A former IT engineer is facing federal charges in the United States after his former employer found it had been locked out of its computer systems and received a demand for $750,000.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
Category: extortion
This is pretty horrific:
…a group of men behind a violent crime spree designed to compel victims to hand over access to their cryptocurrency savings. That announcement and the criminal complaint laying out charges against St. Felix focused largely on a single theft of cryptocurrency from an elderly North Carolina couple, whose home St. Felix and one of his accomplices broke into before physically assaulting the two victims—both in their seventies—and forcing them to transfer more than $150,000 in Bitcoin and Ether to the thieves’ crypto wallets.
I think cryptocurrencies are more susceptible to this kind of real-world attack because they are largely outside the conventional banking system. Yet another reason to stay away from them.
Apple announces a new privacy feature in iOS that will allow you to hide and lock away your apps - but will be philanderers who benefit the most? And an ex-police officer is arrested for extortion.
The kingpin of the LockBit ransomware is named and sanctioned, a cybersecurity consultant is charged with a $1.5 million extortion, and a romance fraudster defrauded women he met on Tinder of £80,000.
All this and much much more is discussed in the latest edition of the “Smashing Security” podcast by cybersecurity veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault, joined this week by “Ransomware Sommelier” Allan Liska.
Incognito Market, a darknet platform connecting sellers of narcotics to potential buyers, has turned out to be not entirely trustworthy.
A ransomware gang, annoyed at not being paid, filed an SEC complaint against its victim for not disclosing its security breach within the required four days.
This is over the top, but is just another example of the extreme pressure ransomware gangs put on companies after seizing their data. Gangs are now going through the data, looking for particularly important or embarrassing pieces of data to threaten executives with exposing. I have heard stories of executives’ families being threatened, of consensual porn being identified (people regularly mix work and personal email) and exposed, and of victims’ customers and partners being directly contacted. Ransoms are in the millions, and gangs do their best to ensure that the pressure to pay is intense.
Photos of naked patients and medical records have been posted online by extortionists who hacked a Las Vegas plastic surgery, driving victims to file a lawsuit claiming not enough care was taken to protect their private information.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
Plastic surgeries have been warned that they are being targeted by cybercriminals plotting to steal sensitive data - ncluding patients' medical records and photographs - that will be later used for extortion.
Read more in my article on the Tripwire State of Security blog.
A London court has heard that two British teens hacked and blackmailed a series of companies, causing millions of dollars worth of damage.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
The UK's broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, has confirmed that it is amongst the organisations whose data has been stolen as a result of the massive MOVEit supply-chain cyber attack.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.