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Russian hackers attacked Ukraine more than 1,000 times since start of invasion

August 28, 2022/in Computer Security

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, 1,123 cyberattacks have been launched against Ukraine.

The press service of the State Special Communications Service of Ukraine said in a Telegram post, Ukrinform reports.

“During the six months of the war, the national Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine CERT-UA, which operates under the State Special Communications Service, recorded 1,123 cyberattacks,” the report says.

It is noted that cybercriminals most often attacked the central government and local government bodies.

Among the main targets are also commercial and financial institutions, agencies of the security and defense sector, enterprises of the energy sector, transport industry and telecom – all essential public infrastructure.

As Ukrinform reported, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian cyber police have repelled 83 enemy cyberattacks and prevented another 300.

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Once, Twice, Three Times A Ransomware Victim: Triple-Hacked In 2 Weeks

August 13, 2022/in Internet Security

In his play, The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde famously wrote: “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” If he were alive today, Wilde could well be saying, “To be compromised by one ransomware actor may be regarded as unfortunate, to be compromised three times in two weeks looks like poor security posture.”

Yet, as outlined in a new Sophos report, here we are. That’s exactly what happened to one enterprise, an unnamed automotive supplies company, which fell victim to three different ransomware groups, three times, in the space of just 14 days.

Once, twice, three times a ransomware victim

In the ‘Multiple attackers: A clear and present danger‘ whitepaper, Matt Wixey from the Sophos X-Ops team, reports there has been “an uptick in the number of cases where organizations have been attacked multiple times.”

The attackers, in this case, were the ransomware gangs known as Hive, LockBit and BlackCat. The first two compromises happened very close together, separated by no more than 120 minutes in fact. The third, also successful, took place a full two weeks later. Each, however, left a ransom note, and, ultimately, some files were encrypted three times, making them all but impossible to retrieve.

Exploring the triple-threat ransomware timeline

According to the Sophos analysts, the timeline started way back on December 2, 2021, when a 52-minute remote desktop protocol (RDP) session by a likely internet access broker on the victim’s domain controller took place. This paved the way for the triple-whammy ransomware attack to actually begin in earnest on April 20 when a LockBit affiliate accessed the network and exfiltrated data.

The same threat actor returned on April 28 to steal passwords, and on May 1 the ransomware binary is executed to encrypt data and drop a ransom note. This was quickly followed, in less than two hours as already mentioned, by a Hive affiliate dropping its own ransomware, encrypting the data again, and leaving another ransom demand.

The final part of this threat trilogy happened on May 15, with…

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Dealing squarely with cyberthreats | The Manila Times

August 7, 2022/in Internet Security

DISTRIBUTED Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have unfortunately proliferated at an exponential rate over the years — with more than 9.75 million separate attacks carried out in 2021. These threats impose a heavy toll on enterprises far beyond the financial cost of the ransomware — loss of revenue during downtime, reputation damage, legal repercussions from security negligence and potential exposure to larger cyberthreats.

Against this backdrop, Richard Yew, senior director Product Management for Security, Edgio, shares with The Manila Times deeper insights on mitigating cyberattacks, the latest trends in the application security space and building up cyber resilience in the face of rapidly evolving threats.

The Manila Times (TMT): Why do DDoS attacks persist? What are the opportunities that have arisen for these attacks in 2021 and what are the “holes” in the defenses of enterprises particularly among micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)?

Richard Yew (RYW): Cybersecurity is all about protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability (collectively known as the “CIA” triad) of system and data. DDoS attacks continue to be the most effective means of compromising the availability of the victim’s online presence, by causing anything between performance issues and complete outage.

Some pertinent reasons why DDoS attacks persist, and even increase in frequency and size in the last few years, include:

– Cheap botnet and DDoS-for-hire services. The barrier of entry to launch DDoS attacks has never been lower, while the adverse impact on business is immensely significant.

– Proliferation of IoT. An increase in the number of smart devices means that it’s now easy for an attacker to acquire a large botnet to launch a massive DDoS attack.

– Financial motivation. DDoS ransom is a very effective way to get immediate…

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Ukraine-Russia War: Latest News – The New York Times

June 15, 2022/in Internet Security

Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

BRUSSELS — NATO defense ministers meet on Wednesday with the future of the grueling war of attrition in Ukraine on their minds.

The two-day gathering comes as the battle for the eastern Ukraine enters a critical stage, with Russia grinding out steady gains and controlling most of the resource-rich Donbas region. Ukraine has begged for more heavy arms to counter Moscow’s superiority in long-range artillery.

The meeting may provide a measure of how much the initial unity among Western allies, who swiftly responded to Russia’s invasion with sanctions and massive arms shipments, has frayed as their economies have grappled with rising inflation and gas prices. Some NATO members are anxious, and want to avoid a long, stalemated war. Still, a top Pentagon official repeated the standard American position on Tuesday that the United States would not pressure Ukraine into negotiating a cease-fire, that such decisions are up to the democratically elected government of Ukraine.

The fight in eastern Ukraine has become a grinding artillery battle marked by sieges of major cities, the sort of conflict that favors Russia’s much larger military. Without aid from NATO member countries, Ukraine would be in a far worse situation than it is now.

Ukraine has demanded more and more sophisticated weaponry and has voiced frustration that the delivery of heavy weapons already promised by its Western allies has been too slow.

The war in Ukraine has presented a huge challenge to NATO and to the security structure that helped keep the peace on the continent since World War II. The conflict initially laid bare the divisions within the European Union and NATO. But anger over Mr. Putin’s invasion has been a unifying force, though some fissures remain over issues such as NATO’s expansion.

On Wednesday, the defense ministers will have a working dinner on Ukraine with the participation of Ukrainian officials and those of partners, like the European Union,…

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Once, twice, three times a ransomware victim

Exploring the triple-threat ransomware timeline