Tag Archive for: World’s

Ransomware gang targets nonprofit providing clean water to world’s poorest


Water for People, a nonprofit that aims to improve access to clean water for people whose health is threatened by a lack of it for drinking and sanitation, is the latest organization to have been hit by ransomware criminals.

The ransomware-as-a-service gang Medusa listed Water for People on its darknet site Thursday night, threatening to publish stolen information unless the nonprofit pays a $300,000 extortion fee.

A Water for People spokesperson told Recorded Future News: “The accessed data predates 2021, did not compromise our financial systems and no business operations were impacted. We’re working with top incident response firms, as well as our insurance company and hardening our systems with our security team to prevent future incidents.”

The attack follows the nonprofit receiving a $15 million grant from MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. There is no evidence that Water for People was specifically targeted because of this donation.

The organization operates in nine different countries, from Guatemala and Honduras in Latin America, to Mozambique in Africa and to India, and aims to improve water access for more than 200 million people over the next eight years.

“While the recent cyber attack from Medusa Locker Ransomware has not impacted our important work fighting the global water crisis and equipping communities with lasting access to clean water and sanitation services, it does reflect that even non-profits like ours are in the cross-hairs of these threat actors. We attempted good-faith negotiations that led nowhere,” the spokesperson added.

It is not the first time the Medusa gang’s activities have impacted an organization associated with water provision, although the gang and its affiliates appear to work opportunistically, according to new analysis by Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42.

Last year, an Italian company that provides drinking water to nearly half a million people was hit by the gang.

Back in 2021, U.S. law enforcement agencies said ransomware gangs in general had hit five water and wastewater treatment facilities in the country — not including three other widely reported cyberattacks on water utilities.

Despite…

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Spain’s police report arrest of leader of world’s largest hacking group


(MENAFN) In the coastal city of Alicante, Spanish police have reported the arrest of an individual believed to be one of the leaders of the hacktivist group Kelvin Security.

As reported by Spanish authorities, Kelvin Security has engaged in hacking activities targeting more than 300 organizations across more than 90 countries in the last three years. The group is alleged to have extracted sensitive information, subsequently selling it on the dark web.

The arrested individual, considered the head of finances within Kelvin Security, is accused of being responsible for money laundering related to the proceeds obtained from the group’s hacking operations.

Police assert that the detainee primarily utilized cryptocurrency trading for money laundering purposes. Hailing from Venezuela, the individual faces charges such as belonging to a criminal organization, revealing secrets, as well as money laundering.

Spanish law enforcement notes that Kelvin Security’s most recent cyber-attack targeted an energy company last month, resulting in a significant extraction of confidential information from over 85,000 clients of the company.

The investigation in Spain began in 2021 after Kelvin Security hacked the computer systems of several Spanish entities, including the cities of Getafe, Camas, La Haba, in addition to the regional government of Castille-La Mancha.

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Spanish police say they nabbed leader of one of the world’s biggest hacking groups



Arrestee linked to Kelvin Security, which over last 3 years carried out more than 300 high-level attacks around the world – Anadolu Ajansı …

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‘Treat it like China’: How U.S. officials stay safe, and have fun, at the world’s biggest hacking conference


When you spend three days with 30,000 people who love cracking code, you’re always just one errant click away from sheep-dom. In fact, fending off the maze of Wi-Fi sniffers, hardware hackers and social engineers at DEF CON is a little like going toe-to-toe with elite, state-backed cyber spies, according to one senior State Department official.

“Almost treat it like going to China,” said the official, granted anonymity to offer frank and colorful advice to a DEF CON first-timer. “Really treat it like going to a technologically sophisticated peer competitor.”

At this year’s conference, which wraps up Sunday, the Wall of Sheep was located in a dimly lit auditorium off the main conference floor. It included, for the first time ever, a live feed with the location of individuals who were leaking data. As of Friday afternoon, there were at least 2,000 sheep at DEF CON, per the floor-to-ceiling projection. Their personal information was, mercifully, partly blacked out for privacy reasons.

Since the first-ever convention in 1993, DEF CON has brought some of the world’s most talented computer security wizards into the Las Vegas desert to scour software, hardware and networking equipment in search of vulnerabilities.

Operating under the principle that the best way to secure computer code is to expose it, attendees have demonstrated some truly jaw-dropping research over the last three decades. They’ve taken over the controls of cars, tricked ATMs to spew out cash and sent insulin pumps into overdrive, to name a few memorable hacks.

Feats like that have turned the convention into an increasingly common pit stop for top U.S. government officials, dozens of whom are in attendance this year. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, CISA Director Jen Easterly and Acting National Cyber Director Kemba Walden are all in Las Vegas for DEF CON and Black Hat, its more corporate-friendly counterpart.

But the convention didn’t earn its reputation as “the world’s most hostile network” just because of what happens on the main stage.

“There is a criminal ecosystem out there,” said Marc Rogers, the conference’s head of security. “You probably don’t want to access your…

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