The final amount of stolen crypto is still being tallied as investigations continue, but about 56 BTC (about $1.5 million) has been confirmed to be lost. General Bytes has over 15,000 bitcoin ATMs in circulation in over 100 countries.
Cyber Security
Cyber criminals, state-sponsored hackers and even the occasional disgruntled employee are constantly looking to gain unauthorized access for a variety of purposes: theft of money, cyber espionage, personal information for sale or for use in scams, and damage to critical infrastructure for just a few of the most common.
So how does an organization mitigate an entire world full of continual cyber attacks? Just as buildings have a number of necessary elements of physical security: access control, cameras, alarms and so on; there are similar key elements of cyber security that are absolutely vital for just about any modern business.
It starts with identifying and closing the most common doors that attackers use. For example, phishing attacks on employees are far and away the most common initial point of entry. The breach of even a low-level employee account can quickly turn into an escalation in access privileges and the ability to reach sensitive information. This is also true of smart devices, which are generally more poorly secured than computers and phones.
Chinese hackers are now focusing on the outer layers of target networks, even antivirus software and firewalls, as an entry point for stealthy cyber attacks that can last for years.
With the increasing adoption of cloud computing, the usage of APIs has grown exponentially, making API security a top priority for organizations that want to protect their cloud-based applications.
The FBI arrested and charged a New York man Connor Brian Fitzpatrick with cybercrime. Connor is alleged to be the hacking forum “BreachForums” owner and operator, Pompompurin.
Advanced digital tools, readily available information, and new ways to buy online, unfortunately, has altered the ecommerce fraud landscape into a widely accessible territory for criminals to explore.
Pinduoduo, a popular Chinese shopping app has been suspended from the Google Play Store after traces of malware were found in the code of previous app versions. Suspected purpose was to pore through user data and find information related to competing shopping apps.
Australia’s Latitude Financial Services is investigating a data breach that impacted two third-party service providers, exposing hundreds of thousands of customer records.
The White House budget is seeking a $145 million increase in cybersecurity spending for CISA, $245 million for training cybersecurity professionals in the energy sector, $63 million for the FBI's cyber investigations division, and $215 million for the Treasury Department to implement zero trust architecture and generally bolster its cyber defenses.
Miami-based healthcare provider Independent Living Systems suffered a data breach that exposed the personal and protected health information of over 4 million customers.
As with most technological developments, there are two sides of the coin. ChatGPT may present businesses with a never-ending pool of opportunities, but the same resource can be exploited to help criminals infiltrate systems more effectively.