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The role of hacker is recognized as crucial today in cyber security, these specialists are the nightmare of security experts but their knowledge is fundamental to understand the vulnerabilities of our infrastructures … think like a hacker if you want really protect your system . But hacking is a culture, a way of life that is hard to match ago with the business logic, true hackers don’t do this for money, money are fundamental but not all, the must for them is always to put into question their capabilities, try to consistently exceed their limits. Fortunately industry, private business and governments have understood it and have re-evaluated the importance of hackers, these specialists were once seen as shady individuals to avoid, today they are highly sought professionals in both private business and government sectors. Discover vulnerabilities before attackers could exploit them is essential, millions of people and devices are connected to the network, a unique oppo...

The United Kingdom's National Crime Agency (NCA) has arrested 56 suspected hackers in a campaign against cybercrime called "strike week." Law-enforcement officials conducted, in total, 25 separate operations across England, Scotland and Wales, and those arrested were suspected in a wide range of cyber crimes including: Network intrusion and data theft from multinational companies and government agencies Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks Cyber-enabled fraud Malicious software and virus development The raids conducted by NCA were coordinated by its National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) , special officers Metropolitan Police and Regional Organised Crime Unit's (ROCUs) , associated with local forces around the UK. The arrested hackers also include alleged hackers suspected of being behind attacks on Yahoo, the US Department of Defence (DoD) , and PlayStation. The list of hackers arrested in the operation is given below: A 23-year-old man w...

Bangladesh is not the only bank that had become victim to the cyber heist . In fact, it appears to be just a part of the widespread cyber attack on global banking and financial sector by hackers who target the backbone of the world financial system, SWIFT. Yes, the global banking messaging system that thousands of banks and companies around the world use to transfer Billions of dollars in transfers each day is under attack. A third case involving SWIFT has emerged in which cyber criminals have stolen about $12 million from an Ecuadorian bank that contained numerous similarities of later attacks against Bangladesh’s central bank that lost $81 Million in the cyber heist . The attack on Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador occurred in January 2015 and, revealed via a lawsuit filed by BDA against Wells Fargo, a San Francisco-based bank on Jan. 28, Reuters reported. Here’s how cyber criminals target banks: Uses malware to circumvent local security systems of a bank. Gains acces...

The rise in the costs of data breaches, ransomware, and other cyber attacks leads to rising cyber insurance premiums and more limited cyber insurance coverage. This cyber insurance situation increases risks for organizations struggling to find coverage or facing steep increases. Some  Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP's  law firm clients, for example, reported a three-fold increase in insurance rates, and carriers are making "a huge pullback" on coverage limits in the past two years. Their cybersecurity practice co-head, Michelle Reed, adds, "The reduced coverage amount can no longer shield policyholders from cyber losses. A $10 million policy can end up with a $150,000 limit on cyber frauds." The cyber-insurance situation is so concerning that the U.S. Treasury Department recently issued a  request for public input  on a potential federal cyber-insurance response program. This request is in addition to the assessment led conjointly by the Federal Insura...

Are you a proud owner of a Smartwatch, a Smart TV , a Smart fridge, a Smart lock, an Internet-enabled car , or live in a smart city? Caution! Recently, it has been reported that the growth of the Internet of Things would eventually lead to cyber criminals in making lots of money, as they started attacking the Internet of Things for Ransom. Yes, the latest Interest of the cyber criminals in the field of Internet of Things is ‘ Ransomware ’. Internet of Things (IoT) such as Android and iOS-based wearable Smartwatches and the concept of connected homes has now given a treat to the current generation Ransomware. With the advancements in Technology, cyber criminals are simultaneously promoting themselves from the threat known for restricting computers or encrypting files and asking users for money in return for gaining back access to their systems. From computers to mobile phones, now criminals are targeting the IoT and the wearables devices. Security resea...

