X-Industry

A recent Chainalysis report indicates that 2024 is set to be the highest-grossing year for ransomware payments.  2023 is the current record holder in that regard, surpassing the $1 billion dollar mark, which was an interesting development given the significant decline in ransomware payments that occurred in 2022.  In the chart we have below, we can see a clear trendline indicating an increasing trend since 2019.  In hindsight, it may be more useful to view 2022 as an anomaly.  The mid-year total

The Oregon Zoo in Portland, OR, one of the state's top tourist attractions, has announced a data breach that may have exposed the payment card information of more than 117,000 visitors.  The zoo discovered suspicious activity within its online ticketing service on 26 June 2024, as stated in a notice sent to affected individuals. An investigation subsequently determined that an unauthorized actor had been redirecting customer transactions from the third-party vendor processing online ticket purch

Cyberattacks on railway systems have increased by more than 200 percent in the last five years, with incidents increasing worldwide over the last decade.

"We've seen a 220% increase in railway-associated cyberattacks over the last five years," said Col. Cedric Leighton, CNN Military Analyst; USAF (Ret.); Chairman, Cedric Leighton Associates, LLC. "In fact, over a 10-year period, we've seen cyber incidents impacting railway systems in countries as diverse as Belgium, France, Poland, the Czech Rep

The introduction of Generative AI (GenAI) promises unprecedented innovation and efficiency across industries.  From automating routine tasks to enhancing decision-making processes, GenAI is transforming the business landscape.  However, as with many groundbreaking technologies, it introduces a new spectrum of cybersecurity risks that must be diligently managed.  Understanding and mitigating these risks is crucial for businesses seeking to harness the power of GenAI while safeguarding their asset

FortiGuard Labs recently encountered an ongoing ValleyRAT campaign specifically targeting Chinese speakers.  This malware has historically targeted e-commerce, finance, sales, and management enterprises.  ValleyRAT is a multi-stage malware that utilizes diverse techniques to monitor and control its victims and deploy arbitrary plugins to cause further damage.  Another noteworthy characteristic of this malware is its heavy usage of shellcode to execute its many components directly in memory, sign

The potential for artificial intelligence (AI) humanoid robots in factories and stores is debated among experts on the future of work and commerce.  While companies explore humanoid robots for tasks from assembly to customer service, opinions vary widely on their adoption rate and implications.  The consensus among experts leans toward gradual integration rather than rapid revolution, with key challenges in technology development, workforce adaptation, and customer acceptance still to be overcom

As the US National Elections are coming quickly, all US eyes are on Russia and Iran to watch for an increase of cyber-attacks, aimed at the election process.  Russia remains the top source of troll networks disrupted on Facebook and Instagram, with Iran close behind, according to a threat report by social media giant Meta.  The company’s latest quarterly review, released on Thursday, states it has disrupted 39 covert influence operations originating in Russia since 2017, followed by 30 from Iran

Russia's Kursk region was hit by a “massive” distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on 15 August amid Ukraine’s surprise cross-border incursion, Kursk state officials said in a statement.  The unnamed hackers targeted government and business websites, as well as critical infrastructure services, making some of them temporarily unavailable, state media reported.

Data shared by Internet monitoring service NetBlocks shows “sporadic disruptions to internet connectivity in and around Kursk,” lik

AutoCanada https://www.autocan.ca  a major Canadian car dealership, this week disclosed a cyberattack that may result in some disruptions. The incident was discovered on 11 August 2024, and it impacted some internal IT systems, the company reported.

