Security News
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says criminals have escalated SIM swap attacks to steal millions by hijacking victims' phone numbers. "From January 2018 to December 2020, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center received 320 complaints related to SIM swapping incidents with adjusted losses of approximately $12 million. In 2021, IC3 received 1,611 SIM swapping complaints with adjusted losses of more than $68 million."
This week, cryptocurrency company Wormhole lived up to its name by exposing an exploitable vulnerability that apparently allowed cybercriminals to run off with an eye-watering 120,000 Ether tokens. As pointed out by Elliptic, a company that offers blockchain analytics to assist with compliance, the Wormhole team tried the same trick that was used by cryptocoin company Poly Networks when it was defrauded of more than $600,000,000 in August 2021.
For threat actors, there is a simple calculus at play - namely, what method of attack is a) easiest and b) most likely to yield the biggest return? And the answer, at this moment, is Linux-based cloud infrastructure, which makes up 80%+ of the total cloud infrastructure. These attacks will undoubtedly continue into 2022 and potential targets parties must remain vigilant.
A Russian national charged with providing bulletproof hosting services for cybercriminals, who used the platform to spread malware and attack U.S. organizations and financial institutions between 2009 to 2015, has received a 60-month prison sentence. 34-year-old Aleksandr Grichishkin, along with Andrei Skvortsov, founded the bulletproof hosting service and rented its infrastructure to other criminal clientele for distributing a wide range of malware and attempted to cause millions of dollars in losses to U.S. victims.
A joint four-month operation coordinated by Interpol, the international criminal police organization, has culminated in the arrests of more than 1,000 cybercriminals and the recovery of $27 million in illicit proceeds. Codenamed "HAECHI-II," the crackdown enabled law enforcement units from across 20 countries, as well as Hong Kong and Macao, close 1,660 cases alongside blocking 2,350 bank accounts linked to the fraudulent illicit funds amassed from a range of online financial crimes, such as romance scams, investment fraud, and money laundering associated with illegal online gambling.
The Spanish police have arrested 45 people who are believed to be members of an online fraud group that operated twenty websites to defraud at least 200 people of 1,500,000 Euros. When victims made purchases, the money went to bank accounts that belonged to other victims who were forced by the criminals to act as "Money mules".
Miscreants have hijacked the systems of Angling Direct, diverting traffic from its websites to Pornhub and threatening to wipe its internal data. The statement says Angling Direct has contacted the law enforcement agencies and the UK's data watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office.
Ransomware attacks on industrial environments have increased by 500 per cent in three years, and it's unlikely the criminals responsible are going to slow down anytime soon. If cyber-attackers are smart, is it possible to beat them with something even smarter? Something like AI? And is it possible to predict what the next wave of attacks will look like and prepare now?
Europol has announced the arrest of 12 individuals believed to be linked to ransomware attacks against 1,800 victims in 71 countries. The most notable case linked to the suspects is a 2019 attack against Norsk Hydro, the Norwegian aluminum production giant, causing severe and lengthy disruption in the company's operations.
Hurling online abuse at ransomware gangs may have contributed to a hardline policy of dumping victims' data online, according to counter-ransomware company Emsisoft. Earlier this month, the Conti ransomware gang declared it would publish victims' data and break off ransom negotiations if anyone other than "Respected journalist and researcher personalities" [sic] dared publish snippets of ransomware negotiations, amid a general hardening of attitudes among ransomware gangs.