THE internet was never meant to do sensitive banking transactions, cyber criminals are winning the war against online security and Australia's easy going nature is making us vulnerable targets to ever-more sophisticated internet thugs. That was San Francisco-based internet security watcher and author Joseph Menn's assessment of the current state of the internet before he spoke to the Internet Industry Association's gala dinner in Sydney last night. The only glimmer of hope was that people were becoming more aware of the risks involved with the internet - which he described as a "loaded gun" - but we have to be even more savvy if we are not to be become a cyber crime victim. Mr Menn said when he interviewed the former head of the US Department of Justice's Cyber Crime Unit she said half of all credit cards were in the hands of criminals. "And if your credit card details weren't in criminals' hands it was only because they hadn't got around to...

Cyber criminals become hyper active during festivals. Diwali is no exception. Shantanu Ghosh, Vice-President and Managing Director (India Product Operations) of Internet security solutions company Symantec has observed that malware authors and spammers are using Diwali (The festival of lights that’s celebrated across the world (primarily in the Indian sub-continent) as the latest event to lure unsuspecting users into downloading malware, buying products, and falling for scams. Shantanu said cyber criminals attempt to ‘poison’ web search engine results to take advantage of huge rush in search activity during popular events. “ We have observed that cyber attackers are using various techniques to make the most of Diwali, ” he warned. Cyber-attackers make use of social engineering tactics to lure users to purchase from or register on unknown websites. Users may be exposing personal information to Internet scammers. “ Before giving into the temptation of clicking on a link in ...

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been authorized by U.S Congress to hire 2,000 new employees this year, and many of those will be young hackers and Programmers in order to built-up its cyber crime division, but FBI’s Director ‘James B. Comey’ is facing some difficulties. Apparently, FBI’s Strict Anti-Drug Policy is making it very difficult for them to go after real criminals because most of the hackers have a fondness of smoking weeds, illicit drug. According to US agency policy, they won’t hire anyone who used marijuana in the last three years, but it seems that now the law enforcement agency has to think about deviating from its own policy to get right talent to tackle cybercrimes over the Internet which has become a first priority for the agency. Recently, During an annual conference held at Manhattan's New York City Bar Association, One attendee asked James B. Comey that -- One of his friend who considered an FBI job but ultimately did not apply becaus...

Your Financial Credentials are on SALE on the Underground Black Market without your Knowledge… sounds like a nightmare, but it’s TRUE. Cyber security firm, Hold Security, said it has traced over 360 million stolen account credentials that are available for Sale on Hacker's black market websites over past three weeks. The credentials include usernames, email addresses, and passwords that are in unencrypted in most cases, according to the report released on Tuesday. It is not known till now from where these credentials exactly were stolen, but the security researchers estimated that these credentials are a result of multiple breaches. Since the banking credentials are one of the most ‘ valuable bounties ’ for the cyber criminals, and the ways to steal these credentials can be directly from the companies and from the services in which users entrust data as well. According to Hold Security, in addition to the sale of 360 million credentials, the cyber criminals a...

We have discussed many times in our stories the network of Intelligent devices , their capabilities and the possibilities that cyber criminals could exploit them for illegal activities. Hidden chips are used by cyber criminals and state-sponsored hackers to infiltrate company networks and organizations for various purposes, to send out spam or for cyber espionage . The fact has happened in Russia, the State-owned channel Rossiya 24 has showed the images of an electric iron included in a batch of Chinese imports where the operators find a chip used for spying the environment surround. China is planting Microchips practically in every electrical device, as recently it has been discovered that the  electric iron  and kettles were modified with this technique to launch spam attacks. The Microchips were equipped with a little microphone and according to the correspondent the component were mostly being used to serve malware and the chips in fact are abl...

The DDoS techniques have massively increased with the attackers becoming more skillful at working around the network security. A massive 300Gbps DDoS attack launched against Spamhaus website almost broke the Internet a year ago and also earlier this year, hackers have succeeded in reaching new heights of the massive DDoS attack targeting content-delivery and anti-DDoS protection firm CloudFlare, reaching more than 400Gbps at its peak of traffic. Akamai's Prolexic Security Engineering and Response Team (PLXsert) issued a threat advisory on Thursday reporting a significant surge in DDoS attacks last month abusing the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) interface in network devices. Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a UDP-based protocol which is commonly known and often used to manage network devices. SNMP is typically used in devices such as printers, routers and firewalls that can be found in the home and enterprise environments as well. Just as D...

