Posts
European Oil Facilities Targeted By Cyber Attacks
In a worrying trend, oil facilities in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands have all recently been targeted by cyber-attacks.
Germany
The attack on German oil, vehicle fuel and petroleum products company Oiltanking Deutschland GmbH &…
30 Countries Pledge To Act On Ransomware
The international Counter-Ransomware members from 30 countries have issued a joint statement outlining their intent to take action to counter the growing threat posed by ransomware.
What Is Ransomware?
Ransomware is a form of malware…
How To Tell If You’re Being Spoofed
Many cybers attacks now take the form of using fake/spoof communication to trick victims into parting with personal (or company) data, or money. We take a look at some of the most popular and widely reported methods and how to avoid falling…
123456 Still A Popular Password
A study by the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) into breached passwords has revealed that 123456 featured 23 million times, making it the most widely-used password on breached accounts.
Top Five Easy-To-Guess Passwords
The study,…
Is Huawei Really Dragging Its Feet Over Security?
After espionage chiefs from the ‘Five Eyes’ agreed last July that they would try to contain
the global growth of Chinese telecom Huawei (over fears that it was spying for China), a new report
from the Huawei Cybersecurity Evaluation Centre…
Experts Recommend Security Update For Magento E-commerce Sites
Security experts are warning companies with a Magento e-commerce site to make sure that it
has the latest security patch and updates in order to avoid the risk of card skimming attacks.
Magento
Magento, originally developed
by Varien…
HTTPS Security Vulnerabilities Found
Research teams at
Ca' Foscari University of Venice and Tu Wien in Austria have discovered security vulnerabilities in
the TLS browser encryption defence system of 5.5% of 10,000 HTTPS sites which could leave website
visitors vulnerable…
Form-Jacking Attacks Hit High Profile Companies
Research by Security Company Symantec has revealed that high profile companies such as BA and Ticketmaster are among the many thousands of businesses whose websites are being targeted with "form-jacking" attacks every month.
What Is Form-Jacking?
Form-jacking…
Targets Of A Rise In Extortion Scams
A report by cyber-crime researchers is warning professional people and those in higher level management positions that extortion scams are on the rise with higher earners as the obvious targets.
Report
The report, from researchers at…
Smart Botnet Detection Needed
For businesses to maintain an effective cyber defense, the ability to prevent, detect and stop smart botnets in real-time is now an important consideration.
What Is A Botnet?
A botnet is a term for multiple malicious mini-programs working…
Google Chrome’s ‘Incognito’ Mode Not So Incognito
Research by Internet Privacy Company DuckDuckGo is reported to have produced evidence that could show that even in Incognito mode, users of Google Chrome can still be tracked, and searches are still personalised accordingly.
Incognito Mode
Going…
Free VPN Tools May Be Linked To China
A new investigation by Metric Labs of the top free VPN (Virtual Private Network) apps in Apple's App Store and Google Play has revealed that more than half are run by companies with Chinese ownership.
What’s A VPN?
A ‘Virtual Private Network’…
MFA Lockout For Microsoft & Azure Users Causes Business Disruption
The latest multi-factor authentication (MFA) issue left users of Azure and Microsoft Office 365 unable to login to their accounts on Monday 21st, causing widespread disruption to businesses in Europe, Asia, and some parts of the US.
What Happened?
According…
Firefox Quantum Browser’s ‘Monitor 2.0’ Will Warn You About Security Breaches
Mozilla’s latest update for its Firefox Quantum browser includes the Firefox Monitor 2.0 security tool, which can tell you whether a site you’re visiting has suffered a security breach in the last 12 months and whether your details have…
Facial Recognition For Border Control
It has been reported that the UK Home Office will soon be using biometric facial recognition technology in a smartphone app to match a user’s selfie against the image read from a user’s passport chip as a means of self-service identity verification…
Adult Site Visits on Work Computer Lead to Network Infection
The extensive online porn-accessing habit of an employee of a US government department known as the US Geological Survey (USGS) is being blamed for a government computer network becoming infected with malware.
