Security News
Huawei has decided to school America on cyber-security, and its lesson is to co-operate with China so its vendors - including Huawei - can be trusted around the world. Purdy, a former White House adviser on cyber security, makes some decent points - especially when pointing out that the Executive Order is only binding on federal agencies and their private sector suppliers.
Cybersecurity researchers on Thursday took the wraps off a new, ongoing espionage campaign targeting corporate networks in Spanish-speaking countries, specifically Venezuela, to spy on its victims. Dubbed "Bandidos" by ESET owing to the use of an upgraded variant of Bandook malware, the primary targets of the threat actor are corporate networks in the South American country spanning across manufacturing, construction, healthcare, software services, and retail sectors.
The United Nations International Telecommunication Union published its 2020 Global Cyber Security Index on Tuesday, and listed the US first in overall ranking, followed by a tie for second place tie between the UK and Saudi Arabia. The index ranks nations using 82 questions developed by a panel of experts.
The United States is comfortably the world's most powerful nation when measured on "Cyber capabilities that make the greatest difference to national power," according to British think tank The International Institute for Strategic Studies. The report says America's "Capability for offensive cyber operations is probably more developed than that of any other country, although its full potential remains largely undemonstrated".
Chris Inglis was last week appointed America's national cyber director, responsible for coordinating the government's computer security strategy and defending its networks. The United States has been lacking a government computer security chief since President Trump eliminated the position of cybersecurity advisor to the National Security Council in 2018, then held by ex-NSA exploit extraordinaire and Christmas lights enthusiast Rob Joyce.
Volkswagen Group of America this week revealed that approximately 3.3 million people might have been affected in a data breach that impacted both Audi of America and Volkswagen of America. "VWGoA discovered the information at issue included more sensitive personal information on or about May 24, 2021. VWGoA completed the analysis to identify which specific individuals were impacted on or about June 7, 2021," the company said in a letter to the Maine Attorney General.
A banking trojan named Bizarro that originates from Brazil has crossed the borders and started to target customers of 70 banks in Europe and South America. Bizarro is under constant development as its author keeps expanding the list of supporting banks and they modify it to improve anti-analysis protections.
China-linked cyber-espionage group Mustang Panda is targeting telecommunications companies in Asia, Europe, and the United States for espionage purposes, according to a warning from security researchers at McAfee. The new malware attacks, McAfee says, employ the same tactics, techniques and procedures previously associated with Mustang Panda.
Further strengthening its ability to support customers and partners in their digital transformation and migration to cloud, Avaya announced it has appointed Darcey Harrison as Vice President of Cloud Acceleration, North America. Harrison is responsible for continuing expansion of new and existing customer adoption of the Avaya OneCloud communications and collaboration portfolio.
Kia Motors America has suffered a ransomware attack by the DoppelPaymer gang, demanding $20 million for a decryptor and not to leak stolen data. Kia Motors America is headquartered in Irvine, California, and is a Kia Motors Corporation subsidiary.