Tag Archive for: expand

LockBit, Cl0P expand ransomware efforts

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LockBit in the lead, CL0P in 2nd

The report, Ransomware on the Move, looked at how exploitation techniques are evolving — including attackers’ sharpened focus on zero-day vulnerabilities. It showed how victims of multiple ransomware attacks were more than six times more likely to experience the second attack within three months of the first attack.

The authors from Akamai’s Security Intelligence Group reviewed data from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2023. The authors reported that LockBit ensnared around 39% of all victim organizations tracked by Akamai, which said LockBit’s victim count is three times that of its nearest competitor, the CL0P group. Number three in volume of victims, ALPHV, aka Black Cat, focused its efforts on developing and exploiting zero-day points of entry (Figure A).

Top ransomware groups by victim count. Source: Akamai.
Top ransomware groups by victim count. Source: Akamai.

Anthony Lauro, director of security technology and strategy at Akamai, explained that LockBit looks for high value targets with zero day vulnerabilities that companies can’t fix quickly. They tend to target and retarget these organizations and the sectors — like manufacturing and technology for example — where security operations are lagging, generally. Also, he explained, malware writers can choose tools and services from a growing dark ecosystem.

The report spotlighted two trends that speak to how large groups — with reach and breadth of products including RaaS — have a stable growth and smaller groups focus on opportunities as they arise:

  • The first is exemplified by LockBit, characterized by a steady count of 50 victims per month, and activity seems tied to its number of affiliates and its resources.
  • The second, typified by groups like CL0P, feature spikes in activity from abusing critical zero-day vulnerabilities as they appear, and highly targeted security flaws.

“Malware writers can now split off operations, which is a change,” said Lauro. “It used to be that the attackers were a single entity or group that would be responsible for malware payload delivery, exploitation and follow up.” He added that, because of the open nature of the…

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Data Privacy Day: Security threats expand, are tech giants stepping up to help?

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We say it every year to mark the annual Data Privacy Day on January 28, and 2023 is no different. The potential of threat to your online data being accessed without your consent is more than it was last year. Smartphone and PCs, all apps you use, web browser, smart wearables, and even smart homes are accessing a user’s existing data and generating new data. A lot of it may be personal. Basically, nothing you’d want in the hand of a cybercriminal with nefarious intent.

There is no doubt we live in a hyper-connected world. That makes a strong online privacy layer crucial. Apps need to be able to keep your data secure while giving you as many options as possible to control what information other users can see about you. Secondly, devices that you access apps and the web need to have strong data privacy measures in place to complete the sequence.

“With cyber threats becoming increasingly sophisticated, businesses, people and communities at large are highly exposed to malicious attacks. Ransomware and data theft have been a persistent issue through the years globally as well as in India,” says Ripu Bajwa, director and general manager, data protection solutions, Dell Technologies India.

The latest numbers from the Norton Consumer Cyber Safety Pulse Report, which collects threat data from the LifeLock security software suite, give us a fair idea of the threat landscape.

The numbers indicate that between July and September last year, more than 769 million online threats were blocked on computing and mobile devices. These included more than 100 million file-based malware, 100 million fingerprinting attempts to track users and more than 330,000 mobile malware attacks.

Smartphones dial up privacy

The question needs to be asked, what are the tech giants doing to improve privacy measures on the software and apps they make, and the phones as well as computing devices they sell?

For Apple, efforts that started with App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14 a couple of years ago have steadily evolved into a much bigger toolkit for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users. Stopping websites from tracking you, blocking a gamut of trackers in emails, hiding your real email ID by generating temporary ones for…

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Congress approves $23 million to expand National Computer Forensics Institute in Hoover – Alabama's News Leader

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Congress approves $23 million to expand National Computer Forensics Institute in Hoover  Alabama’s News Leader

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AWS and Slalom Expand Next-Generation Strategic Collaboration

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LAS VEGAS–()–At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Slalom, LLC (Slalom), a global business and technology consulting company, announced a multiyear extension to the companies’ global Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA). The two companies will work together to develop vertical solutions and accelerators on AWS for customers in the energy, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, public sector, and media and entertainment industries, delivering specialized end-to-end cloud migration and modernization services to help accelerate their cloud journeys. In addition to supporting accelerated growth in Slalom markets in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, and New Zealand, AWS and Slalom in 2023 will jointly create go-to-market strategies and make co-investments in support of Slalom’s continued expansion into Ireland and the Netherlands, followed by additional countries in Latin America, Asia Pacific, and through Europe over the next three years.

As part of the agreement, AWS and Slalom are expanding upon their 2019 announced collaboration to deliver AWS | Slalom Launch Centers (Launch Centers) that help enterprises accelerate their business transformations and modernize information technology services. Launch Centers provide customers with access to the unique combination of AWS Professional Services—a global team of AWS experts who help customers reach their desired outcomes with the cloud—and Slalom’s expertise in business transformation, software engineering, and analytics capabilities. Over the last three years, more than 160 customers have migrated and modernized to AWS through their work with Launch Centers.

AWS is working with Slalom to develop solutions to help customers solve specific industry challenges. For example, Slalom offers the Slalom Meter Data Analytics solution on AWS, which uses Amazon SageMaker (AWS’s service for building, training, and deploying machine learning models in the cloud and at the edge) to help utility and renewable energy customers improve billing and energy efficiency, and forecast power outages. In addition, the…

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