The infrastructure for the Qakbot malware botnet that has been a plague since 2007 has been dismantled by an FBI-led law enforcement action. The botnet was composed of over 700,000 infected computers, and is responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages worldwide during its run.
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.
We live in an age that values authenticity: being true to who you are and what you value. It is ironic, then, that one of the more recent innovations of the past few years—Large Language Models, or Generative AI—is in the process of undermining authenticity itself.
Account information of over 2.6 million Duolingo users was obtained via data scraping of an exposed API, and recently leaked on an underground hacking forum.
Kroll reports that the data breach was traced to a SIM swap attack on the phone of one of its employees, and that "limited" and "non-sensitive" claimant data was exposed. FTX account holders are already receiving phishing emails.
Landing a job in cyber security may require persistence and continuous learning, so it's important to keep refining your skills, networking, and seeking new opportunities.
Japanese watchmaker Seiko has suffered a data breach that leaked sensitive information, with the Russian ransomware gang BlackCat/AlphaV claiming responsibility for the attack.
Two web hosting providers in Denmark are teetering on the brink after a devastating ransomware attack that wiped out most customer data. Given the ongoing difficulty of recovery, the companies are recommending that customers move to other hosting providers.
Tesla has disclosed that the data breach impacting over 75,000 employees was an inside job. The electric automaker said two employees copied and shared confidential data with the German newspaper Handelsblatt.
The attribution of the Wuhan cyber attack was followed by an announcement from Chinese authorities that a "highly secretive global reconnaissance system" run by US intelligence agencies would be exposed.
Real estate professionals lost access to property data and resorted to manual systems after a Californian multiple listing service (MLS) Rapattoni Corporation suffered a cyber attack.










