Showing just how lucratively attractive cybercrime has become to criminal gangs and how dangerous it is to the financial sector, businesses and the public, US Treasury analysis of 177 unique convertible virtual currency wallet addresses reveals that more than $5 billion in bitcoin transactions has been tied to the top ten ransomware variants. The mean […]
NEWS
Twitch extortion hack alarms security experts
Last week’s hack of Amazon-owned Twitch saw a large amount of source code being stolen unnoticed. How can a company with, you would imagine, pretty insane levels of security in place courtesy of its parent, have left itself so vulnerable … and only find out about the breach on 4chan? There are also concerns that […]
NCSC CEO reminds UK businesses that ransomware is their #1 threat
Speaking at Chatham House’s cyber conference, the National Cyber Security Centre’s CEO Lindy Cameron has again reinforced her message to the nation’s C-suites that ransomware is “the most immediate danger to UK businesses” today, and that paying criminals serves only to perpetuate the problem. Several incidents in particular were cited; including one emanating from China […]
West Midlands Police annual cyber security budget nears £150,000
West Midlands Police have experienced 60,000 cyber attacks in the 12 months to June and the force is now spending almost £150,000 a years protecting itself from cyber crime, particularly phishing emails and ransomware injected into their systems. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau says cyber crime cost the UK more than £1.3billion in the first […]
Senior execs and IT teams at odds over software security
Most senior business execs believe IT teams should have software security under their control amid fears of another SolarWinds-style supply chain attack. Meanwhile, techies claim they don’t have sufficient budget or resources to confront the problem head-on, putting the ball right back into the management court. The vast majority of execs also think software vendors […]
Threefold rise in ransomware attacks in one quarter
NCC Group reports that ransomware attacks have risen 288% between the first and second quarters of 2021, driven by a rise in double extortion attempts, with a significant portion of all attacks resulting from phishing emails sent by the Conti group. Almost half of the victims were based in the US. “We’ve seen targets range […]