Blog | Social Wireless Technologies Inc.

Aug 19, 2020
1 min

Carnival Cruises Hacked; Guest, Worker Information Compromised

"Carnival Corp. announced Wednesday that it was the victim of a ransomware attack that likely got some personal information about the cruise company’s guests and employees. The attack was first detected Saturday. The attack accessed an encrypted portion of technology systems for one of the cruise line’s brands and certain data files were downloaded, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC filing also didn’t say how many people’s

Jul 29, 2020
1 min

Cosmetics firm Avon faces new cyber security incident

"Technical information relating to Avon’s web and mobile sites was inadvertently left exposed on an unsecured Microsoft Azure server. Avon, the cosmetics brand that suffered an alleged ransomware attack in June 2020, has found itself at the centre of a new and significant security incident after inadvertently leaving a Microsoft Azure server exposed to the public internet without password protection or encryption. According to SafetyDetectives, the leaky server contained API

Jul 28, 2020
1 min

Garmin confirms a cyber attack took its systems offline

"Garmin is finally giving its users more information about the system outage the company has been dealing with since the morning of July 23rd. The company has just confirmed earlier reports that it was the victim of an external cyber attack that encrypted some of the company’s systems. This attack led to disruption to a host of Garmin’s systems, including “website functions, customer support, customer facing applications and company communications.” Crucially, Garmin says it

Jun 17, 2020
1 min

'Woefully lax': report slams CIA cybersecurity after hacking tool leak

"Many of the Central Intelligence Agency’s most sensitive hacking tools were so poorly secured that it was only when WikiLeaks published them online in 2017 that the agency realized they had been compromised, according to a report released Tuesday. The secret-spilling site drew international attention when it dumped a vast trove of malicious CIA code on the internet in March 2017. The digital tools, sometimes described as “cyber weapons,” provided a granular look at how the C

Jun 11, 2020
1 min

Alabama City to Pay Cyber-Ransom

"An Alabama city is paying over a quarter of a million dollars to cyber-criminals to recover data encrypted in a ransomware attack. Florence became a victim of the DoppelPaymer ransomware gang on June 5 in an attack that shut down the city's email system. The gang demanded 38 bitcoin, equivalent to USD $378,000, and threatened to publish or sell data stolen from Florence if the city didn't pay up. A security firm hired by Florence in the wake of the attack was able to negotia

Jun 10, 2020
1 min

Nintendo admits number of hacked accounts is almost double what it originally said

Up to 300,000 Nintendo Accounts were accessed. "Nintendo has revealed that an additional 140,000 user accounts were accessed by unauthorized means back in April. Previously, the company had said that only 160,000 accounts were affected and was slow to acknowledge the problem at the time. The news will come as a worry to those who are concerned about the security of their Nintendo Account and Nintendo Switch, although Nintendo stressed that less than one percent of all Nintend

Jun 8, 2020
1 min

US subsidiary of ST Engineering Aerospace suffers massive data breach

"SINGAPORE: About 1.5 terabytes of sensitive data was reportedly stolen from a US subsidiary of ST Engineering Aerospace in a massive data breach that was discovered on Friday (Jun 5), according to cybersecurity firm CYFIRMA. In response to queries by CNA, CYFIRMA said its initial investigation showed the breach at VT San Antonio Aerospace started “as early as in March”. It said the stolen data includes contract details with various governments of countries like Peru and Arge

Jun 5, 2020
1 min

Chinese and Iranian hackers targeted Biden and Trump campaigns, Google says

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - State-backed hackers from China have targeted staffers working on the U.S. presidential campaign of Democrat Joe Biden, a senior Google security official said on Thursday. The same official said Iranian hackers had recently targeted email accounts belonging to Republican President Donald Trump’s campaign staff. The announcement, made on Twitter by the head of Google’s Threat Analysis Group, Shane Huntley, is the latest indication of the digital spying

Jun 2, 2020
1 min

Protest goes online in Minneapolis as city, police websites hit by cyberattacks

"The clash is now online in Minneapolis. Cyberattacks struck city government and law enforcement computers as mass anger over the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into his neck, led to major protests there. The operation, known as a denial of service attack, rendered websites for Minneapolis police and some city agencies inaccesibles for hours by overwhelming them with a flood of web traffic. A similar attack st

May 29, 2020
1 min

The Unaddressed Gap in Cybersecurity: Human Performance

"High-reliability cybersecurity operations leverage human performance as a critical layer of defense. An employee at Maersk, the world’s largest shipping conglomerate, saw computer screens suddenly turn black and irreversibly lock in late June 2017. A highly engineered malware worm exploited company computers in Ukraine lacking the latest Microsoft Windows security patches. With this small foothold, the worm breached the company’s IT system and blocked access to all computers

