Your online identity is at risk now more than ever. This week’s cyber news update covers the growing threat of online banking attacks and phishing scams across the globe.
Tesco Bank Hacked For Millions
Tesco’s banking services released a statement earlier this week announcing that several thousand bank accounts had been hacked, resulting in the theft of nearly $3 million USD. At present, this attack is the largest hack to target a western bank. While Tesco Bank is still looking into the breach, they have already compensated customers whose accounts were affected, and have stated that no confidential customer information was exposed.
Google Safe Browsing Gets More Persistent
Ever since Google launched Safe Browsing over a decade ago, hundreds of millions of users have been prevented from being drawn into malicious websites through fake warning notifications. With the latest updates to Google’s security policies, Google will show additional full-page warnings for any offenders who violate policies repeatedly until the site can be verified. With the addition of the Repeat Offenders policy, sites that attempt to use any coverage gap to revert to harmful activity after the safety verification will be shut down for a period of 30 days.
TrickBot Banking Trojan Spreading Rapidly
A new trojan has risen and is targeting banking customers across the globe. Having started in the UK and spread into continental Europe, TrickBot uses redirection attacks and server-side injection to compromise user login credentials. Using spam emails as their delivery method, attackers have been able to hit a wider range of victims with a very high success rate.
PlayStation Hacks Target UK Gamers
Recently, dozens of PlayStation Network users have reported their accounts had been compromised and used to make fraudulent charges. While it is still unclear how the accounts are being compromised, it likely stems from reusing passwords, or possibly another Sony breach. Due to the increase in attacks, Sony recently released two-factor authentication to provide enhanced security for its users.
Nigerian Prince Scammers Upping Their Tactics
In the early days of the internet and email, scammers took advantage of ignorant users by pretending to be someone of great importance who simply needed help transferring funds. Today, these types of scammers have evolved their strategy by targeting victim computers and stealing login credentials to sensitive sites. Another change in their strategy has been to focus on big businesses, rather than individual consumers, to increase profitability.
