1.) First news is about a cyber attack on two energy companies operating in Luxembourg. According to the web, two energy firms Creos and Enovos, both business units of Encevo Group, were targeted by a ransomware attack on the night of July 22 this year. However, electricity and gas supply weren’t disrupted by the digital disruption.

The ransomware group that targeted Encevo remains a mystery, as the European energy operator is not willing to disclose before the completion of a security investigation, which might take two full weeks from now on.

2.) Solana Networks that help in building applications and software related to blockchain infrastructure and cryptocurrency have admitted via Twitter that threat actors have siphoned money worth $5 million from user wallets that can be a resultant of tinkering of block explorer.

It is worth noting that the cyber attack details are still unfolding and might take a bigger landscape in the coming days. So far, investigations made by blockchain audit firm OtterSec have revealed that the attack has resulted in account drains of over 8000 users and the count is still on.

3.) Third is the news related to ransomware. A German company named Semikron that is into the manufacturing of electronics was recently targeted by LV Ransomware variant and the ransomware operators are threatening to release the stolen 2TB data related to the company if their ransom demands are not taken seriously.

Semikron has informed the German Federal Office for Information Security about the incident and also hired a 3rd party security firm to investigate the incident.

4.) Fourth is the news related to a European Missile Making company dubbed MBDA which has denied all hacking allegations made on the dark web last month. The arms maker denied any cyber incident hitting its IT infrastructure to steal 60GB of data related to the R&D and said that some hackers were deliberately spreading misinformation on the dark web about the hack of its servers, that did not take place in real.

Law enforcement authorities from Italy are investigating the incident and the staff of MBDA are offering their full cooperation to track down the culprits.

5.) China’s ride operator DIDI was slapped with a fine of $1.3 billion by the Chinese Cybersecurity Regulator for violating Cybersecurity related data laws in the region. The year long probe finally ended after the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) considered DIDI disrespecting 3 major data laws regarding data protection and security.

CAC discovered in its investigation that the ride service offering company was taking the screen shot information of its users through its smartphone camera and was also collecting images and videos of its users without their knowledge or consent. Since it was using all the collected data for a facial recognition project, it clearly breached the privacy laws prevailing in the region and so was supposed to pay a hefty penalty.

6.) In July last week of this year, South Korean Smartphone maker Samsung announced the introduction of a new feature into its new Galaxy smart phones. The feature dubbed as “Repair Mode” will be introduced into all the upcoming models of Galaxy to ensure utmost protection to the personal data while the device is being repaired by a repair technician.

Repair Mode of Samsung Galaxy devices will allow users to disclose what type of data needs to be exposed to the repairing person and what should be kept as private.

7.) Finally, this news is about a ransomware report compiled by Menlo Security. It was discovered in a survey that at least a third of organizations have experienced a ransomware attack once a week, with every 1 among them experiencing the attack once in a day.

Ransomware study conducted by Menlo Security also found that security professionals were coming under immense pressure as businesses were facing sophisticated threats like ransomware attacks, that is making them worried as their employees, despite repeated warning, were still found clicking on links or malicious attachments.

 

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Chinese Administration of China (CAC) that looks into the activities of data collection and handling by companies has slapped a $1.2 billion USD or 8.026 billion yuan penalty on mobility startup Didi. The hefty penalty was imposed on the startup for fraudulently collecting data from customers for the past 7 years and handling it in a way causing concern towards national security.

Didi is the same company that was intending to take over a taxi service firm in the United States. But backed off from the deal during the regime of Ex President Donald Trump. As Mr. Trump complained about Chinese companies investing in North America, causing a kind of concern among the American populace. Despite the trade tirade, the company somehow started listing on the New York Stock Exchange since June 2021.

CAC claims DIDI handled the information of its 57 million passengers and 63 million customers in a way that was against the norms, like transmitting the mobile phone photos uploaded by customers to a database meant for a facial recognition project.

The penalty of 8.026 billion Yuan was claimed as per the annual revenue of the company that touched a figure of $27.32 billion last year.

A separate penalty of $148,640 was also imposed on the CEO and Founder Chen Wei and the firm’s president Jean Liu for acting blind against the serious security risks raised from the mismanagement of the generated user data.

Beijing based Didi reacted to the penalty and assured that it will pay the fine and will flex in security measures while storing and managing its user information.

 

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