Luminate Education Group (LEG) based in Leeds experienced a cyber attack on August 11, 2020 resulting in severe disruption to the digital operations of the educational institute. And the incident is said to have delayed the announcement of students A-Level and GCSE results. And the impacted colleges include Leeds City College, Harrogate College, Keighley College, and University Center Leeds.
LEG announced that its IT staff are working closely with the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), Cyber Crime Unit from the National Crime Agency and the Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) to find out the culprits behind the attack.
Coming to the second news, reports are in that vulnerability in Team Viewer app could make hackers steals passwords and other sensitive details by pursuing them to access fraudulent websites where details such as passwords can be harvested. And unconfirmed sources say that the hackers could take control of the app by exploiting a vulnerability dubbed CVE-2020-13699 in Windows operating system that allows the bad guys to perform activities like file transfer, desktop sharing and web conferencing.
Third, security researchers from Avast have discovered security vulnerabilities in two of the most popular TV set- top boxes, leaving the users exposed to cyber attacks. Thomson THT741FTA and Phillips DTR3502BFTA are the two devices that contain flaws that could allow the threat actors to access the devices remotely, allowing them to spread malware like ransomware to the devices and the TVs accessing content through them.
As these two set-top boxes are purchased by those who do not have DVB T2 support and are shipped through open telnet ports, the communication on this protocol often remains unencrypted allowing the hackers to sneak into the protocol and launch cyber attacks ranging from Ransomware to DDoS via Botnets.
Both the companies offering the set-top boxes have taken a note of the situation and have agreed to release a fix to the Linux Kernel 3.10.23 soon.
The fourth news that is trending on Google is a warning issued by FBI to all US organizations doing business in China. The law enforcement agency has issued a warning that some cyber crime units are trying to attempt to remotely target some company servers through a malware hidden in Tax software.
As Chinese domestic banks have pressurized foreign companies to use either Aisino or Baiwang VAT tax software for doing financial transactions on their soil, researchers from Trustwave have discovered that the software has a backdoor dubbed as GoldenSpy that could allow cyber crooks to sneak into a network.
And as soon as FBI alerted the firms about the cyber alert issued by Trustwave- related to the backdoor flaw, the said taxing software firms reportedly released an uninstaller crafted to delete any trace of the backdoor.
Fifthly, news is out that FBI has started an investigation after learning about a data breach from the media related to the leak of sensitive information about the patients infected with COVID 19 in South Dakota region.
According to a source from the law enforcement, officials are investigating about the breach that took place in June this year from a portal “Netsential.com, Inc” meant to be used by a 3rd party.
