Between a handful of high profile network hacks and the steady stream of ransomware attacks, the last week of November didn’t pull any punches in the constant sparring match that is cybersecurity. In the wake of headlines about a US Navy breach, large scale network outages across Germany, and more, internet users across the globe must stay watchful and wary of their next click.
US Navy Sees Massive System Compromise
Officials in the US Navy have been notified of a security breach stemming from a Hewlett Packard Enterprise contractor whose laptop had been compromised. Currently, the Navy is contacting those who may be a part of the nearly 140,000 names and social security numbers that were affected, though it is still unclear on exactly how the breach occurred. With the steady rise in cyberattacks, the stress on IT departments of all sizes is mounting to defend against future attacks.
Tech Support Scammers Using Ransomware to Boost Income
Researchers have discovered an unsettling evolution to the traditional cold-calling tech support scams: executing ransomware on their victims’ computers to ensure payment for their “cleaning services”. While typical scammers will attempt nearly anything to get personal information, the use of ransomware takes the threat one step further by maliciously forcing payment regardless of any services rendered. Even worse for victims of VindowsLocker—as the ransomware is dubbed–the authors failed to properly setup the ransom transactions and thus, users may be unable to regain their files even if the ransom is paid.
UK National Lottery User Accounts Hacked
Major website hacks are occurring regularly due to reused login credentials, and it’s still a shock when a large site operator has to begin notifying tens of thousands of users about a possible data breach. Now we’re adding the UK National Lottery to the list. Only a small fraction of the National Lottery’s users were compromised, but Camelot, the operator for the lottery, has been forcing password resets for any potentially compromised individuals. While password re-use is the likely cause of the breach, it is still uncertain why the Lottery didn’t offer any additional authentication prior to the user accounts that were taken over.
San Francisco Train System Brought Down By Ransomware
In recent days, it has been discovered that the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency was taken offline with only a poorly worded ransom message displaying for customers and employees alike. The attack led to the SFMTA providing free rides to customers while the issue was being resolved. In a surprising stance, the excessive ransom demanded–100 bitcoins totaling over $70,000 USD—was not paid to the attackers. For many public utilities and services, having the capability to promptly return to normal functions after such an attack is extremely important, and fortunately the SFMTA have announced that no customer information was compromised.
German Telecom Provider Hit with Mirai Variant
There is no doubt the world is now more attentive after the last Mirai botnet attack that took down several prominent sites. Yet, a similar variant has been deployed keeping DSL customers in Germany disconnected. Recently, nearly 900,000 telecom customers have been unable to access anything reliant on their DSL routers, which have been under attack for several days. By scanning for commonly open ports on routers, the attackers are able to remotely execute code resulting in a widespread DDoS attack.
