Tag: information security

Cyber incidents affecting airlines

Some North American airlines have issued statements regarding cyber security incidents in recent days. There is currently no evidence to suggest that these incidents are connected but these examples highlight the prevalence of such activity:

Virgin airlines detected unauthorised 3rd party access to their databases containing employee and contractor data in March 2017, including corporate credentials. In addition, over 100 individuals may have had further…

Link: Weekly Threat Report 4th August 2017
Source: NCSC Reports

Threat to Managed Service Providers

A major cyber campaign against Managed Service providers has been detected that may present risks to organisations using outsourced IT services. Please see the following report for further details. Further information can also be found via the Cyber-Security Information Sharing Partnership (CISP) forum.

Media references to terrorist cyber capability

There have been numerous reports on the recently imposed restrictions on electronic devices larger than a…

Link: Weekly Threat Report 7th April 2017
Source: NCSC Reports

Infected routers vulnerable to further attacks?

A small number of TalkTalk and Post Office domestic Wi-Fi routers are reportedly vulnerable to a new variant of the Mirai malware known as ‘Annie’. The denial of service experienced by TalkTalk and Post Office customers last week is said to have been an unintended consequence of the attacker, who goes by the name ‘BestBuy’. The attack sought to infect vulnerable routers with ‘Annie’.

Recently, BestBuy also…

Link: Weekly Threat Report 9th December 2016
Source: NCSC Reports

Data stolen from UK-based global shipping company

On 29 November, the UK-based global shipping company Clarksons, reported that it had experienced a cyber security breach, resulting in the theft of confidential data. The company has publicly warned that the data may be leaked by whoever is responsible for the breach and has contacted potentially affected customers.

Clarksons provides a range of services to the maritime industry including shipbroking, investment banking and research services…

Link: Weekly Threat Report 8th December 2017
Source: NCSC Reports

Ransomware attacks in the US

Recent media reports have highlighted the continued ransomware threat to public and private sector organisations. These included a ransomware attack against Atlanta City that took much of the city’s internal and external services offline.

The services impacted included customer-facing applications used to pay bills or access court-related information. SamSam ransomware was reported to have been used in this attack.

Elsewhere, the City of Baltimore’s 911…

Link: Weekly Threat Report 6th April 2018
Source: NCSC Reports

New banking trojan discovered

Security researchers have discovered a new trojan targeting customers of banks, payment card providers, mobile service providers, payroll, webmail and e-commerce sites. Known as IcedID, the malware uses web browser manipulation techniques to trick users into entering their login credentials and payment authorisation details into malicious webpages. The malware affects systems infected by the highly persistent Emotet banking trojan that hijacks computers to form…

Link: Weekly Threat Report 17th November 2017
Source: NCSC Reports

NotPetya’s continuing impact on businesses

Businesses that fell victim to the NotPetya ransomware attack in June are warning of financial consequences and continuing disruption.

The potential impacts of a cyber breach to business have long been known: they may include lost sales, share price declines, reputational damage, regulatory fines for data losses, and clean-up costs. Businesses usually quote one large estimate when commenting on a cyber breach’s cost. However, in NotPetya…

Link: Weekly Threat Report 28th July 2017
Source: NCSC Reports

Criminals target US healthcare sector

The cyber division of the FBI recently issued an alert warning of criminal activity targeting File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers operating in ‘anonymous’ mode, associated with the US medical and dental facilities.

The criminals involved are reportedly motivated by the potential to access protected health information (PHI) and personally identifiable information (PII). This data is then used by criminals to extort healthcare business owners…

Link: Weekly Threat Report 31st March 2017
Source: NCSC Reports

Mirai targets router vulnerability

On Sunday 27th November 900,000 Deutsche Telekom customers were impacted by an attack from an adapted version of the Mirai worm. The attack resulted in customers being unable to connect to the Internet. This was followed by reports on Thursday 1st December that 100,000 Post Office customers had been similarly impacted as were UK customers of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) TalkTalk. The attack used the Mirai code, which scans and comprises IoT devices…

Link: Weekly Threat Report 2nd December 2016
Source: NCSC Reports

Increase in HTTPS phishing attacks

Over the past few years website owners have been encouraged to adopt HTTPS website domains rather than HTTP. With HTTPS, data in transit is encrypted; this provides additional security for transiting data, such as login credentials, which may contain information of use to attackers.

HTTPS domains are verified by SSL Certificate Authorities, who issue and authenticate certificates. The padlock symbol in the URL field links to the certificate provider’s…

Link: Weekly Threat Report 15th December 2017
Source: NCSC Reports