Cybercrime

Cyber Crime: It’s All About Data (Part 2)

In this part I want to focus on the gathering of cyber crime data. Are there best practices in the world on how cyber crime data is reported to law enforcement and aggregated to show the impact of said crime? Previously the discussion focused on the fact that cyber crime = crime and on a basic cyber (crime) training for every police officer. From the reactions this received, it is clear that some people see this as a possible solution. more

Ransomware Crisis in U.S. Healthcare

A significant ransomware attack by a group known as AlphV or BlackCat has severely disrupted pharmacies across the U.S., affecting the delivery of prescription medications for over ten days. This attack on Change Healthcare has resulted in considerable difficulties for hospital pharmacies and nationwide drug distribution. more

Rustock, Xarvester Spambots Capable of Sending 25,000 Messages Per Hour, Says New Study

A recent study suggests Rustock and Xarvester malware provided the most efficient spambot code, enabling individual zombie computers to send 600,000 spam messages each over a 24 hour period. "Over the past few years, botnets have revolutionized the spam industry and pushed spam volumes to epidemic proportions despite the best efforts of law enforcement and the computer security industry. Our intention was to better understand the origins of spam, and the malware that drives it," said Phil Hay, senior threat analyst, TRACElabs (a research arm of security company Marshal8e6)... more

New Cyberthreats: Have You Been Exposed at Home?

There are new threats that you may have already been exposed to. Here are some of the new threats and advice on how to protect yourself. During this pandemic, Zoom has emerged as a very popular teleconferencing choice for companies and educational institutions, but a new weakness for Zoom was also discovered. Some online conferences and classes that had not password protected their sessions fell victim to eavesdroppers using the screen sharing feature to "Zoom Bomb" those sessions with graphic images. more

White House Calls for a Meeting with Domain Registrars, Registries, and ICANN

Brian Krebs reporting in Krebs on Secruity: "The Obama administration is inviting leaders of the top Internet domain name registrars and registries to attend a three-hour meeting at the White House next month about voluntary ways to crack down on Web sites that are selling counterfeit prescription medications..." more

White House Issues Update on Cybersecurity Report

J. Nicholas Hoover reporting in InformationWeek: "The White House on Wednesday issued an update of the Obama administration's ongoing cybersecurity work, detailing some of the steps being taken in an effort to secure the nation's networks against cyber attacks and in the process offering some new insight into the administration's future plans. The progress report, issued immediately after a meeting held by White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt with agency secretaries, cybersecurity experts..." more

U.N. Cybercrime Convention Enters Critical Stage

Negotiations for a U.N. cybercrime convention have reached a critical stage at the fourth round of discussions in Vienna. Delegates from over 150 states have met for over 100 hours to discuss the proposed convention, which has been met with skepticism from some states, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders more

Afghanistan Enacts Law Targeting Online Crime and Militancy

Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani has signed into law a cybercrime bill this week targeting online crime and militancy by groups such as the Taliban and Islamic State despite concerns it could limit free speech. more

US Facing a Human Capital Crisis in Cybersecurity, Says CSIS

A new study has been released by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th President that looks into cybersecurity manpower challenges in the United States. The report titled, "A Human Capital Crisis in Cybersecurity," is produced by CSIS - a bipartisan public and foreign policy think tank in Washington. more

NCA Launches Campaign to Curb DDoS-for-Hire Website Use, Warns of Legal Risks

The United Kingdom's National Crime Agency (NCA) has been running a series of campaigns focused on reducing the use of DDoS-for-hire websites. These websites offer people the opportunity to purchase powerful tools to launch cyber-attacks, which can be used to knock websites or users offline. more

A Report on Cyber Espionage Activities of Pawn Storm Over the Past Two Years

Pawn Storm, also known as Sednit, Fancy Bear, APT28, Sofacy, and STRONTIUM, is a cyber espionage organization operating for over a decade which has been particularly aggressive in the past few years. more

Rethinking Protection Technologies: A Change Has Occurred

Talking technical is easy. Distilling technical detail, complex threats and operation nuances down to something that can be consumed by people whose responsibility for dealing with cybercrime lays three levels below them in their organizational hierarchy is somewhat more difficult. Since so many readers here have strong technical backgrounds and often face the task of educating upwards within their own organizations, I figured I'd share 4 slides from my recent presentation that may be helpful in communicating how the world has changed. more

Toxic Information

U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly worried that hackers could wreak havoc on the financial system. Read the story here in National Journal. Not that we need it, but here's yet another reason to worry about havoc in financial markets: U.S. intelligence officials increasingly fear that computer hackers could wreck banks and large financial institutions, or send stock markets into one more panicked frenzy, by covertly manipulating data and spreading false information. more

If It Doesn’t Exist, It Can’t Be Abused

A number of outlets have reported that the U.S. Post Service was hacked, apparently by the Chinese government. The big question, of course, is why. It probably isn't for ordinary criminal reasons: The intrusion was carried out by "a sophisticated actor that appears not to be interested in identity theft or credit card fraud," USPS spokesman David Partenheimer said. ... But no customer credit card information from post offices or online purchases at usps.com was breached, they said. more

Defending the Network Several Times Over

Modern networks can be attacked in a variety of ways, meaning that companies need different types of protection. This article explains some of the risks involved, and provides some easy ways to deal with them. more