See:  https://redskyalliance.org/xindustry/north-american-auto-dealers-impacted

“Immediately upon detecting the incident, AutoCanada took action to safeguard its network and data. This included engaging with leading cybersecurity experts to assist us

Security researchers at Palo Alto Networks have spotted a threat actor extorting organizations after compromising their cloud environments using inadvertently exposed environment variables. As part of the large-scale extortion campaign, Palo Alto Networks warned that the attackers targeted 110,000 domains through exposed .env files containing sensitive information, which were stored on unsecured web applications and misconfigured servers.  These .env files allow organizations to define configura

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has disclosed that threat actors are abusing the legacy Cisco Smart Install (SMI) feature to access sensitive data.  The agency said it has seen adversaries "acquire system configuration files by leveraging available protocols or software on devices, such as abusing the legacy Cisco Smart Install feature."  It also said it continues to observe weak passwords used on Cisco network devices, thereby exposing them to password-cracking at

Microsoft was anxious to put generative AI at the heart of its systems.  Ask a question about an upcoming meeting, and the company’s Copilot AI system can pull answers from your emails, Teams chats, and files, a potential productivity boon.  However, these exact processes can also be abused by hackers.   On 08 August 2024, at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, researcher Michael Bargury demonstrated five proof-of-concept ways that Copilot, which runs on its Microsoft 365 apps, such

Cyber-spies suspected of connections with China have infected "dozens" of computers belonging to Russian government agencies and IT providers with backdoors and trojans since late July, according to Kaspersky.  The Russia-based security biz claimed the malware used in the ongoing, targeted attacks, called EastWind, has links to two China-nexus groups tracked as APT27 and APT31. 

After gaining initial access to their victims' devices via phishing emails, the attackers used various cloud services

The phrase “practice makes perfect” is usually reserved for humans, but it is also a great maxim for robots newly deployed in unfamiliar environments.  Think of a robot arriving in a warehouse. It comes packaged with the skills it was trained in, like placing an object, and now it needs to pick items from a shelf it is not familiar. At first, the machine struggles with this, since it needs to get acquainted with its new surroundings. To improve, the robot will need to understand which skills wit

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has taken a pioneering step in the realm of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity by appointing its first Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer, and it is not a computer, Lisa Einstein.  This position, announced on 01 August 2024, underscores the growing importance of AI in national security and sets a precedent that other organizations may soon follow.

Einstein has served as CISA's Senior Advisor for AI since 2023 and as the Exe

A massive data leak exposed 1.4 billion Tencent user accounts. The data includes emails, phone numbers, and QQ IDs potentially linked to the “Mother of All Breaches” (MOAB).

A threat actor named “Fenice” has leaked 1.4 billion user accounts, which they claim belong to Tencent (Tencent.com), a Chinese internet giant and technology company.

Tencent is widely recognized for its diverse services, including social networks, music streaming, web portals, e-commerce, mobile games, internet services, pa

X has had its own AI chatbot, Grok, for a while, but it would be fair to say it's not mentioned in the same way that OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google Gemini are.  That's not for the want of trying, though, and with a huge user base of X users providing data for the model, a new version was always expected.

Now, the obviously-named Grok-2 has entered beta.  In a new blog post, X says it represents "a significant step forward from our previous model Grok-1.5, featuring frontier capabilities in chat, cod

A US federal judge ruled on 05 August 2024 that Google violated antitrust laws as it built its Internet search business. The decision might have major implications for the way people use the Internet. The court ruled that payments to make Google the default search engine on other browsers broke US antitrust rules, enabling Google to become a monopoly. The court further ruled that Google had acted illegally to suppress its competition and maintain a monopoly on online search and related highly lu

As part of ongoing growth and digital transformation, many enterprises encounter the challenge of managing the exposures that come with integrating managed assets, BYOD policies, cloud resources, shadow IT, and IoT devices. Each of these new technologies introduces their own set of vulnerabilities and potential entry points for malicious actors, adding to the complexity of maintaining a robust security posture.

In this kind of fragmented environment, security teams have a harder time gaining a c

With the general election a few months away and presidential candidates aggressively fundraising before Election Day, election-related scams are likely to become increasingly common, according to Thomas Dearden, an associate professor of sociology at Virginia Tech.  Because political donations increase at this time of an election year, it’s an opportune time for scammers to take advantage, he said.  “This is one of those ways that they can develop illegitimate opportunities to donate,” Dearden s