Tag Archive for: Groups

Tank storage company Vopak hacked, Ransomware groups report

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Several parties monitoring hacker groups reported that the tank storage company Vopak has been the victim of the hostage software Ransomware in Malaysia. The attack was reportedly exceeded by a hacking group linked to Russia, RTL Nieuws wrote . Key business information, including the company’s tank infrastructure and systems, was allegedly captured. However, Vopak claimed that its business operations in the Netherlands have not been compromised.

On Twitter the tank storage company wrote that “We can confirm that at Pengerang Independent Terminals (PTSB) in Malaysia there is an IT incident that resulted in the unauthorized access of some data. The terminal continues to operate. The incident is being investigated. We apologise for any inconvenience.”

“Unauthorized persons have gained access to our data”, confirmed Vopak. “The incident is being investigated, we apologize for any inconvenience,” RTL Nieuws reported.

Apparently, Vopak got hacked by the Ransomware group BlackCat, which has become known for publishing stolen images of breast cancer patients, according to the television programme.

Vopak is known for storing fossil fuels such as oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG). The listed company, whose history dates back to 1616, operates in the Netherlands with terminals in the port of Rotterdam and Eemshaven in Groningen. It also operates in dozens of countries worldwide.

The so-called “hostage software” ransomware is used by hackers to lock down companies’ systems. If they do not pay, those systems will not be unlocked or the captured information will be sold or published. This week, it also became known that the KNVB football association was a victim of such a hack.

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DDoS attacks rise as pro-Russia groups attack Finland, Israel

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Image: Golden Sikorka/Adobe Stock

The pro-Russia hacker group NoName057(16) reportedly claimed it was behind Denial of Service (DoS) attacks against the Finnish parliament’s website on Tuesday, the day the country joined NATO. The country’s Technical Research Centre of Finland was also hacked, according to Finnish news site, YLE. NoName057(16) is the same group that took responsibility for a distributed denial of service attack, taking down the website for the country’s parliament last August, and who also attacked Ukraine, the U.S., Poland and other European countries.

In January, multiple outlets reported that GitHub had disabled NoName057(16)’s account after the group was linked to attempts to hack the Czech presidential election candidates’ websites.

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Israel hit by Killnet proxy

This week, Russia-aligned hacktivists also attacked one of the biggest names in security, Check Point, along with universities and medical centers in Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The group called itself “Anonymous Sudan,” but Nadir Izrael, CTO and co-founder of Israel-based asset visibility and security firm Armis, said the attacker is likely aligned with pro-Russia hacktivist group Killnet.

“For the most part the way security companies track these groups is based on the kinds of messages they post and similarities in text and tools,” he said. “The messages that come from these groups are mostly in Russian and English. It’s a bit like how the FBI does profiling: they look for similar MOs and tools, and backtrack to sources. In the case of DDoS attacks you are looking at lots of different devices worldwide from different regions of the world that are all at once trying to access a certain web site.”

He said it is likely that the next attack will occur on April 7, 2023, as part of the annual OpIsrael, when hackers and hacktivists attack Israeli organizations, companies and personalities.

“Even if the disruption itself doesn’t seem prominent, a cyberattack on a government or an organization can create an underlying fear of chaos amongst citizens,” he said, adding that 33% of global organizations are not taking the threat of…

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Ransomware attack on chip supplier causes delays for semiconductor groups

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Disruption from a ransomware attack on a little-known supplier to the world’s largest semiconductor equipment manufacturers will continue into March, in a new setback to chip production after years of coronavirus-related delays.

US-based MKS Instruments told investors and suppliers this week that it had yet to fully recover from a “ransomware event”, first identified on February 3, in an attack that has strained supply chains for the global chip industry.

“We’ve begun starting up the affected manufacturing and service operations,” MKS chief executive John Lee said in a call with analysts and investors on Tuesday.

MKS’s customers include many of the largest companies that produce semiconductors and the specialised equipment necessary to manufacture them, including TSMC, Intel, Samsung and ASML.

The company had revealed on Monday that it could still take “weeks” more to restore operations and would cost hundreds of millions of dollars in lost or delayed sales. Most ransomware victims are able to recover in about three weeks, according to industry estimates.

The attack affected “production-related systems” as well as critical business software, MKS said earlier this month, forcing it to suspend operations at some of its facilities. The Massachusetts-based company makes lasers, vacuum systems and other specialised equipment vital to chip manufacturing.

Lee has said the attack “materially impacted” its systems, including its ability to process orders and ship products in its two largest divisions, photonics and vacuum.

After delaying publication of its latest financial results, which were released on Monday, the company has now told the US stock market regulator that it is unable to file its annual report on time. Missing the extended deadline could result in a fine.

Its forecast of “at least” a $200mn hit to its current quarter’s revenues is about a fifth of the $1bn in sales that it had forecast before the attack. Analysts at Cowen, a broker, estimate the final impact on quarterly sales could total as much as $500mn — more than half what Wall Street had previously predicted.

“The full scope of the costs and related impacts of the incident has…

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CLE groups work together to develop cameras utilizing AI to slow illegal dumping

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CLEVELAND — Illegal dumping is off to a fast start in the City of Cleveland in 2023, but so is the city in its effort to combat the chronic problem with the development of surveillance systems utilizing artificial intelligence.

The city has teamed up the Cleveland State University and Case Western Reserve University through the Internet of Things, or IOT Collaborative, to create a deployable smart camera system that will recognize illegal dumping as it’s taking place and report it to law enforcement.

The development project has been made possible through funding from the Cleveland Foundation.

Nick Barendt, CWRU executive director for the Institute for Smart, Secure, Connected Systems, told News 5 field testing on the systems will take place in the coming months.

“How do we harness technology, but make sure we’re doing it in a way that serves the public interest, said Barendt. “How do we improve the operational capabilities of these sorts of systems and reduce the false positives.”

Cleveland developing cameras utilizing artificial intelligence to slow illegal dumping

Mark Durdak

Nick Barendt, Case Western Reserve University Executive Director, Institute for Smart, Secure and Connected Systems (ISSACS)

Barendt said his team is gong to create a corridor on one of the campuses that can be used as a controlled test bed.

“Where we can drag boxes or furniture or whatever into the field of view and make sure we can detect those,” he said. “You’re detecting things coming into a cameras field of view, that the don’t leave the field of view within some reasonable amount of time. There’s going to have to be some privacy by design considerations, as well as signage and other things that we’re going to have to put up.”

CLE Developing AI cameras to slow illegal dumping

Mark Durdak

The project will utilize some City of Cleveland camera technology currently in use.

Brian Ray, Cleveland State University law professor and director of the Center for Cyber Security and Privacy Protection, told News 5 the team is working to create smart cameras that won’t create neighborhood privacy issues.

“We don’t want a ‘big brother’ society, but we do want to get rid of illegal dumping,” said Ray. “We want to make sure that enforcement is efficient, but also make sure…

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