The Camden County Police Department experienced a ransomware attack that has been locking many criminal investigative files and day-to-day internal administration abilities, several law enforcement officials said. NBC10 investigative reporter Claudia Vargas has the details.
Krisanapong Detraphiphat | Moment | Getty Images
John Hultquist, vice president of intelligence analysis at Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant, likens his job to studying criminal minds through a soda straw. He monitors cyberthreat groups in real time on the dark web, watching what amounts to a free market of criminal innovation ebb and flow.
Groups buy and sell services, and one hot idea — a business model for a crime — can take off quickly when people realize that it works to do damage or to get people to pay. Last year, it was ransomware, as criminal hacking groups figured out how to shut down servers through what’s called directed denial of service attacks. But 2022, say experts, may have marked an inflection point due to the rapid proliferation of IoT (Internet of Things) devices.
Attacks are evolving from those that shut down computers or stole data, to include those that could more directly wreak havoc on everyday life. IoT devices can be the entry points for attacks on parts of countries’ critical infrastructure, like electrical grids or pipelines, or they can be the specific targets of criminals, as in the case of cars or medical devices that contain software.
“What I wish is that the vulnerabilities of cybersecurity could never negatively affect human life and infrastructure,” says Meredith Schnur, cyber brokerage leader for US & Canada at Marsh & McLennan, which insures large companies against cyberattacks. “Everything else is just business.”
For the past decade, manufacturers, software companies and consumers have been rushing to the promise of Internet of Things devices. Now there are an estimated 17 billion in the world, from printers to garage door openers, each one packed with software (some of it open-source software) that can be easily hacked. In a conversation Dec. 26 with The Financial Times, Mario Greco, the group CEO of giant insurer Zurich Insurance Group, said cyberattacks could pose a larger threat to insurers than pandemics and climate change, if hackers aim to disrupt lives, rather than merely spying or stealing data.
IoT devices are a key entry point for many attacks, according to Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report 2022. “While the security of IT…
Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX confirmed an authorized hack that potentially drained about $600 million out of the exchange’s wallets.
The attack took place in the late hours of Friday night after FTX‘s bankruptcy filing.
“FTX has been hacked. FTX apps are malware. Delete them. Chat is open. Don’t go on FTX site as it might download Trojans,” wrote an account administrator in the FTX Support Telegram group.
Hours later, FTX General Counsel Ryne Miller tweeted that the crypto exchange was making ”every effort to secure all assets, wherever located.”
To help FTX’s projects from a liquidity crisis, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced on Monday an “Industry recovery fund” to reduce the “cascading negative effects of FTX” that helps projects with a solid foundation and structure but experiencing a liquidity crisis to outlive. The fund details should come soon, said the CEO.
The FTX woes don’t end here as the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), alongside Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is currently probing the integrity of the FTX exchange on whether it mismanaged users’ funds and what’s the relationship between FTX.com and FTX.US, according to a report by Bloomberg. In addition, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has placed the entity under scrutiny and is investigating the issue of possible fraud.
Furthermore, in the Bahamas, where Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX is headquartered, police and the securities regulator are investigating the possibility of criminal activity.
Twitter isn’t silent, and has been a go-to source for real-time updates on the chaotic FTX saga even the CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk, noted this, saying, “FTX…