The European Parliament website has been taken down by a DDoS attack claimed by Anonymous Russia, a member of the pro-Russian hacktivist group Killnet.
The President of the European Parliament confirmed the event, saying that the Parliament’s ‘IT experts are pushing back against it and protecting our systems’.
The attack occurred after the European Parliament designated Russia a state sponsor of terrorism and members advocated that Russia be more isolated internationally.
An extensive survey conducted in Australia in 2021 revealed that one in ten respondents had been notified of a data breach within the previous twelve months, with roughly 28% of those respondents reporting that they had been a victim of identity theft. Data breaches were mainly due to data custodians being targeted by malicious actors, or to information held by these custodians being released due to human error. Significant relationships were also discovered between data breaches and online scams and fraud, and ransomware.
The Singapore-based research team, Group-IB, has identified 34 Russian cybercrime groups responsible for distributing info-stealing malware under the stealer-as-a-service model. The cybercriminals use this type of malware to target users of Steam, Roblox, and Amazon in 111 countries, obtaining user credentials stored in browsers, bank card details, and crypto wallet information from infected computers and selling them on the dark web. Group-IB estimates that more than 890,000 devices in 111 countries in the first seven months of 2022 have been infected. The five most attacked countries are the USA, Brazil, India, Germany, and Indonesia, while the estimated value of stolen credentials is around $5.8 million.
Australian children’s charity The Smith Family suffered a cyberattack, with hackers stealing confidential information about donors including their credit card details. While no evidence points to misuse of donor information as yet, similar breaches in recent times have proven early indications to be unreliable. Supporters have been told not to click on unknown links and to check with the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) for further advice. The incident has been reported to both the ACSC and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
The European Parliament has approved a set of rules, previously negotiated with the Council, to make the EU’s critical infrastructure more resilient. The legislation covers critical infrastructure sectors, including the digital infrastructure, creating stricter risk assessment rules and reporting for critical actors. In other words, ‘member states should adopt national resilience strategies, and cross-border communication should happen through designated single points of contact in each member state‘.
Kaspersky Security, a major security firm, has recently published its advanced threat predictions for 2023, identifying email servers and satellites as major cyberattack targets in the year 2023. The report states that 2023 will be characterised by destructive ‘cyberattacks of unprecedented gravity’ against governments, key industry providers, and high-profile civilian infrastructures. Another point of concern is the safety of underwater cables and fiber distribution hubs against physical attacks.
According to Clare O’Neil, Australian Home Affairs Minister, the country will adopt a more muscular approach to cyber defence in response to a wave of ransomware attacks against Australian firms. Measures will include ‘hacking the hackers’ as part of the country’s offensive cyber capability (OCC), and the general use of strategic ambiguity to strike at cybercriminals while crafting responses to attacks on government and business, especially those demanding a ransom. The government is reportedly considering outlawing the payment of ransoms to disrupt the cybercriminals’ business model.
In the USA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) have issued a cybersecurity advisory regarding an incident at a Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB). Having assessed that the FCEB network was compromised by Iranian government-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) actors, the two entities provided details on the actors’ tactics, techniques, and procedures. One of the findings was that the cyber threat actors exploited the Log4Shell vulnerability in an unpatched VMware Horizon server. As such, organisations with affected VMware systems that did not immediately apply available patches or workarounds were advised toto assume compromise and initiate threat-hunting activities.
During the 2022 G20 Summit hosted in Bali, Indonesia, the US President Biden, Indonesian President Widodo, and European Commission President Von der Leyen co-hosted a meeting of a group of G20 leaders to ‘demonstrate their shared commitment to deepen engagement under the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) to accelerate investment in quality infrastructure in low and middle income countries around the world and strengthen the global economy’. PGII – formally launched at the G7 in June 2022 – aims to support inclusive and sustainable development and benefit the partner countries’ economic security and global supply chains, among other goals.
During the meeting, President Biden announced a series of new projects, including a Trilateral Support for Digital Infrastructure in the Pacific (United States, Australia, and Japan). The project aims at supporting digital projects that will improve access to digital services and strengthen their security in the Pacific region.
Kaspersky, a cybersecurity company, has detected DTrack activity in Germany, Brazil, India, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the USA. The Lazarus group uses DTrack as a backdoor against a wide range of targets, allowing attackers to upload, download, launch, or delete files on the victim host. Education, chemical manufacturing, government research centres and policy institutes, IT service providers, power providers, and telecommunications are among the targeted industries.
