000 2020
Hackers are coming after your electricity https://t.co/X7g7DCCzH9 business (from New York and the World) Fri Jul 31 03:27:05 +0000 2020
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