Tag: Hackers

Technology

Lockbit cybercrime gang faces global takedown with indictments and arrests

An international law enforcement operation led by Britain's National Crime Agency and the FBI has arrested and indicted members of the Lockbit ransomware gang, in an unprecedented police operation that has struck one of the world's most notorious cybercrime gangs.The United States has charged two Russian nationals with deploying Lockbit ransomware against companies and groups around the world. Police in Poland and Ukraine made two arrests. The NCA, U.S. Department of Justice, FBI and Europol gathered in London to announce the disruption of the gang, which has targeted over 2,000 victims worldwide, received more than $120 million in ransom payments and demanded hundreds of millions of dollars, the DOJ said. Britain's National Crime Agency Cyber Division, with the U.S. Department of Just...
Technology

Chinese hackers are determined to ‘wreak havoc’ on US critical infrastructure, FBI director warns

Chinese government hackers are busily targeting water treatment plants, the electrical grid, transportation systems and other critical infrastructure inside the United States, FBI Director Chris Wray told House lawmakers Wednesday in a fresh warning from Washington about Beijing's global ambitions.Underscoring the threat, the Justice Department and FBI announced just before the hearing that they had disrupted a botnet of hundreds of U.S.-based small office and home routers owned by private citizens and companies and hijacked by the Chinese state hackers to cover their tracks and hide their origin as they sowed the malware. Speaking before the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Wray said there's been “far too little public focus” on a cyber threat that affects “every...
Technology

5 things about AI you may have missed today: AI chip shortage, AI-driven attacks on ethical hackers, more

Nvidia and TSMC CEOs strategize amid global AI chip shortage; 83% of ethical hackers confront AI-driven attacks in evolving cybersecurity landscape; Pega launches enterprise-grade gen AI assistant; AI-generated avatar of actor Mammootty to star in upcoming Malayalam film- this and more in our daily roundup. Let us take a look.1. Nvidia and TSMC CEOs strategize amid global AI chip shortageNvidia CEO Jensen Huang met with TSMC CEO C.C. Wei in Taipei to address global AI chip supply constraints, a critical issue for the AI industry's growth in 2023. The discussion focused on TSMC's role in producing Nvidia chips for generative AI training systems. Amid US restrictions on chip shipments to China, Huang emphasised Taiwan's pivotal role in Nvidia's business and the semiconductor sector's cha...
Technology

Satya Nadella-led Microsoft says Russia-linked group hacked employee emails

Satya Nadella-led Microsoft Corp. said a Russian-linked hacking group attacked its corporate systems, getting into a “small number” of email accounts, including those of senior leadership and employees who work in cybersecurity and legal. The company said it's acting immediately to fix older systems, which will probably cause some disruption. The hacking group doesn't appear to have accessed customers' systems or Microsoft servers that run outward-facing products, the software giant said Friday in a blog post. Microsoft also has no evidence the group, named Midnight Blizzard, got into source code or artificial intelligence systems. “We will act immediately to apply our current security standards to Microsoft-owned legacy systems and internal business processes, even when these changes ...
Technology

How white hat heroes are safeguarding your digital frontiers

As a citizen of today, you enjoy several digital systems, be it smartphones, email, voice AI like Alexa, or IoT. If you are part of any digital system, you are vulnerable to a cyberattack. In an era dominated by interconnected systems, the constant threat of cyberattacks, and businesses and individuals increasingly relying on digital platforms, the need for robust defenses against cyber threats has never been more critical.In 2020, Air India, the country's flagship airline, fell victim to a cyberattack that compromised the personal data of millions of its customers. The breach affected users registered between August 2011 and February 2021, exposing sensitive information such as names, dates of birth, contact details, passport information, and credit card data. This breach had severe i...
Technology

Crypto Hacks Down, But Hackers Still Stole About $1.7 Billion in 2023 From Crypto Projects

The amount of funds crypto projects lost to hackers has declined by about half to around $1.7 billion so far this year, amid improved security measures and an uptick in law enforcement actions. Even with any additional hacks in December, this year will likely “finish with significantly lower totals than 2022,” according to TRM Labs, which helps clients detect financial crimes. Last year's tally of $4 billion from crypto hacks included a number of large thefts, such as a $600 million-plus attack on a blockchain network called Ronin bridge that was connected to the Axie Infinity game.  “While we are always one Ronin-size hack away from a record setting year, the global focus on cybercrime is likely to, at least in part, mitigate some of the activity which is critical in order for the ove...
Technology

Major vulnerabilities in laptop fingerprint sensors found! Hackers can even bypass Microsoft Hello

Researchers have found critical vulnerabilities in fingerprint sensor-enabled laptops that may allow hackers to break in. These vulnerabilities are severe enough that using these, the researchers were able to completely bypass Microsoft Hello authentication. The new finding is concerning as many Windows laptop users use this added layer of protection to secure their devices, and hackers may take advantage of this to steal sensitive personal and financial information from users. During the study, the team was able to crack three different laptops — Dell Inspiron 15, Lenovo ThinkPad T14, and Microsoft Surface Pro — using these Microsoft Hello vulnerabilities.Microsoft's Offensive Research and Security Engineering (MORSE) approached Blackwing Intelligence to conduct a study to evaluate th...
Technology

Hackers Are Exploiting a Flaw in Citrix Software Despite Fix

A critical flaw in software from Citrix Systems Inc., a company that pioneered remote access so people can work anywhere, has been exploited by government-backed hackers and criminal groups, according to a US cyber official.The flaw, dubbed Citrix Bleed, was abused by hackers in secret for weeks before it was found and a fix was issued last month, according to Citrix online posts and cybersecurity researchers. Since then, researchers say hackers have accelerated their exploitation of the bug, targeting some of the thousands of customers that haven't applied a patch.  “We are aware that a wide variety of malicious actors, including both nation state and criminal groups, are focused on leveraging the Citrix Bleed vulnerability,” Eric Goldstein, executive assistant director for cybersecur...
Technology

What are Apple threat notifications on iPhones and how the company reacted to the row in India

In an incident yesterday, October 31, that rocked the Indian political establishment, at least nine political leaders from opposition parties received a shocking alert on their iPhones warning them of "state-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise” their device. It raised an alarm among leaders as they posted screenshots of the alerts on their X accounts, seeking clarification for the same. The government also raised a query with the iPhone maker to share more details about the alerts and to work closely as an investigation is conducted.The leaders who received the alert include Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor, Pawan Khera and Supriya Shrinate, the Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav, the Shiv Sena's Priyanka Chaturvedi, the CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury, the Trinamool Congress's Mah...
Technology

Hackers accessed 632,000 email addresses at US Justice, defense departments

A Russian-speaking hacking group obtained access to the email addresses of about 632,000 US federal employees at the departments of Defense and Justice as part of the sprawling MOVEit hack last summer, according to a report on the wide-ranging attack obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.The report, by the US Office of Personnel Management, provides new details about a cyberattack in which hackers exploited flaws in MOVEit, a popular file-transfer tool. Federal cybersecurity officers previously confirmed that government agencies were compromised by the attack but have provided little information on the scope of the attack, nor did they name the agencies affected.  The Office of Personnel Management, in a July report on the incident submitted to a congressional committee...