Author: Admin

Rather than indicating ransomware was a passing fad, the decrease in attack volume shows that attackers are starting to become more opportunistic and smarter about picking targets. Image: kaptnali, Getty Images/iStockphoto Trend Micro has released a midyear cybersecurity report that makes two interesting claims: First, that ransomware numbers decreased by almost half in H1 2021 compared to H1 2020; and second, that the number of newly reported vulnerabilities decreased, with a particularly large dip in…

The US Government has underlined once again that it continues to strongly discourage organisations hit by ransomware from giving in to extortion demands. In an updated advisory, the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has called upon businesses not to pay ransoms, and to focus on cybersecurity measures that can prevent or mitigate ransomware attacks. In its updated advisory, OFAC not only emphasises the importance of improving cyber hygiene and security practices,…

Knock, knock … who’s there? SSH. SSH who? You need to lock down your servers so that only you have access via SSH. One way to help that is with knockd. Jack Wallen shows you how. Image: Funtap/Shutterstock Secure Shell is the de-facto standard for logging into remote Linux servers. It’s served many an administrator well over the years. But just because it has the word “secure” in its title, doesn’t mean that it always…

More than four-fifths (85%) of the UK’s top 20 universities are putting their students, staff and suppliers at risk of email fraud, according to a new study by Proofpoint. The researchers found that just 15% of the universities have implemented the recommended and strictest level of domain-based message authentication, reporting and conformance (DMARC). DMARC is an email validation protocol that verifies that the domain of the sender has not been impersonated. The findings have come amid…

Malware allows technothieves to spy on phone’s owner, steal financial info. Android phone users in Canada and the United States should be wary of a new cybercrime technique that can steal personal information, control interaction with apps and steal account information from phone financial activities. That’s the warning coming from California-based global online security firm Proofpoint whose threat analysts say short messaging services (SMS) are being targeted through malware attacks. “Harvesting of personal information and…

Written by Jeff Stone Sep 23, 2021 | CYBERSCOOP Hackers are targeting American and Canadian victims with a malware strain that used coronavirus-themed messages to dupe users into downloading software that collects their personal information, according to findings published Thursday. The scammers, whose identities are unknown, rely on SMS text messages focused on fictional COVID-19 regulations and vaccine information to trick recipients into clicking a link. That link triggers a malicious software — dubbed TangleBot…

The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has reportedly suffered a second data breach that has exposed details of more Afghan citizens who may be at risk of reprisals from Taliban forces. Earlier this week, the government department was forced to apologize for sending an email that exposed the data of more than 250 Afghan interpreters who worked for British forces during the allied occupation of the country. This included their email addresses, names and LinkedIn profile images,…