May 15, 2020
1 min

Ransomware Gang Demands $42M or it Releases Trump’s ‘Dirty Laundry’

"The ransomware gang responsible for stealing almost 1TB of legal secrets from celebrities and entertainers last week is now targeting the President. The ransomware gang that stole almost 1TB of legal secrets from the biggest names in the entertainment industry is now demanding $42 million in cryptocurrency or else it will expose U.S. President Donald Trump’s “dirty laundry”. The gang has already released a 2GB trove of legal documents marked ‘Lady Gaga’ and fired the link me

May 11, 2020
1 min

Ransomware Attack Allegedly Hits NYC Law Firm To Superstar Musicians Including Lady Gaga and Elton J

"A New York City law firm that represents superstar musicians such as Lady Gaga, Elton John and Madonna has allegedly been hit with a ransomware attack that threatens to expose celebrities’ privileged legal information. Attackers have posted images of documents and file folders to the leak site for the REvil ransomware that appear to be from the firm. The attackers indicate that additional documents taken from the firm will be posted if the ransom is not paid, including contr

May 8, 2020
1 min

Spike in Snake Ransomware Activity Attributed to New Campaign

"Security researchers attributed a spike in Snake ransomware activity to a new campaign that’s targeted organizations worldwide. Snake ransomware first attracted the attention of malware analysts in January 2020 when they observed the crypto-malware family targeting entire corporate networks. Shortly after this discovery, the threat quieted down. It produced few new detected infections in the wild for the next few months. That was until May 4, when ID Ransomware registered a

Apr 17, 2020
1 min

5 Things Ransomware Taught Me About Responding in a Crisis

What happened in Atlanta is worth studying because it was one of the earliest cases of a major city ransomware attacks and because it came out the other side stronger and more resilient. When I first flew to Atlanta in March 2018, the city was in crisis. It had been hit by a massive ransomware attack, one that took down multiple critical departments and systems and made headlines around the country. It's a story that's unfortunately repeated itself around the country since, w

Apr 10, 2020
1 min

Travelex reportedly paid millions to hackers after ransomware attack.

"Travelex reportedly paid hackers $2.3 million to regain access to its own computer systems after they were compromised in a ransomware attack that was discovered on New Year’s Eve. Ransomware is malicious software that locks a computer system by encrypting files. Once locked, hackers demand payment from the owner of the system in return for a decryption key to regain access to the data. The world’s largest foreign-exchange provider paid the money in the form of Bitcoin, acco

Mar 23, 2020
1 min

Coronavirus Widens the Money Mule Pool.

"With many people being laid off or working from home thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, cybercrooks are almost certain to have more than their usual share of recruitable “money mules” — people who get roped into money laundering schemes under the pretense of a work-at-home job offer. Here’s the story of one upstart mule factory that spoofs a major nonprofit and tells new employees they’ll be collecting and transmitting donations for an international “Coronavirus Relief Fund

Mar 18, 2020
1 min

Most ransomware attacks take place during the night or over the weekend

"FireEye: 27% of all ransomware attacks take place during the weekend, 49% after working hours during weekdays. The vast majority of ransomware attacks targeting the enterprise sector occur outside normal working hours, during the night or over the weekend. According to a report published today by US cyber-security FireEye, 76% of all ransomware infections in the enterprise sector occur outside working hours, with 49% taking place during nighttime over the weekdays, and 27% t

Mar 4, 2020
1 min

Casinos in Las Vegas Hit by Suspected Ransomware Attack

“We are actively monitoring the situation” "Slot machines in two Las Vegas casinos were out of action for almost a week in an incident that bears all the hallmarks of a ransomware attack. Investigations are currently underway by the Nevada State Game Control Board, which told us it is “actively monitoring the situation”. Four Queens Hotel and Casino and Binion’s Casino in downtown Las Vegas are open for business but for several days were only able to trade in cash, while star

Feb 24, 2020
1 min

Over 120 Million US Consumers Exposed in Privacy Snafu

Security researchers have discovered a publicly exposed cloud database containing personal data and behavioral profiles on 120 million Americans. Security company UpGuard found the misconfigured Amazon S3 bucket on February 3 this year, eventually tracing it back to market analysis company Tetrad. Around half of the 747GB trove appears to have been sourced from client organizations. It included: data extracted from Chipotle employees’ mobile phones for tracking, a spreadsheet

Feb 18, 2020
1 min

Bug in WordPress plugin can let hackers wipe up to 200,000 sites.

Same bug can also let attackers gain access to the admin account. WordPress site owners who use commercial themes provided by ThemeGrill are advised to update one of the plugins that come installed with these themes in order to patch a critical bug that can let attackers wipe their sites. The vulnerability resides in ThemeGrill Demo Importer, a plugin that ships with themes sold by ThemeGrill, a web development company that sells commercial WordPress themes. https://www.zdnet