Tag Archive for: protections

New Jersey Takes Stock of Cybersecurity Threats, Protections

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There’s a cybersecurity concern that often doesn’t get enough attention, according to New Jersey CISO Michael Geraghty. That’s systemic cybersecurity risk, where an attack on one organization has effects that ripple out across the wider sector.

“Most of the time we think of, let’s say, a school system gets hit with ransomware, a system has to shut down, and it’s a localized incident,” said Geraghty, who is also director of the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell (NJCCIC).

But attacks like the recent ransomware incident that disrupted Change Healthcare show just how hard systemic impacts can hit. Through that attack, actors were able to affect hospitals across the country.


“Here we have one organization — Change Healthcare — where it’s an individual organization that’s affecting the rest of the health-care system in the United States,” Geraghty said.

UnitedHealth Group’s Change Healthcare is a major medical claims processor. BlackCat ransomware struck the company, leading to a prolonged outage that left many hospitals and other health-care providers struggling to submit claims to insurance. Many have been running low on funds. The CEO of independent physician practices network Aledade told the Washington Post that about a quarter of U.S. physician practices are in severe financial distress.

Systemic risk is especially high in sectors where many players rely on the same vendor or technology. That’s what’s made Change Healthcare, MOVEit and Citrix Bleed nationwide events.

New Jersey organizations suffered from the latter two, with MOVEit compromising the personal info of more than 1 million residents, based on incidents reported to NJCCIC, per the state’s 2024 Threat Assessment report. And Citrix Bleed disrupted New Jersey hospitals, forcing problems ranging from slow patient care to postponed surgeries.

In contrast, election infrastructure is highly diversified, so a single attack would not have wide-scale impacts on election security, Geraghty said. He added that vendor and technology diversification is just one possible security approach, and that organizations…

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Appdome unveils advanced Anti-Malware protections against Android accessibility service threats

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Appdome, a leader in mobile application security, has announced its new anti-malware protections designed to detect Android Accessibility Service Malware. The protection targets threats such as Xenomorph, Brasdex, Octo, Sharkbot, Flubot, TeaBot, PixPirate, Sova, Spynote, and Joker. These are malicious software used in large scale attacks on mobile banking apps, crypto wallets, and other financial services apps.

Despite being created as an Android framework to aid disabled users with their mobile applications, Android’s Accessibility Service has quickly turned into a playground for fraudsters. Abusive individuals carry out cyberattacks by deploying malware that connects through Accessibility Service into sensitive applications, like banking and mCommerce platforms.

Appdome’s CEO Tom Tovar, shed light on the severity of the issue, saying, “Once the Accessibility Malware is on a user’s device, it can listen, collect, intercept and manipulate Android Accessibility Service events to perform harmful actions without the user’s knowledge.” Fraudsters often mimic human actions within the mobile app, such as harvesting login credentials and completing transactions. Advanced variants like BrasDex and Xenomorph even employ Automated Transfer Systems (ATS) malware, capable of executing end-to-end transactions without a user’s active involvement.

The overall threat this malware poses led to the development of the new defense, explained Tovar. “This is a difficult problem to solve. To support the community, we created a defence that allows legitimate use of Accessibility Service, while at the same time prevents ATS malware from using Accessibility Service for nefarious purposes.”

Appdome’s new Prevent Accessibility Malware feature includes numerous protective measures. These involve multiple detection methods for ATS Malware, detection of potential methods used by ATS Malware in the context of Accessibility Service, and setting Trusted Accessibility Services. This way, brands can recommend trustworthy Accessibility Service applications to users. To further bolster these measures, Appdome also included an Accessibility Service Consent feature that allows users to approve…

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Apple advances user security with powerful new data protections

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Cyber Security Experts Call For Greater UK Protections For Ethical Hackers

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A group of cyber security experts is calling on the UK government to reform the Computer Misuse Act, saying it fails to protect security professionals.

The Act was introduced back in 1990 after BT’s then email system, Prestel, was hacked by journalist Robert Schifreen in an attempt to access the mailbox of Prince Philip. Schifreen – who said he wanted to raise awareness of vulnerabilities – was charged, but acquitted; the new act then made it an offense to access a computer without authorization.

However, 30 years is a long time, and the UK is now looking to introduce new measures – dubbed the ‘Cyber Duty to Protect’ – and has put out a call for information, asking for views on what actions can be taken to reduce risks.

In their letter to incoming prime minister Liz Truss, the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), security firm NCC Group and the former head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) Ciaran Martin call for the introduction of a statutory defence to protect ethical hackers.

“As you will be aware, last year the Home Office conducted a review of the effectiveness of the Act. We understand from Freedom of Information requests that 66% of those who responded to the review expressed concerns over the lack of protection in the Act for legitimate cyber activity,” they write.

“You will of course be all too aware of the increased cyber threat posed by our adversaries, not least following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We believe this strengthens the case for prioritising efforts to reform the Computer Misuse Act to include a statutory defence.”

At issue is the work of ethical hackers, or penetration testers, who currently must gain permission to access systems and follow agreed rules an what may be done with the data, generally agreed via a contract and non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

However, this means it’s currently illegal for penetration testers to scan systems for vulnerabilities without advance permission, or to access hacked data on the dark web for their research.

And researchers have indeed fallen foul of…

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