About 200 US businesses have been hit by a “colossal” ransomware attack, according to a cyber-security firm.
Huntress Labs said the hack targeted Florida-based IT company Kaseya before spreading through corporate networks that use its software.
Kaseya said in a statement on its own website that it was investigating a “potential attack”.
Huntress Labs said it believed the Russia-linked REvil ransomware gang was responsible.
According to The Tyee, a 2019 government report found that there was a documented spike in sophisticated cyber attacks originating from Huawei devices on Canadian soil following the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver.
The report in question was commissioned by Public Safety Canada from Clairvoyance Cyber Corp, and was recently acquired by the Institute of Investigative Journalism at Concordia via a freedom of information request.
In 2016 North Korean hackers planned a $1bn raid on Bangladesh’s national bank and came within an inch of success – it was only by a fluke that all but $81m of the transfers were halted, report Geoff White and Jean H Lee. But how did one of the world’s poorest and most isolated countries train a team of elite cyber-criminals?
It all started with a malfunctioning printer. It’s just part of modern life, and so when it happened to staff at Bangladesh Bank they thought the same thing most of us do: another day, another tech headache. It didn’t seem like a big deal.
But this wasn’t just any printer, and it wasn’t just any bank.
Bangladesh Bank is the country’s central bank, responsible for overseeing the precious currency reserves of a country where millions live in poverty.
The group of hackers who swiped source code from game company Electronic Arts pulled off the stunt by tricking EA’s IT support team on Slack, according to Motherboard.
The cyber thieves made off with some 780 gigabytes of data, including the source code for soccer simulator FIFA 21 and its matchmaking server, and the Frostbite engine, which powers most of EA’s games – including the Battlefield and Madden franchises. The code has now been put up for sale on the dark web.
The US branch of the Brazilian meat processor company JBS has paid $11 million worth of bitcoin to cyber-criminals who breached its computer systems and held them for ransom, its chief executive has revealed.
“It was very painful to pay the criminals, but we did the right thing for our customers,” Andre Nogueira, the CEO of JBS USA Holdings Inc, told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. He added that the ransom payment was made after the majority of JBS plants had resumed operations.
Washington (CNN)US investigators have recovered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency paid in ransom to hackers whose attack prompted the shutdown of the key East Coast pipeline last month, according to people briefed on the matter.
The Justice Department on Monday is expected to announce details of the operation led by the FBI with the cooperation of the Colonial Pipeline operator, the people briefed on the matter said.
The ransom recovery is a rare outcome for a company that has fallen victim to a debilitating cyberattack in the booming criminal business of ransomware.
They’re behind online hate campaigns to intimidate activists, journalists or dissidents. There is no doubt that in some cases, those campaigns have led to murder.
There are armies in the Middle East that do not have guns and whose “soldiers” work online only — but that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.
The term “electronic armies” is commonly used in the Middle East for such forces. “The concept is simple,” as the internet freedom advocates from Access Now explain. “A group of people assume false identities in order to participate in internet forums and social media to send — or suppress — a specific message.”
The world’s largest meat supplier, JBS Foods, has been crippled by a cyberattack, the company announced, the latest hit to an already rattled supply chain that’s sent food costs soaring at grocery stores and restaurants.
JBS said Monday evening that it shut its North American and Australian IT networks down after the company realized Sunday it had been hit by an attack.
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we cannot ignore the warning signs for future catastrophes.
In North Carolina, where I live, only about one-third of gas stations are currently reporting that they have any gas, and that’s after some improvement in availability. A ransomware attack shut down a key pipeline supplying these stations, an event that could, but likely won’t, serve as a wake-up call, before we experience a true catastrophe.
Prior to the pandemic, I wrote a lot about digital security, or the lack thereof. I once compared our security status quo to “building skyscraper favelas in code—in earthquake zones.” Not much has changed since then, but we are starting to hear more rumbles.
What happened in the US could well happen in Canada, professor says
The cyberattack that shut down the Colonial Pipeline in the United States made clear the consequences of such attacks in a tangible way, as it led to gas price hikes and even fuel pump closures in the American Northeast, causing disruptions to daily life.
The incident serves as a sign of things to come if cybersecurity isn’t taken more seriously, due to increased connectivity in industrial and critical infrastructure, says Thomas Keenan, a cybersecurity expert and professor at the University of Calgary.
Investigators at the largest fuel pipeline in the US are working to recover from a devastating cyber-attack that cut the flow of oil.
The hack on Colonial Pipeline is being seen as one of the most significant attacks on critical national infrastructure in history.
The pipeline transports nearly half of the east coast’s fuel supplies and prices at pumps are expected to rise if the outage is long lasting.
Gas stations along the Southeast coast are being slammed by panic buying and long lines amid the shutdown of the biggest oil pipeline in the US from a crippling cyberattack believed to be orchestrated by a Russia-based criminal group.
The closure of the 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline, which carries more than 100 million gallons of fuel from Texas to New Jersey each day, has stretched into its fifth day. The Alpharetta, Georgia-based company suspended all operations after it was hit Friday by a ransomware attack that could prove to be among the most costly in US history.
Russian cybercrime or State actors?
‘Absolute garbage LIARS’! NYT BLASTED for ‘gaslighting’ like nobody’s business in desperate piece whitewashing obvious gas shortage
The Colonial Pipeline attack shows there is no such thing as a righteous hacker
On a normal day, the Colonial Pipeline carries up to three million barrels of oil 5,500 miles from the Southern United States to New York, providing 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel needs. On Friday, the oil stopped flowing. The pipeline was shut down after the operating company was hit by a cyberattack.
Two days later and the pipeline is still sitting idle, and companies are scrambling to try and secure supplies of oil, diesel, jet fuel and gasoline. The cyberattack raises international suspicions. Was it China? Russia? Those countries specialize in such actions. The NSA however has been briefing that the culprit was an unusual cybercrime outfit known as DarkSide.
What happened last Friday is the sort of thing that would be considered a major terrorist attack if the goal behind it had been political. Hackers believed to be operating in Russia shut down the largest pipeline in the United States using ransomware. The Colonial Pipeline carries gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from refineries in Houston to locations as far north as New Jersey.
US fuel pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline has temporarily halted all pipeline operationsafter a cyberattack, the companysaid in a statement late on Friday.
The company is a major US supplier of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined products.
It transports around 45% of fuel supplies around the US east coast.
