Tag Archive for: Platform

Ransomware hackers hit Australian defence communications platform

/in


SYDNEY, Oct 31 (Reuters) – Hackers have targeted a communications platform used by Australian military personnel and defence staff with a ransomware attack, authorities said on Monday, as the country battles a recent spike in cyberattacks across businesses.

The ForceNet service, one of the external providers that the defence department contracts to run one of its websites, has come under attack but so far no data have been compromised, Assistant Minister For Defence Matt Thistlethwaite said.

“I want to stress that this isn’t an attack or a breach on defence (technology) systems and entities,” Thistlethwaite told ABC Radio. “At this stage, there is no evidence that the data set has been breached, that’s the data that this company holds on behalf of defence”.

But some private information such as dates of birth and enlistment details of military personnel may have been stolen, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported, citing an unidentified source with knowledge of the investigation.

Thistlethwaite said the government will view the incident “very seriously” and all defence personnel have been notified, with suggestions to consider changing their passwords.

A Defence department spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed statement the department was examining the contents of the impacted data set and what personal information it contained.

Ransom software works by encrypting victims’ data and hackers typically will offer the victim a key in return for cryptocurrency payments that can run into the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

Some of Australia’s biggest companies, including No. 2 telecoms company Optus, owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (STEL.SI), and the country’s biggest health insurer, Medibank Private Ltd (MPL.AX), have had data hacked recently, likely exposing the details of millions of customers.

Technology experts said the country has become a target for cyber attacks just as a skills shortage leaves an understaffed, overworked cybersecurity workforce ill-equipped to stop it. read more

Reporting by Renju Jose; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source…

AWS and the BMW Group Collaborate to Deliver BMW’s New Cloud-Based Vehicle Data Platform; Joint software will accelerate the introduction of new data-driven features, services, and enhancements for drivers, and help automakers advance connected-car and software-defined vehicle capabilities

/in


SEATTLE-Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), and the BMW Group today announced a strategic collaboration to develop customizable cloud software that will simplify the distribution and management of data from millions of connected vehicles.

The BMW Group will be the first automaker to use the software, which will serve as the basis for its next-generation, cloud-based vehicle data platform. Moving forward, the new software will be available to other automakers, enabling them to easily integrate vehicle data sources, accelerate vehicle and fleet application feature development, and improve life cycle management, while delivering advanced vehicle features and more personalized driver experiences at lower costs.

‘We have 20 million connected vehicles on the road today. With the launch of the ‘Neue Klasse,’ BMW’s next generation of vehicles, our offboard cloud platform, powered by AWS, will process roughly triple the volume of vehicle data compared to the current generation of BMW models,’ said Nicolai Kramer, vice president of Vehicle Connectivity Platforms at the BMW Group. ‘Together with AWS, we will continue to create innovative solutions that enable us to develop and deliver new data-driven functions to customers worldwide, even faster.’

The BMW Group and AWS co-developed solution collects BMW vehicle signals and fleet intelligence data, then securely processes and routes the data in the cloud. Using AWS’s cloud infrastructure and its industry-leading security, the BMW Group ensures that its customer data is protected and processed in accordance with data privacy requirements and customer preferences. Only the BMW Group’s internal domain experts-vehicle application developers, fleet managers, data scientists, and artificial intelligence, business intelligence, and development engineers-gain access to the data via a self-service mechanism that gathers streaming vehicle data, easily adds new data sources, configures access in accordance with governance policies, and monitors the quality and health of streaming sources. The data is then combined with AWS capabilities, including analytics, machine learning, database, storage, and compute,…

Source…

Detectify secures $10M more to expand its ethical hacking platform • TechCrunch

/in


Detectify, a security platform that employs ethical hackers to conduct attacks designed to highlight vulnerabilities in corporate systems, today announced that it raised $10 million in follow-on funding led by Insight Partners. CEO Richard Carlsson says that the new cash, which brings Detectify’s total raised to $42 million, will be put toward product development and improving the overall user experience.

Detectify was founded by four ethical hackers from Stockholm, including Carlsson, who realized the business potential in combining security research with automation. In an interview with TechCrunch, Carlsson pointed out that product development workflows have changed dramatically over the past few years, with new teams within organizations spinning up internet-facing apps and adding potentially vulnerable assets to their employer’s environment. The trend toward low- and no-code tools has lowered the app development barrier to entry, but it’s also made the jobs of security specialists that much harder.

Illustrating the challenges, a recent Dark Reading survey found that 26% of IT and security experts don’t trust the platforms used to create low- and no-code apps. Roughly as many — 25% — said that they don’t even know which apps within their companies are being created by these tools.

“While companies should integrate security best practices earlier in their development cycle and try to catch vulnerabilities in development, production is what truly matters,” Carlsson added via email. “Unless you have a completely linear development process, which no company actually has, you will never catch everything. And this legacy mindset and over-reliance on ‘shifting left’ instills a sense of false confidence in organizations that actually increases their risk level.”

Detectify

Image Credits: Detectify

Detectify’s approach crowdsources real payloads — pieces of code that execute when a hacker exploits a vulnerability — from a private community of ethical hackers and uses these contributions for payload-based tests. Carlsson claims that Detectify tests customers’ entire attack surfaces, exposing how malicious attackers might exploit…

Source…

Smart Ship© Hub , Singapore headquartered B2B (SaaS) Maritime digital platform raises pre series round of $ 2.5M led by Ideaspring Capital and StartupXseed ventures

/in


SINGAPORE, Aug. 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Smart Ship Hub(SSH) is a ready to deploy digital platform for global maritime logistics. SSH is disrupting the maritime industry the way avionics did in airline industry. Cloud based and on demand, SSH provides “unified platform and a single source of truth” for Ship owners, Ship Operators, Charter Parties, maritime insurers, Port authorities. The platform caters for merchant ships, naval ships, oil rigs, river going barges and fishing vessels.

Left to right, Prashant, Head Delivery, Joy Basu (CEO), Vikram, CTO
Left to right, Prashant, Head Delivery, Joy Basu (CEO), Vikram, CTO

Global maritime , despite being the largest mode of transport suffers from operational inefficiencies, lack of visibility, transparency leading to commercial leakages. Ship owners, operators, chartering agencies, insurance companies are now focussed on technology backed smarter processes to ensure “High vessel uptime , Sea worthiness and Predictability” with digital systems.

SSH’s “ship-to-shore and shore-to-ship” based management of fleet using smart sensors, IOT, big data is saving substantial operational costs while enhancing voyage efficiencies . The digital platform is helping predict possible machinery down time, malfunctioning, identify performance deviations, vessel routes to improve voyage and vessel performance. SSH’s ” Marine Insights ” is a unique maritime big data platform providing actionable intelligence, smart alerts and performance advisory for entire fleet using millions of records.

SSH’s global customers are able to achieve their target of ” minimal breakdown maintenance”, “optimum fuel utilization”, “staying in total compliance including for emissions”, ” optimize costs with condition based maintenance” and a much higher level of ” voyage control” . “Performance Advisory” feature is reducing number of incidents for these ships while saving maintenance and fuel costs . Future ready maritime companies are helping in creation of a connected ecosystem: connected ships,  shared services (routes, capacity, procurement) and “pay per use” model with SSH digital.

Joy Basu , Founder of Smart Ship Hub adds: “Digital platforms will play a fundamental role in disrupting maritime legacy processes. Inefficient…

Source…