First is the news about the compromise of a SAS network as hackers disrupted Scandinavian airlines computer network and accessed information related to thousands of customers. Karin Nyman, the in-charge spokesperson of SAS, stated that his company was working on remediating the effects of the digital attack and urged customers to stay away from the mobile app for now.
Second is the news that seems to be more interesting as a new hacking group from India has been discovered by the security researchers of Group-IB and the threat actors gang is named as “Side Winder”.
According to the experts of the Singapore-based cybersecurity firm the group of threat actors are from India and were super active between June and November 2021, thus attacking government, military and law enforcement organizations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
Currently, there is no evidence that SideWinder aka Rattlesnake, Hardcore Nationalist and T-APT4 have any links to the Indian military or the government. However, as evidenced, the cyber threat group has so far managed to hack into the networks of over 71 organizations from different parts of Asia and, for now, seem to be primarily ignoring firms operating in the west for some specific reason.
Third is the news related to CLOP ransomware gang that has mass attacked 130 organizations in January this year. One such target is a US hospital network of Community Health Systems (CHS) having a network chain of 80 hospitals in 16 states. Investigations reveal hackers infiltrated the hospital network to steal personal records of over 1 million patients and the hack occurred when hackers exploited a zero-day flaw hidden on the file transfer software named GoAnyWhere MFT, developed by Fortra.
Fourth is the news related to a China sponsored hacking gang that started targeting South American diplomats through a ShadowPad Trojan known as PoisonPlug. Microsoft Threat analysis team discovered the campaign taken up by Dev-0147 treat team and confirmed that the criminals are interested in breaching database related to government agencies, NGOs and think tanks functioning in Europe and Asia for now.
Fifth is the news related to a report compiled by Kaspersky. The cybersecurity firm headquartered in Russia has concluded that 14% of Americans have witnessed ransomware attacks on schools while their children were studying. The study also covered that while the parent’s child was a student, the victimized schools made a ransom payment of $887,360 on an average and in the year 2021 was recorded as $996,000, witnessing a jump of 9%.
Sixth is the news related to an emergency declared because of a ransomware attack on the city government of Oakland, California. The security breach took place on February 8th of this year and the attack could witness a delay in dispatch of emergency responders like 911 and fire services.
Last but not the least is the news related to Chinese devices being used in London. According to Fraser Sampson, of the UK, almost all the devices and drones manufactured in Beijing and being operated by Britain’s police forces should be labeled as spying machines. Meaning, the politicians and think tanks of Britain should be more worried about the devices operating just 7-8 feet above their heads, rather than focusing on flying objects in the sky.
Now the big question- is the technology improving our lives or making it more complicated?
