Pegasus spyware investigation reveals scale of surveillance July 19, 2021 Human rights activists, journalists and lawyers have been targeted by spyware sold to authoritarian governments by the Israeli technology firm NSO Group, according to media reports. An investigation into a data leak by human rights group Amnesty International and NGO Forbidden Stories revealed a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that may have been [...]
Online fraud up by a third during the pandemic July 15, 2021 Online fraud has risen by a third during the pandemic as almost all everyday activities went digital, according to a consumer rights group. The number of cases of fraud reported to UK police unit Action Fraud cost consumers £2.3bn last year and had affected over 410,000 victims, according to analysis by consumer rights group Which? [...]
Websites run by notorious Russia-linked ransomware gang go offline July 14, 2021 Websites run by REvil, a notorious Russia-linked ransomware gang, have disappeared from the internet, according to multiple media reports. On Tuesday, monitors said a payment website and a blog run by the group became unreachable. REvil has in the past been blamed for numerous attacks on hundreds of businesses worldwide. The reason for the sites [...]
Metropolitan Police seize record £180m of cryptocurrency July 13, 2021 The Met has seized a record £180m of cryptocurrency connected to the capital as it looks to crack down on international money laundering. It follows the seizure of £114 of crypto last month – a woman arrested in connection with that case is now being interviewed for this latest confiscation. She has since been bailed [...]
Smart devices could expose homes to thousands of cyber attacks a week July 2, 2021 A home filled with smart devices could be exposed to thousands of hacking or unknown scanning attacks from around the world in a single week, according to a new report. A real-world study carried out by consumer group Which recorded more than 12,000 attack attempts in a week, including 2,435 specific attempts to maliciously log [...]
Russian military targeted UK and US passwords in wide-ranging hacking campaign July 1, 2021 Russian military hackers ran a campaign to steal and compromise the passwords of people employed in sensitive jobs at hundreds of companies and organisations worldwide, including US, UK and European government and military agencies, US and British national security officials said earlier today. They also targeted a range of political parties, government offices, defence contractors, [...]
Yours too? 700m LinkedIn accounts allegedly for sale following data breach June 29, 2021 LinkedIn data of over 700m users has been exposed in a new data breach, according to multiple reports. LinkedIn has a total of 756m users, which means that the data of more than 92 percent of its users has been compromised in this new breach. The new dataset obtained by an unknown hacker is said to [...]
Cardiff and Birmingham are UK’s hotspots for credit and debit card fraud June 24, 2021 An increase of fraudulent activity has been reported across the UK during the pandemic, affecting millions of Brits. In fact, nearly one fifth, or 18 per cent, of Brits have experienced credit or debit card fraud, despite nearly three quarters of Brits believing that they would not give out any details to someone claiming to [...]
As romance fraud and dating scams soar during pandemic, many are left heartbroken June 11, 2021 Romance scam reports and online dating scams have soared during the coronavirus pandemic. Analysis by consumer group Which? found that romance fraud reports were up by 40 per cent in the year to April of this year, compared with the previous year, with more than 7,500 reported scams. Reported losses reached £73.9mduring the period – [...]
US recovers $2.3m from Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack June 7, 2021 US authorities today said they had recovered around $2.3m (£1.6m) in cryptocurrency from the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline. US deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco said investigators had seized 63.7 Bitcoins, now valued at about $2.3m, paid by Colonial after last month’s hack that sparked major shortages at petrol stations along the east coast. [...]