Tag Archive for: suffering

Israeli Phone Malware Maker QuaDream Apparently Ready To Call It Quits After Suffering A Little Negative Press

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from the cut-and-run dept

QuaDream, an NSO-alike with links to Israeli intelligence services, first made international headlines last year. And for the worst reasons. An investigation found QuaDream (much like NSO Group) sold iPhone-targeting malware to human rights violators. These sales were given a layer of plausible deniability, handled by a Cyprus-based company on behalf of QuaDream as it collected paychecks from garbage governments around the world.

Further investigations by Toronto’s Citizen Lab uncovered QuaDream’s links to abusive governments, as well as abusive deployments of its zero-click exploit to target journalists, activists, political opponents, and dissidents.

Now that it’s inadvertently shown its whole ass to the world, it appears QuaDream is shuttering its malware business. Or at least, it wants all of its critics to believe that’s what it’s doing. But this report from the Jerusalem Post indicates that, real or otherwise, QuaDream’s latest business move involves laying off several actual human beings.

Israeli cybersecurity company QuaDream reportedly summoned many of its 40 employees to a pre-termination hearing on Monday ahead of widespread layoffs, according to Globes.

This downturn (and its unfortunate effect on 40 QuaDream employees) is being blamed on everything but the company’s decision to sell to human rights abusers, engage in zero oversight of its products’ deployment, and it’s willingness to engage in ethically awful business practices.

QuaDream, which can only access iPhones (unlike NSO, which can also hack Android phones), wrote in a letter to court: “The crisis in the industry began due to the public disclosure of the activities of some of the companies from 2018 onward, which resulted in the fact that in November 2011, the US Chamber of Commerce put NSO and Candiru on its blacklist. Immediately after that, at the start of 2022, the regulator in Israel decided to reduce the number of countries to which it is allowed to sell the companies’ products in the industry from 102 to only 37, which caused a severe economic crisis in the entire industry.”

When you’re blaming a government for harming your business by…

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Financial Institutions Are Suffering From Increasingly Sophisticated Cyberattacks, According to Contrast Security

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LOS ALTOS, Calif., Feb. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Contrast Security (Contrast), the code security platform built for developers and trusted by security, today released its Cyber Bank Heists report, an annual report that exposes the cybersecurity threats facing the financial sector.

Authored by Contrast’s Senior Vice President of Cyber Strategy Tom Kellermann, the report is a warning to global financial institutions (FIs) that security must be a top-of-mind issue amid rising geopolitical tensions, increased destructive attacks utilizing wipers and a record-breaking year of zero-day exploits. Financial sector security leaders from around the world – in a series of interviews – revealed specific trends when it comes to notable cyberattacks, e-fraud and cyber defense. Some of the most eye-opening results from the report include:

  • 60% were victimized by destructive attacks
  • 64% saw an increase in application attacks, while 50% experienced attacks against their APIs
  • 48% experienced an increase in wire transfer fraud
  • 50% have detected campaigns to steal non-public market information
  • 54% of the banks were most concerned with the cyber threat posed by Russia
  • 72% plan to invest more in application security in 2023

“The increase of online threats, phishing, ransomware attacks, account takeovers and business email compromises impacting the financial sector is growing every day and we can see in real-time the damage this is doing to the longevity of businesses and the impact it’s having on our economy,” said Derek Booth, Assistant to the Special-Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Secret Service and Head of the Mountain West Cyber Fraud Task Force. “I applaud Tom Kellermann for speaking with some of the most influential people within the sector to determine solutions that can better protect FIs against vulnerabilities in banks and methods of commerce through industry-wide transparency.”

“The complexity of securing financial digital systems and the need to develop new ways to guard against sophisticated cyberattacks has increased exponentially in the last year. In response, FIs are fighting to evolve and create more effective prevention, detection and response to these damaging attacks,” said…

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Panasonic Admits Suffering a Second Cyber Attack in 6 Months With Conti Ransomware Gang Claiming Responsibility

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Japanese tech company Panasonic disclosed that it was the victim of a “targeted cyber attack” on its Canadian operations. According to malware analysis group VX Underground, the Conti ransomware group claimed responsibility for the attack. The group claims to have stolen 2.8 gigabytes of data from Panasonic Canada.

The February attack was the second to devastate the company within six months. In November 2021, Panasonic Japan disclosed that a third party had breached its network and accessed files on its servers.

The company disclosed in January 2022 that the attack leaked the personal information of job candidates and interns.

According to the Japanese media outlet NHK, the illegal access lasted from June to November 2021.

Similarly, Panasonic Corporation India suffered a cyber attack in December 2020, leaking 4 GB of financial information.

Conti ransomware group leaks files allegedly stolen from Panasonic

Conti ransomware group started sharing allegedly stolen documents on its leak site. The dump includes files and spreadsheets reportedly stolen from the HR and accounting departments. Some of the documents had names like “HR Global Database” and “Budget.”

Panasonic hasn’t disclosed the hacking group’s identity or ransomware demands, the intrusion method, the nature of the information stolen, or the number of potential victims.

However, the company says the attack affected the Canadian operation, which employs 400 people and is part of the North American segment.

Panasonic spokesperson Airi Minobe told TechCrunch that the company “took immediate action to address the issue with assistance from cybersecurity experts and our service providers.”

Its response “included identifying the scope of impact, containing the malware, cleaning and restoring servers, rebuilding applications and communicating rapidly with affected customers and relevant authorities.” This description perfectly resembles a ransomware attack response.

Minobe added that efforts to restore operations were still in progress, although the top priority was to mitigate the impacts of the suspected Conti ransomware attack.

“Since confirming this attack, we have worked diligently to restore operations and…

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Google Is Making Android As Difficult To Hack As iPhone—And Cops Are Suffering – Forbes

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Google Is Making Android As Difficult To Hack As iPhone—And Cops Are Suffering  Forbes

Apple makes the most secure phones in the world. At least, that’s the common assumption. But increasingly Android models are as difficult, if not trickier, to break …

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