Security News > 2021 > September
Cybercriminals are slowly realizing that the REvil ransomware operators may have been hijacking ransom negotiations, to cut affiliates out of payments. If the REvil operation started as an "Honest" cybercriminal endeavor, it soon switched to scamming affiliates out of the promised 70% share of a ransom from paying victims.
As part of the whole-of-government effort to counter ransomware, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced a set of actions focused on disrupting criminal networks and virtual currency exchanges responsible for laundering ransoms, encouraging improved cybersecurity across the private sector, and increasing incident and ransomware payment reporting to U.S. government agencies, including both Treasury and law enforcement. These actions advance the United States government's broader counter-ransomware strategy, which emphasizes the need for a collaborative approach to counter ransomware attacks, including partnership between the public and private sector and close relationships with international partners.
In this interview with Help Net Security, Daniel Clayton, VP Global Security Services and Support at Bitdefender, talks about the cybersecurity skills shortage gap and the role of automation in improving the work of cybersecurity professionals. If we look at investments in technology driving automation across SOCs, it's still a relatively new concept and tends to be bolted on later to solve for scale, so enterprise budget holders are less invested than security teams are.
To prevent devices being used as attack vectors, the first step to IoT protection, when connected onto the network, must start with DNS: using Domain Name System infrastructures and DNS security capabilities to protect data and ensure IoT devices are only allowed access to relevant services. Whilst IoT devices will always have security vulnerabilities, by incorporating a secure approach which makes use of DNS technology, businesses and service providers can be confident they are best protecting their data and access to their IT infrastructure.
68% of consumers claim to be doing more to protect themselves from online fraud and identity theft than a year ago, according to a Trulioo research. The research found 76% of people feel that they're at greater risk from online fraud than they were 12 months ago, and 75% are now worried about becoming a victim of fraud.
Data projections point to 2021 as another record-setting year on track to surpass 11 million global DDoS attacks. In the wake of Colonial Pipeline, JBS, Harris Federation, Australian broadcaster Channel Nine, CNA Financial, and several other high-profile attacks, the impact of DDoS and other cybersecurity attacks has been felt worldwide.
There's a problem: when it comes to QEMU, patching isn't straightforward because patching QEMU affects the underlying virtualized workload: while you stop to restart QEMU, the virtual workload must stop too. Your options for patching QEMU. Patching a single service on a single system usually isn't an issue - assuming you remember to do it - and even patching a single OS isn't that hard as you can usually cope with a single restart, but it is disruptive nonetheless as every application restarts.
Ransomware attacks have reached 'stratospheric' levels in Q2 2021, now accounting for 69% of all attacks involving malware. The research also reveals that the volume of attacks on governmental institutions in particular soared from 12% in Q1 2021 to 20% in Q2. And the company's Expert Security Center during the quarter discovered the emergence of B-JDUN, a new RAT used in attacks on energy companies, and Tomiris, new malware that comes with functions for gaining persistence and can send encrypted information about the workstation to an attacker-controlled server.
Business investment in SaaS applications continues to climb despite widespread underutilization of app licenses by employees. The data also shows 56% of all apps are Shadow IT, or owned and managed outside of IT. The SaaS market has been growing ever since Amazon built the first public cloud and is projected by Gartner to be nearly $140B by 2022.
The pandemic has changed technology priorities for organizations worldwide finds a report from Omdia on the future of work. The top two enterprise priorities are now cybersecurity and hybrid working, with customer experience, business processes and better empowering frontline workers tied in third place at 49%. Working away from the traditional office will be the new norm finds the report as 58% of employees confirmed they will either be primarily home-based or will adopt a hybrid work style.