Cyber Criminals Selling Millions of U.S military email addresses Web based underground market service currently selling Millions of harvested U.S government and U.S military harvested emails addresses to potential spammers, and find out just how easy it is to purchase that kind of data within the cyber crime ecosystem. Cyber criminals are getting more sophisticated in their scams and phishing schemes, which are designed to steal personal data and financial information. Spammers and virus creators are motivated by money and backed by organized crime on a global scale. They are also launching massive attacks on anti-spam organizations in an attempt to bring them down. In respect to targeted malware attacks, the service is currently offering 2.462.935 U.S government email addresses, and another 2.178.000 U.S military email addresses. A Screenshot of the inventory of harvested emails currently offered for sale: Spammers buy lists from brokers that continuously harvest email ...

You all were busy in celebrating Valentine’s Day with your loved ones, and the cyber criminals were too celebrating the day in their own way, and this time, with the TESCO customers. A list of over 2,240 Tesco.com  Internet Shopping accounts was posted Online on the Pastebin website by some unknown hackers on Thursday, allowing access to online shopping accounts, personal details and Tesco Clubcard vouchers, reported by The Guardian . A Tesco spokesperson told The Hacker News that this information has not come from Tesco’s website itself, rather there have been high profile hacks on other businesses  A Tesco spokesperson said, " We take the security of our customers' data extremely seriously and are urgently investigating these claims. ” “ We have contacted all customers who may have been affected and are committed to ensuring that none of them miss out as a result of this. We will issue replacement vouchers to the very small numbers who are affected. ...

Valentine's Day   - a day of hearts, Chocolates, Flowers and Celebrations when people express their emotions to their loved ones and most of us send E-cards, purchase special gifts with the help of various Online Shop Sites and many other tantrums making them feel special. While you are busy in Googling ideal gifts for your loved ones, the Cyber thieves are also busy in taking advantage of such events by spreading various malware , phishing campaigns and fraud schemes as these days come out to be a goldmine for the cyber criminals. Online Shopping Scams are popular among Cyber criminals as it is the easiest way for hackers to steal money in easy and untraceable ways. Security Researchers at Anti virus firm - Trend Micro discovered various Valentine's Day threats which are common at such occasion i.e. A flower-delivery service and it appears to be a normal promotional e-mail, but the links actually lead to various survey scams. The Malware threats also arr...

Change is a part of life, and nothing stays the same for too long, even with hacking groups, which are at their most dangerous when working in complete silence. The notorious REvil  ransomware  gang, linked to the infamous JBS and Kaseya, has resurfaced three months after the arrest of its members in Russia. The Russian domestic intelligence service, the FSB, had caught 14 people from the gang. In this apprehension, the 14 members of the gang were found in possession of 426 million roubles, $600,000, 500,000 euros, computer equipment, and 20 luxury cars were brought to justice. REvil Ransomware Gang- The Context The financially-motivated cybercriminal threat group Gold Southfield controlled ransomware group known as REvil emerged in 2019 and spread like wildfire after extorting $11 million from the meat-processor JBS. REvil would incentivize its affiliates to carry out cyberattacks for them by giving a percentage of the ransom pay-outs to those who help with infiltration ...

Critical infrastructure attacks are a preferred target for cyber criminals. Here's why and what's being done to protect them. What is Critical Infrastructure and Why is It Attacked? Critical infrastructure is the physical and digital assets, systems and networks that are vital to national security, the economy, public health, or safety. It can be government- or privately-owned. According to Etay Maor, Senior Director Security Strategy at  Cato Networks , "It's interesting to note critical infrastructure doesn't necessarily have to be power plants or electricity. A nation's monetary system or even a global monetary system can be and should be considered a critical infrastructure as well." These qualities make critical infrastructure a preferred target for cyber attacks. If critical infrastructure is disrupted, the impact is significant. In some cases, such cyber attacks on critical infrastructure have become another means of modern warfare. But unlike ...