Security News
A growing number of Android Google Chrome users in Russia are reporting errors when attempting to install the latest update for the web browser. According to Russian news outlets and numerous user comments on the Play Store, the issues started on May 9th, 2022, when Google released Chrome version 101 for Android.
The Five Eyes nations comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S., along with Ukraine and the European Union, formally pinned Russia for masterminding an attack on an international satellite communication provider that had "Spillover" effects across Europe. The cyber offensive, which took place one hour before the Kremlin's military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, targeted the KA-SAT satellite network operated by telecommunications company Viasat, crippling the operations of wind farms and internet users in central Europe.
The US and the European Union have officially blamed Russia for a series of destructive data-wiping malware infections in Ukrainian government and private-sector networks - and said they will "Take steps" to defend against and respond to Kremlin-orchestrated attacks. Beginning in January, and continuing after Russian troops illegally invaded Ukraine the following month, as Ukrainian websites were vandalized or pummeled offline in distributed denial-of-service attacks, Russian cyberspies planted malicious data-destroying code in Ukraine's computers.
The European Union formally accused Russia of coordinating the cyberattack that hit satellite Internet modems in Ukraine on February 24, roughly one hour before Russia invaded Ukraine. One week after the attack, Viasat confirmed that the satellite modems hit in the cyberattack were wiped using AcidRain data destroying malware.
The European Union formally accused Russia of coordinating the cyberattack that hit satellite Internet modems in Ukraine on February 24, roughly one hour before Russia invaded Ukraine. The attack targeted the KA-SAT consumer-oriented satellite broadband service operated by satellite communications provider Viasat.
A Moscow Arbitration Court has reportedly seized almost $11 million belonging to Dell LLC after the company failed to provide paid-for services to a local system integrator. IT systems integrator Talmer sued Dell early last month when the American computer giant declined to provide technical support services for VMware as previously agreed.
Google is now blocking Russian users and developers from downloading or updating paid applications from the Google Play Store starting Thursday due to sanctions. "As part of our compliance efforts, Google Play is blocking the downloading of paid apps and updates to paid apps in Russia starting May 5, 2022," the company said in an update on its support website.
Hacktivists operating on the side of Ukraine have focused their DDoS attacks on a portal that is considered crucial for the distribution of alcoholic beverages in Russia. DDoS attacks are collective efforts to overwhelm servers with large volumes of garbage traffic and bogus requests, rendering them unable to serve legitimate visitors.
At least six different Russia-aligned actors launched no less than 237 cyberattacks against Ukraine from February 23 to April 8, including 38 discrete destructive attacks that irrevocably destroyed files in hundreds of systems across dozens of organizations in the country. DesertBlade, also a data wiper, is said to have been launched against an unnamed broadcasting company in Ukraine on March 1.
A DDoS attack works by several machines repeatedly flooding servers of a website with excessive requests in a short span of time, such that the servers run out of their allotted bandwidth, and become unresponsive. More recently, Russian hacktivist group "Killnet" has launched DDoS attacks on Romanian government sites.