Category Archives: COVID-19

Meta scrubbed a fake scientist’s account that spread bogus COVID-19 claims

Posted on by

On July 24, 2021 a Swiss biologist, Wilson Edwards, claimed on Facebook and Twitter that the United States was pressuring the World Health Organization to blame the origin of COVID-19 on the Chinese government. Within an hour, Chinese officials were promoting the message on social media, using the apparent claim to turn public opinion against the U.S. after China attracted scrutiny for reportedly rejected further investigation into the origins of the virus. But Wilson Edwards wasn’t real, the Swiss Embassy in Beijing announced on Twitter on August 10. Instead, the ruse was a part of an elaborate coordinated campaign based in China to discredit the U.S., researchers at Meta, which is owned by Facebook, revealed in a report out Wednesday. What researchers found was a “hall of mirrors,” Ben Nimmo, global information operations threat intelligence lead at Facebook said in the report. In total, Facebook removed 524 Facebook accounts, 20 pages, […]

The post Meta scrubbed a fake scientist’s account that spread bogus COVID-19 claims appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Meta scrubbed a fake scientist’s account that spread bogus COVID-19 claims→

Industry group sounds alarm over ‘Tardigrade’ malware targeting biomanufacturing sector

Posted on by

A group of likely foreign government-sponsored hackers is behind cyberattacks on two bio-manufacturing companies that occurred this year, using a kind of malware capable of operating with independence within a network, an industry group warned. The Bioeconomy ​​Information Sharing and Analysis Center (BIO-(ISAC) dubbed the malware “Tardigrade” after the resilient micro-animal, and said it looks like the work of an advanced persistent threat group, a term that most often refers to government-backed attackers. Researchers first investigated the hacking tool this spring following a ransomware attack. The actor behind Tardigrade doesn’t just appear to want payment to decrypt systems, though. Rather, it could be primarily a tool for intellectual property theft, BIO-ISAC said on Monday. The biomanufacturing sector encompasses makers of coronavirus vaccines and treatments, although BIO-ISAC has declined to say whether the firms hit in the spring and then in October were involved in battling COVID-19. “Bioeconomy” is a term […]

The post Industry group sounds alarm over ‘Tardigrade’ malware targeting biomanufacturing sector appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Industry group sounds alarm over ‘Tardigrade’ malware targeting biomanufacturing sector→

Ransomware fueled record year for UK cyber response

Posted on by

The U.K. National Cyber Security Centre fought a record number of digital intrusions in the past year, the agency reported, driven by a surge in ransomware and hackers targeting the health care sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over a 12-month period ending in September, the agency responded to 777 incidents, a more than 7% increase, the center said in its Nov. 17 annual report. Ransomware kept the center busy, with officials handling the same number of incidents in the first four months of 2021 that it did in all of 2020, itself triple the number of incidents in 2019. That made ransomware the “most significant cyber threat facing the U.K. this year,” the report states. Still, businesses aren’t taking it seriously enough, National Cyber Security Centre CEO Lindy Cameron wrote. “In my view it is now the most immediate cyber security threat to U.K. businesses and one that I think […]

The post Ransomware fueled record year for UK cyber response appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Ransomware fueled record year for UK cyber response→

Designing a BYOD Approach for the Future

Posted on by

  Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies were some of the many things that changed when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. A study from Palo Alto Networks by ONR found 60% of companies expanded their BYOD policies to help employees manage the shift to remote work at the beginning of the pandemic. However, the convenience that the new BYOD […]

The post Designing a BYOD Approach for the Future appeared first on Security Intelligence.

Continue reading Designing a BYOD Approach for the Future→

Suspected Chinese hackers masqueraded as Indian government to send COVID-19 phishing emails

Posted on by

An increasingly active Chinese government-linked hacking group impersonated Indian government agencies with phishing lures related to COVID-19 statistics and tax legislation, researchers say. It was the continuation of a campaign that dates to the earliest days of the pandemic, Blackberry said in a blog post Tuesday. The company tied together several threads of operations by APT41, a joint cyber-espionage and cybercrime organization that investigators have repeatedly tied to Beijing and that Blackberry said was responsible for the India-themed phishing lures. The permutation targeting India preyed on the same fears that hacking groups began seizing on in after the coronavirus outbreak. BlackBerry on Monday didn’t answer questions about the timeframe in which APT41 sent the India-themed lures, what its possible motives were and what industries the emails targeted. “The image we uncovered was that of a state-sponsored campaign that plays on people’s hopes for a swift end to the pandemic as […]

The post Suspected Chinese hackers masqueraded as Indian government to send COVID-19 phishing emails appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Suspected Chinese hackers masqueraded as Indian government to send COVID-19 phishing emails→

NSA, CISA share guidelines for securing VPNs as hacking groups keep busy

Posted on by

Cautioning that foreign government-backed hackers are actively exploiting vulnerabilities in virtual private network devices, the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber wing on Tuesday published guidelines for securing VPNs. While the advice is broad, the NSA and DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency specifically said it would help protect the Defense Department, national security systems and defense contractors against such advanced persistent threat groups, a term that typically refers to state-sponsored hacking groups. The NSA has specifically warned in the past about Chinese hackers exploiting VPN vulnerabilities, as has CISA, but the history of advanced groups seizing on VPN vulnerabilities is far broader and lengthier. “VPN servers are entry points into protected networks, making them attractive targets,” Rob Joyce, director of cybersecurity at the NSA, said on Twitter. “APT actors have and will exploit VPNs.” In one case, the FBI warned in May about hackers leveraging […]

The post NSA, CISA share guidelines for securing VPNs as hacking groups keep busy appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading NSA, CISA share guidelines for securing VPNs as hacking groups keep busy→

Phone scammers use COVID-19 vaccine appointments to try tricking victims into downloading malware

Posted on by

Hackers are targeting American and Canadian victims with a malware strain that used coronavirus-themed messages to dupe users into downloading software that collects their personal information, according to findings published Thursday. The scammers, whose identities are unknown, rely on SMS text messages focused on fictional COVID-19 regulations and vaccine information to trick recipients into clicking a link. That link triggers a malicious software — dubbed TangleBot — that infects a user device to collect call data, microphone and camera access and can be combined with other hacking tools to gather financial data. The latest research from Cloudmark, a subsidiary of the email security firm Proofpoint, comes amid ongoing revelations about the ways that attackers have weaponized mobile technology to gather information about unwitting users. Some 85% of Americans now own smartphones, up from 35% in 2011, and increasingly trust the devices to communicate and browse the internet in a way […]

The post Phone scammers use COVID-19 vaccine appointments to try tricking victims into downloading malware appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Phone scammers use COVID-19 vaccine appointments to try tricking victims into downloading malware→