9,000 Pages
In an investigation,…
Businesses Turning To Zero-Trust Security Model
As a widening attack surface and evolving threats mean that organisations continue to breached despite a large security spend, many businesses are now turning to the 'zero-trust' security model.
What Is The Zero-Trust Security Model?
The Zero…
New Tech Laws For AI Bots & Better Passwords
It may be no surprise to hear that California, home of Silicon Valley, has become the first state to pass laws to make AI bots 'introduce themselves' (i.e. identify themselves as bots), and to ban weak default passwords. Other states and countries…
Facebook Hack Keeps Getting Worse
As if the recent Facebook hack of 50 million user accounts that was discovered on 25th September wasn’t bad enough, it became apparent that it could also affect "Facebook Login" service, which allows other apps to use people's Facebook account…
New Chrome 69 Creates Better Passwords, Among Other Features
Chrome 69, the latest version of the Google browser which is now 10 years old, has a number of value-adding new features, including the ability to automatically generate strong passwords.
Improved Password Manager
This latest version of Chrome…
Microsoft Launches ‘AccountGuard’ Email Service For Election Candidates
A new kind of pilot secure email service called ‘AccountGuard’ has been launched by Microsoft, specifically for use by election candidates, and as one answer to the kind of interference that took place during the last US presidential election…
IT Security Updates Issue 6
The latest news from the sector sees the British Airways become the latest hacking data breach victim, the CBI held its annual Cyber Security conference which was headlined by the head of the National Cyber Security Centre among other sector…
BA Security Fallout
A discovery of the file containing the code used in the recent hack of the British Airways website and app that affected 380,000 transactions has revealed that it only took 22 lines of JavaScript to cause the massive data breach.
Skimming
The…
Superdrug Customers Informed of Hack
Superdrug is reported to have advised online customers to change their passwords after it was targeted by hackers who claim to have stolen the details of approximately 20,000 Superdrug customers.
Hundreds Compromised - Could Be More
To date,…
IBM Makes Test Version of New Stealth AI Malware ‘DeepLocker’
IBM has announced that it has created its own stealth, ultra-evasive AI malware called ‘DeepLocker’ that can evade all traditional cyber-security protection, hide in normal applications, and only strike when it is sure it has reached its…
Microsoft To Launch App-Testing Sandbox ‘InPrivate Desktop’ Feature
It has been reported that Microsoft is to launch InPrivate Desktop for a future version of Windows 10, a kind of throwaway sandbox that gives Admins a secure way to operate one-time tests of any untrusted apps / software.
Like A Virtual Machine
Although…
New ‘No Cheat’ “Locked Mode” For Classroom on Chromebooks
The Google Forms Quiz in its free, browser-based educational software “Classroom” now features a “locked mode” on Chromebooks which prevents students from cheating during quizzes.
What Is 'Classroom'?
Google Classroom is a free web…
834% Rise in TSB Customer Attacks
Following the IT ‘meltdown’ at TSB last month which led to chaos for customers who were locked out of their own accounts, research has found that the number of phishing attacks targeting TSB customers leapt by 843% in May compared with April.
Fraudsters…
Data Breach Fine For UK University
The Information Commissioner (ICO) has imposed a fine of £120,000 on the University of Greenwich for a data breach that left the personal details of thousands of students exposed online.
What Happened?
The breach was discovered back in February…
Google Chrome’s ‘Incognito’ Mode Not So Incognito
Research by Internet Privacy Company DuckDuckGo is reported to have produced evidence that could show that even in Incognito mode, users of Google Chrome can still be tracked, and searches are still personalised accordingly.
Incognito Mode
Going…
How to improve your Cyber Security
Cyber security has never been more important to businesses today, especially with the new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) coming into force in May 2018. Companies across the UK are facing more cyber-attacks than ever before…
How to AVOID scam emails
Scam emails, also known as phishing emails/attacks, are becoming increasingly more common as fraudsters come up with new tricks to try and steal your personal information and bank details. In some cases, the emails carry malicious software…