Information Technology Security

By Sergiu Gatlan,  Bleeping Computer CISA, the NSA, the FBI, and several other agencies in the U.S. and worldwide warned critical infrastructure leaders to protect their systems against the Chinese Volt Typhoon hacking group. Together with the NSA, the FBI, other U.S. government agencies, and partner Five Eyes cybersecurity agencies, including cybersecurity agencies from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, it also issued defense tips on detecting and defending against Volt Typhoon attacks. Last month, they also warned that Chinese hackers had breached multiple U.S. critical infrastructure organizations and maintained access to at least one of them for at least five years before being discovered. Authorities have observed that the cyber espionage group Volt Typhoon's targets and tactics differ from typical activities, suggesting their goal is to obtain access to Operational Technology (OT) assets within networks, which could be exploited to disrupt critical infra...

By Sergiu Gatlan, Bleeping Computer In partnership with the NSA and the FBI, cybersecurity authorities worldwide have released today a list of the top 15 vulnerabilities routinely exploited by threat actors during 2021. The cybersecurity authorities urged organizations in a joint advisory to promptly patch these security flaws and implement patch management systems to reduce their attack surface. Globally, malicious actors have been observed focusing their attacks on internet-facing systems, including email and virtual private network (VPN) servers, using exploits targeting newly disclosed vulnerabilities. "U.S., Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and UK cybersecurity authorities assess, in 2021, malicious cyber actors aggressively targeted newly disclosed critical software vulnerabilities against broad target sets, including public and private sector organizations worldwide," the advisory reads. This might be due to malicious actors and security researchers releasing proof o...

By Kate Conger and David E. Sanger, New York Times Hackers claim to have broken into dozens of Russian institutions over the past two months, including the Kremlin's internet censor and one of its primary intelligence services, leaking e-mails and internal documents to the public in an apparent hack-and-leak campaign that is remarkable in its scope. The hacking operation comes as the Ukrainian government appears to have begun a parallel effort to punish Russia by publishing the names of purported Russian soldiers who operated in Bucha, Ukraine, the site of a massacre of civilians, and agents of the FSB, a major Russian intelligence agency, along with identifying information like dates of birth and passport numbers. It is unclear how the Ukrainian government obtained those names or whether they were part of the hacks. Much of the data released by the hackers and the Ukrainian government is by its nature impossible to verify. As an intelligence agency, the FSB would never confirm a l...

By John Besley, Bloomberg Critical infrastructure organizations within the UK have been urged to ramp up their cyber security defenses as they face a heightened risk of Russian state-sponsored cyber attacks. An alert issued by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which consists of the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, has warned the Russian government is exploring options for potential cyberattacks against critical organizations such as the NHS, nuclear power stations and parts of the civil service. According to the alert, "evolving intelligence" suggests hackers within the Russian government are seeking to engage in "malicious cyber activity" in response to the "unprecedented economic sanctions" imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. There is also concern that hackers are targeting critical infrastructure in countries that have provided "materiel support" to Ukrainian forces. There are also risks posed by nu...