Tag Archive for: Island

The Long Island Press Amplifies a RevBits White Paper that Explores a Devastating 2022 Cyber Hack on the Computer Systems of Suffolk County New York

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Mineola, N.Y., United States:
 

RevBits, a cyber security solution company based on Long Island, New York, completed a review of the 2022 Suffolk County, New York, cyber hack that rendered government systems largely inoperable for months, affecting municipal work and citizen interaction with their county government. The RevBits white paper, Suffolk Hack Part of a Chinese Plot?, was recently profiled in a companion piece in the September edition of The Long Island Press.


 

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230919470113/en/


 

One year ago, on September 8, 2022, an anonymous email appeared on the Suffolk County government computer system announcing a devastating hack: unnamed thieves had sized four terabytes of data – some 300 million pages of detailed government information, including highly confidential personal information regarding 26,000 current and former employees as well as banking and personal information related to more than 400,000 people who have received traffic and parking tickets over the past years.


 

The hack brought government systems to a halt: crippling the billion-dollar real estate industry, sideswiping tens of millions of dollars in vital payments to mom-and-pop suppliers and disabled key functions of the county’s 911 emergency system.


 

The RevBits white paper reveals that top US law enforcement and intelligence officials are convinced the intrusion was executed by Chinese government hacking teams as part of Beijing’s drive toward global supremacy by 2049.


 

The white paper, initiated by RevBits CEO David Schiffer, who founded and headed Safe Banking Systems prior to running RevBits, is a veteran of the cyber-world, having intersected with many of the biggest computer cases of the past decades from Kremlin money laundering to security lapses at the FAA. “This hack hits close to home for us – we are a Long Island-based company, and I have been a Long Island resident nearly my whole life,” said Schiffer. “The scourge of state-sponsored hacking needs to be taken seriously by companies but, even…

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‘A minute to scan each item’: Supermarket agony as tech glitch hits South Island Foodstuffs stores

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Many New World supermarkets across the South Island have been experiencing till issues.

MARTIN DE RUYTER/Stuff

Many New World supermarkets across the South Island have been experiencing till issues.

Supermarket customers endured agonising waits at the till on Wednesday afternoon when a tech glitch hit Foodstuffs’ computer systems, leaving shoppers waiting a minute at a time for items to scan.

The glitch lasted hours, affecting New World, Pak’n Save and Four Square supermarkets around the South Island with customers from Christchurch, Nelson, Timaru, Dunedin, and Invercargill contacting Stuff about it.

A Timaru shopper said she was caught up at the town’s Pak’n Save supermarket for more than two hours.

She said she spent more than an hour in a queue to pay for her groceries. “The payment wasn’t the problem, it was the transaction causing the problem. They had to wait about a minute to scan each item.

“After a while, the store stopped customers from entering, so they could clear the backlog.”

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A Christchurch shopper said he was “stuck in line for 1.5 hours” because he has a large family and was doing a big shop.

Another shopper was in a Pak’n Save supermarket in Blenheim just as the computers went down. He waited for over an hour before reachign the till.

“Once I was there I noticed a few of the items they scanned didn’t have the specials that were advertised,” the customer said. “I decided to leave my trolley full of food and leave.”

Were you stuck in an aisle? Email [email protected]

Foodstuffs said it was only South Island stores that were affected by the problem.

“We would really like to apologise to customers who have been trying to shop during this time, we know the system being offline is an inconvenience,” a statement said.

Foodstuffs confirmed this issue was not caused by a cyber-attack. “It was simply an IT maintenance issue which unintentionally destabilised the stores’ online environment.”

The tech glitch affected stores including New World, Pak’n Save and Four Square. (File photo)

The tech glitch affected stores…

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HMRC WARNS STUDENTS OF LATEST MONEY-STEALING SCAMS – Island Echo

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University students taking part-time jobs are at increased risk of falling victim to scams, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is warning.

Higher numbers of students going to university this year means more young people may choose to take on part-time work. Being new to interacting with HMRC and unfamiliar with genuine contact from the department could make them vulnerable to scams.

In the past year, almost 1 million people reported scams to HMRC. Nearly half of all tax scams offer fake tax refunds, which HMRC does not offer by SMS or email. The criminals involved are usually trying to steal money or personal information to sell on to others. HMRC is a familiar brand, which scammers abuse to add credibility to their scams.

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Links or files in emails or texts can also download dangerous software onto a computer or phone. This can then gather personal data or lock the recipient’s machine until they pay a ransom.

Between April and May this year, 18 to 24-year olds reported more than 5,000 phone scams to HMRC.

Mike Fell, Head of Cyber Security Operations at HMRC, said:

“Most students won’t have paid tax before, and so could easily be duped by scam texts, emails or calls either offering a ‘refund’ or demanding unpaid tax.

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“Students, who will have had little or no interaction with the tax system might be tricked into clicking on links in such emails or texts.

“Our advice is to be wary if you are contacted out of the blue by someone asking for money or personal information. We see high numbers of fraudsters contacting people claiming to be from HMRC. If in doubt, our advice is – do not reply directly to anything suspicious, but contact HMRC through GOV.UK straight away and search GOV.UK for ‘HMRC scams’.”

In the last year (September 2020 – August 2021) HMRC has:

  • responded to 998,485 referrals of suspicious contact from the public. Nearly 440,730 of these offered bogus tax rebates
  • worked with the telecoms industry and Ofcom to remove 2,020 phone numbers being used to commit HMRC-related phone scams
  • responded to 413,527 reports of phone scams in total, an increase of 92% on the…

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Live from Long Island: Northport radio station rolls out round-the-clock coverage on cyber crime 

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WCYB, an online radio station covering cybercriminals and digital defenders worldwide, debuted Thursday from Long Island.

The Northport station, a unit of 6-year-old Cybersecurity Ventures, is the first to offer round-the-clock coverage of online breaches 365 days a year, said founder Steven C. Morgan.

“There are dozens, if not hundreds, of cybersecurity podcasts,” he said. “But launching and operating a full-blown radio station is entirely different. It’s a heavy lift to get up and running and staff.”

The station, dubbed Cybercrime Radio, at https://cybersecurityventures.com/radio/, began webcasting at 11 a.m. Thursday.

The station’s first broadcast day included a recorded interview with Kevin Mitnick, whose exploits as a hacker were chronicled in books and movies.

Mitnick, now chief hacking officer at KnowBe4 Inc., a Clearwater, Florida, computer security company, eluded an FBI dragnet until his arrest and 1999 guilty plea on wire fraud and computer fraud charges.

In the interview, Mitnick described a hack as a 16-year-old, when he commandeered the drive-up communications system at a McDonald’s, lampooning customers and managers.

Paul Trapani, president of the Long Island Software & Technology Network (LISTnet), said threats posed by hackers are creating “a huge demand” for the kind of content offered by WCYB.

Cybersecurity is “starting to evolve as its own industry,” he said, with many companies adding the position of chief information security officer.

Morgan said that damages from cyberintrusions will cost $6 trillion…

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