Tag Archive for: Tragedy

North Korea Reportedly Exploited Itaewon Tragedy in Hacking Attempt

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Seoul, South Korea – North Korean hackers exploited public interest in October’s tragic Itaewon crowd surge to target South Koreans with malware, Google cybersecurity researchers said Wednesday.

The North Korean hackers distributed a corrupted Microsoft Word document that appeared to be an official press release from South Korea’s Ministry of Interior and Safety, according to a blog post by Google’s Threat Analysis Group, which focuses on government-backed cyber-attacks.

Once opened, the document would download another file that would attempt to deploy malware onto the user’s device.

The document exploited a weakness in the Internet Explorer web browser, an attack known as a zero-day vulnerability, the Google blog post said. In a zero-day attack, hackers exploit such unidentified flaws to gain access to a computer system.

‘We attribute this activity to a group of North Korean government-backed actors known as APT37,’ Google added, saying the group has previously carried out similar attacks.

At least 158 people died in the crowd surge, which occurred when Halloween partygoers became stuck in a narrow alley in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood on October 29.

A man bows in the middle of the scene of a deadly accident following Saturday night's Halloween festivities in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 31, 2022.A man bows in the middle of the scene of a deadly accident following Saturday night's Halloween festivities in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 31, 2022.

South Korea Probes Halloween Crowd Surge as Nation Mourns

North Korea’s government never offered condolences in the incident. Instead, North Korea fired an unprecedented barrage of missiles, including some that landed near South Korea’s coast, during the South’s period of national mourning.

FILE - A man watches a television showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on Nov. 18, 2022. FILE - A man watches a television showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on Nov. 18, 2022.

N. Korea Fires Artillery Near Border in Warning to S. Korea

Google did not specify how the North Korean hackers distributed the corrupted document, who received it or how many devices may have been affected.

Google said it became aware of the North Korean malware in late October after multiple users from South Korea uploaded the document to the company’s VirusTotal tool, which analyzes suspicious files.

Within hours of discovering the hacking attempt, Google reported it to Microsoft, which sent out security updates about a week later to protect users from the attack, Google said.

‘This is not the first time APT37 has used Internet Explorer 0-day exploits to target users,’ Google said. ‘The group has historically focused their targeting on South…

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Lightfoot Says Officials ‘Checking Ourselves’ on Parade Safety Protocols After Waukesha Tragedy – NBC Chicago

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After a suspect allegedly killed five people and injured 48 others by driving into a crowded parade route in Waukesha, Wisconsin on Sunday evening, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot says the city is continuing to evaluate its practices to ensure that event attendees remain safe as they celebrate.

During a press availability Monday, Lightfoot called Sunday’s incident in Wisconsin “heartbreaking,” and said that it has led city officials to rigorously examine their own security protocols for parades and festivals.

“Whenever something like this happens across the country, as a mayor you think ‘are we protected? Are we safe? And we’ve had that discussion,” she said. “Every time we have a large-scale event, whether it’s downtown or in a neighborhood, we block off the roads physically, whether it’s with squad cars, infrastructure equipment, (etc.). It leads to a lot of traffic issues, but we lock it down because we want to make sure that people can enjoy themselves and do so safely.”

The city just held its annual holiday kick-off events at Millennium Park and along the Magnificent Mile, and will hold its annual Thanksgiving parade on Thursday in downtown.

Lightfoot says that the city deliberately blocks access points to parade routes in an effort to make it “very hard” to get vehicles anywhere near marchers and celebrants, and that they do so “intentionally.”

A Wisconsin man was arrested and accused of driving a red SUV into a crowd at a Waukesha Christmas parade, officials said on Monday

Even still, she says that in the aftermath of the Waukesha tragedy, she has ordered public safety officials and her staff to look into further ways to keep parade routes and festivals safe.

“We always have to check ourselves, and make sure that we’re doing everything we can, even when you’ve got somebody clearly determined to do harm, that we will literally block their ability to do that,” she said. “I think we’ve got a good plan in place, but we’ll never rest and we’re always going to be checking our safety protocols, particularly when some kind of tragedy like this happens.”

The suspect in the case, 39-year-old Darrell…

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