Category: Ireland

iPhone Users Warned About Email Bombing Cyber Attacks

iPhone users worldwide, particularly in the United States and Western countries, are being warned about email bombing attacks. In these incidents, cybercriminals flood users’ inboxes with malicious content, leading to significant mental stress and frustration. These emails, often written in languages such as English, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian, may also contain malware capable of locking users out of their systems in no time.

Agence France Presse Targeted by Cyber Attack

Agence France Presse, the oldest news agency in France, has recently fallen victim to a cyber attack that appears to have subsided. However, the agency’s website remains under maintenance and is currently inaccessible. While some links are still down, IT teams are optimistic about restoring full functionality by the end of the week. Investigations are ongoing to determine whether the attack was ransomware-related or a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. Media organizations frequently face ransomware threats, as attackers often encrypt their databases until a ransom is paid.

Ireland to Monitor National Web Traffic

In a groundbreaking move, the Irish government plans to empower its National Cybersecurity Centre with additional authority to monitor web traffic generated within the country. This initiative represents one of the first official attempts at government-sponsored internet surveillance aimed at addressing national security threats.

Historically, in 2013, there were rumors that the Pentagon monitored all web traffic in the United States. However, further details emerged only after whistleblower Edward Snowden sought asylum in Russia, revealing extensive surveillance practices. Now, Ireland is poised to become the first nation to officially implement such monitoring of internet traffic.

Gmail to Suspend Service for Accounts Lacking Strong Security

Starting October 1, Google will suspend access to Gmail accounts that are only protected by a username and password. Users with such accounts will be locked out until they enable either multi-factor authentication or a passkey. This measure aims to enhance security and prevent unauthorized access to Gmail accounts.

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Ireland government has proclaimed that it is joining Microsoft Government Security Program (GSP) and so will be getting needed help in defending its country’s critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.

Thus the country will now on be able to access source code, much needed information on threats and early alerts on vulnerabilities on all Microsoft (MS) products and services.

Ossian Smyth, the Minister of State for Communication, eGovernance and Economy circulation has confirmed the news and reaffirmed the move to join in the GSP will help state’s digital infrastructure from all future threats arising in current cyber landscape.

NOTE 1- GSP is being offered by the American tech giant for people to trust in its products and services. It has participants from over 45 countries and international organizations representing around 90 agencies.

NOTE 2– In the year 2003, MS announced it is going to give its Windows source codes to nations, fearing any security concerns. Russia, along with NATO, joined hands and appreciated the Satya Nadella’s company for maintaining transparency.

NOTE- But because of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the software giant withdrew all its support to the Putin led nation, thus putting all the windows operating systems in nation in jeopardy. It has even announced that it will no longer support its products and services functioning in the Russian Federation and cancelled the membership of Moscow from GSP.

 

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Ireland Health Service (HSE) was cyber-attacked by CONTI Ransomware group in mid last year and news is now out that 80% of the data been stored on the servers of the healthcare services provider was encrypted by the said a gang of criminals.

A detailed probe launched by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says that the digital assault resulted in severe disruption of health services across Ireland and exposed about 750 GB of data related to COVID-19 vaccines. The criminals not only accessed the data but also sent the details to their remote servers operating in the Russian Federation.

A PDF linked to the probe was released to the media this week, and it states that the Conti gang infiltrated the computer networks of HSE in May 2021 by somehow evading the anti-malware solutions and the threat detection solutions.

Slowly and steadily the gang of notorious cyber criminals encrypted the IT environment of the HSE, leading to 80% of encryption within a few days’ time.

Conti ransomware gang provided a free decryption tool to Ireland’s health service department with a warning that they will sell or publish the stolen data if their demand of $20 million for ransom is ignored.

At the time of the incident, Micheal Martin, the Prime Minister of Ireland, warded off the news that the authorities will pay a ransom. He was adamant about the decision of not paying the ransom because it not only encourages crime but also doesn’t guarantee a decryption key for sure.

Unconfirmed reports from a security company titled VirusTotal stated that some criminal/s uploaded some classified data onto its scanning website that contained details such as email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, and physical addresses appearing to be stolen from Ireland’s National Health Care Network.

Ireland’s Government, based on the order of the Department of Justice, launched a probe into the incident and asked VirusTotal to submit the data for analysis.

And the result on whether the information truly belonged to HSE is awaited!

 

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