Tag Archives: security

  • WannaCry Ransomware

    On Friday, 12 May 2017, a large cyber-attack using it was launched, infecting more than 230,000 computers in 150 countries, demanding ransom payments ($300 worth in bitcoin) in the cryptocurrency bitcoin in 28 languages The attack affected Telefónica and several other large companies in Spain, as well as parts of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), […]

  • ATM machines under attack, spitting out cash on demand

    Cobalt hacker group has carried out this attack in 14 different countries including Russia, the UK, the Netherlands and Malaysia. The ‘touchless jackpotting’ technique employed does not involve any physical manipulations of ATMs. Bank systems are infected using tools that are widely available in public sources. The shortest time taken to obtain total control over […]

  • Ransomware locks up San Francisco public transportation ticket machines

    Black Friday was a dark day for San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency, as an apparent crypto-ransomware infection spread across the Muni system’s networks, taking down ticketing for Muni’s train stations and systems used to manage the city’s buses. The operator of the ransomware demanded $73,000 in exchange for restoration of Muni’s data, according to a […]

  • How one rent-a-botnet army of cameras, DVRs caused Internet chaos

    Attacks that took down Dyn appear to have been “rented” from multiple botnets. Welcome to the Internet of Evil Things. The attack that disrupted much of the Internet on October 21 is still being teased apart by investigators, but evidence thus far points to multiple “botnets” of Internet-connected gadgets being responsible for blocking access to […]

  • Ransomware Raises The Bar Again

    Ransomware just got even more real: it’s now the number one attack vector in the financial services sector, which traditionally has been considered a model industry for best security practices. Some 55% of financial services firms recently surveyed by SANS report ransomware as the top attack threat, followed by phishing (50%), which previously held the […]

  • Largest DDoS attack ever delivered by botnet of hijacked IoT devices

    Securing the internet of things should become a major priority now that an army of compromised devices – perhaps 1 million strong – has swamped one of the industry’s top distributed denial-of-service protection services. A giant botnet made up of hijacked internet-connected things like cameras, lightbulbs, and thermostats has launched the largest DDoS attack ever […]

  • ATM Attacks: Biometric Skimmers Development Underway

    Banks are improving ATM authentication mechanisms in an effort to prevent fraud, but cybercriminals have already started developing the tools and techniques they need to bypass these modern security systems. One increasingly popular authentication method involves biometrics, which includes voice, fingerprint, iris pattern, palm geometry and facial recognition. Some major banks have already started rolling […]