Tag Archive for: criminals

ID, bank details, contact information at risk as cyber criminals hack PH Property Bendigo real estate agency

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A regional Victorian real estate agency has fallen victim to a data breach.

PH Property Bendigo sent an email to clients yesterday afternoon saying a staff member’s email address was hacked on March 15.

The hackers managed to get past security protocols by the company that include randomised passwords, 2-Factor Authentication for all email accounts, and an in-house internet firewall security system.

The company said four months of data was stolen which could affect about 200 customers. 

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When Cyber Criminals Come for the Courts

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Serious cyber incidents struck state courts in Alaska, Georgia and Texas in the past couple years, with one leaving Alaska’s courts a month without Internet and four months without connection to the executive branch.

During the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) eCourts conference in Las Vegas this week, court administrators and CIOs explained what went wrong and the lessons they learned about recovery and prevention.

HOW TEXAS GOT HIT

In May 2020 a ransomware attack hit Texas courts in the early morning hours, while IT staff were asleep. It affected servers at each of the state’s two high courts and at its 14 intermediate appellate courts, explained Casey Kennedy, CIO for Texas’ Office of Court Administration.

Hackers likely used a phishing campaign to take over a regular user email account, then used a zero-day exploit to grant the account administrator-level privileges. From there, they moved laterally to find a juicier target.

“We could watch them jump from server to server until they found our domain controller … the machine that stores all your usernames and all your passwords,” Kennedy said.

Attackers then attempted to introduce a variety of viruses, but the anti-virus thwarted most attempts — until perpetrators switched to a more subtle, living-off-the-land style attack.

Attackers opened the Notepad application and suspended the application from memory to stop it running. They next wrote a virus into Notepad in memory and then unsuspended it, Kennedy said. This tricked the system into thinking it was just running a legitimate program — Notepad — when in truth it was now running a virus. Perpetrators were able to then deploy the virus throughout computers on the network.

THE POST-INCIDENT WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

There was one silver lining, though. Following a cyber incident, the non-IT sides of government tend to become newly receptive to cybersecurity proposals, and abandon complaints about defense measures causing frictions. That mindset lasts about six months, Kennedy said, and is an opportunity to push through policies like strong password requirements, mandatory multifactor…

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Keep Cyber Criminals At Bay As Hackers Rise

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By: Vinod Chandrashekhar Dixit
Don’t we think our lives in the digital age is alternate between cyber dangers and cyber security?  Hacking is one of the most dangerous cybercrimes that has emerged in the internet age. Recently the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi’s server was down for the sixth day in a row as hackers have hacked the official website of the hospital and allegedly demanded an estimated Rs 200 crore in crypto currencies, The AIIMS server has stored data of several VIPs, including former prime ministers, ministers, bureaucrats and judges. India’s hacking ecosystem has seen manifold growth over the past few years. And, today, there are thousands of hackers that are carrying out clandestine operations but have escaped the glare of cyber security experts. Whenever the word ‘Hacking’ or ‘Hacker’ comes to our mind, the picture or the image which is created is that of an intelligent being who is criminal by nature, who attacks other computer systems, damages it, break codes and passwords, send viruses etc. Their mindset are as if the ‘hackers’ are the computer criminals. They have a very wrong notion in this regard and have a completely negative attitude and utter dislike for the ‘Hackers’. Hackers’ are very intelligent people who use their skill in a constructive and positive manner. They help the government to protect national documents of strategic importance, help organizations to protect documents and company secrets, and even sometimes help justice to meet its end by extracting out electronic evidence. Rather, these are people who help to keep computer criminals on the run. Hacking is a method of identifying weak links or holes in a computer network and then gaining unauthorised access to change the settings of the targeted network or computer system. Hacking is a derogatory phrase that is frequently associated with criminal activity. 
In a recent study, it was revealed that out of 15 Indian cities, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bengaluru have faced the maximum number of cyber attacks. India has faced a rise of 7.9% in data breaches since 2017. 
In 2018, India’s state-run health portal – which allows users to book…

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South Staffordshire Water says it was target of cyber attack as criminals bungle extortion attempt | Science & Tech News

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South Staffordshire Water “has been the target of a criminal cyber attack”, the company has confirmed.

In a statement, it stressed it was “still supplying safe water to all of our Cambridge Water and South Staffs Water customers”.

“This is thanks to the robust systems and controls over water supply and quality we have in place at all times as well as the quick work of our teams to respond to this incident and implement the additional measures we have put in place on a precautionary basis.”

The statement was released after a ransomware group known as Cl0p claimed to have hacked a different water company’s networks.

Using its darknet site as part of a bungled cyber-extortion effort, the group posted what appeared to be stolen identification documents.

It is not clear how the criminals managed to misidentify the victim company.

Alongside releasing files, the group criticised the company’s security and suggested that other hackers could break into the network and cause significant damage.

Cl0p typically encrypts the files on victims’ computer networks to make the IT systems unusable unless those victims make an extortion payment, often stretching into the millions of dollars.

In this instance, Cl0p claims to have decided not to encrypt the company’s files. Instead it is demanding an extortion payment to prevent the release of the stolen data, and to explain how it managed to break in to the network.

The group claims to be able to access the company’s SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems which are the software used to manage industrial processes, such as those at water treatment facilities.

In another unverified claim which is disputed by South Staffs Water, the extortionists state: “It would be easy to change chemical composition for their water but it is important to note we are not interested in causing harm to people.”

Sophisticated systems

Most water companies have sophisticated systems in place to ensure the quality of their water, including several checks and balances which are resilient against individual subsystem failures.

Ransomware groups often over-state their access into victims’ networks for the sake of extortion, expecting that their…

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