In a world of contact-free pickup and payments, an old hacker’s trick is getting a new look—phony QR code scams.  QR codes have been around for some time. Dating back to industrial use in the 1990s, QR codes pack high volumes of visual information in a relatively compact space. In that way, a QR code shares many similarities with a barcode, yet a QR code can hold more than 300 times the data of a barcode.   With the rise of the smartphone, QR…

Over the past year, public cloud adoption has risen dramatically as IT teams moved fast to support remote work. But that was far from the only reason. The public cloud can make it faster and easier to deploy, consume, and develop applications—making companies more agile and competitive. And it can make IT run more smoothly, from lowering CapEx via a managed services model to reducing time-consuming management tasks.   But moving to the public cloud does have its challenges, and migration can seem like a daunting task. A…

More than four-fifths (81%) of UK healthcare organizations suffered a ransomware attack in the last year, according to a new study by Obrela Security Industries. The survey of 100 cybersecurity managers in the health sector found that 38% of UK healthcare organizations have elected to pay a ransom demand to get their files back. However, 44% revealed they had refused to pay a demand but lost their healthcare data as a result. The study also examined…

Twitter has suspended the account of an individual who claims to have obtained an ID card database covering the entire population of Argentina. The hacker behind @aniballeaks claimed to have infiltrated the government’s Registro Nacional de las Personas, or Renaper registry, last month and took to the social media site to publish personal details on over 40 Argentinian celebrities including Lionel Messi. According to Recorded Future, the individual also posted an ad on a well-known…

Microsoft has teamed up with Intel and Goldman Sachs to push for hardware security improvements that could help to mitigate supply chain risks. Working under the auspices of the non-profit Trusted Computing Group (TCG), the companies have created a new Supply Chain Security work group which will aim to bring in experts from across the tech sphere. The TCG argued that malicious and counterfeit hardware is particularly difficult to detect as most organizations don’t have the tools or in-house knowledge…

Researchers have uncovered a “highly sophisticated” two-year espionage campaign against global telcos that has already compromised 13 organizations. Dubbed “LightBasin” by CrowdStrike, the group UNC1945 was actually uncovered by Mandiant in November last year. At that time, its targets were MSPs and their customers in finance and consulting. According to CrowdStrike, LightBasin has been active since at least 2016, but the current campaign dates back to 2019. It revealed that the group used custom tools and “in-depth…

IoT survey from Palo Alto Networks highlights the need for shared responsibility among remote workers and IT teams to secure their enterprise SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Cyber adversaries know that one small IoT sensor can provide entry into a corporate network to launch ransomware attacks and more. According to a survey of IT decision-makers by Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), 78% of respondents (among those whose organization has IoT devices connected to…