According to Perception Point’s 2023 Annual Report: Cybersecurity Trends & Insights report, researchers observed a 356% growth in the number of advanced phishing attacks attempted by threat actors with the total number of attacks increasing by 87% in 2022. Also, password-protected malware saw a trend in 2022, with attackers using encryption to protect their payloads and evade detection. Possibly correlating to the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in March attacks increased tenfold to that of the February and then in October the numbers tripled that of September. Furt ..read more

In 2018 Twitter joined a list of tech companies, social media services, and other organizations to abide by a voluntary Code of Practice on Disinformation. However as of Friday, Twitter has decided to opt out of this. TechCrunch has the details: In a tweet last night — which confirmed earlier reports of Twitter’s impending exit from the EU Code— Breton issued the social media platform with a blunt warning: Telling Twitter it cannot hide from incoming legal liability in this area. “Twitter leaves EU voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation. But obligations rema ..read more

A group of hackers are holding the city of Augusta Ga. hostage via a ransomware attack: Addressing an outage that’s crippled city of Augusta computer systems all week, Mayor Garnett Johnson said Friday the city isn’t in contact with hackers who say they’re holding the city’s data hostage. Although a cybercrime group has claimed responsibility for a cyber-attack, Johnson said the city has gotten no ransom demand. “At this time, Augusta is not in communication with this group,” he said. He said the outage was definitely due to an “unauthorized actor,” however. Bleeping Computer says that BlackBy ..read more

Zyxel is warning customers of two critical-severity vulnerabilities in several of its firewall and VPN products. Unpatched, a threat actor could leverage the vulnerability without authentication. Here are the vulnerabilities: CVE-2023-33009 A buffer overflow vulnerability in the notification function in some firewall versions could allow an unauthenticated attacker to cause denial-of-service (DoS) conditions and even a remote code execution on an affected device.  CVE-2023-33010 A buffer overflow vulnerability in the ID processing function in some firewall versions could allow a ..read more

The next generation of high performance, innovative and smart 4K televisions from Hisense have arrived in Canada. Hisense introduced its new ULED series featuring innovative Mini LEDs earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Hisense TVs that boast this premium technology are now arriving at Canadian retailers, with options across the budget spectrum.  Hisense Mini LED backlighting technology combined with Full-Array Local Dimming is engineered for high brightness levels with vibrant and accurate colour reproduction,” says Puneet Jain, Senior Director and Head o ..read more

I am of two minds on this on. I can’t decide if this is another attempt by Elon Musk to grab as much cash as he can. Or if Elon is trying to cover up how much of a racist, sexist, homophobic train wreck next to a dumpster fire it it. Either way, The Independent is reporting that Elon wants academics who got data from Twitter to either delete it, or pay him $42K a month: An email, seen by the i, says researchers who don’t sign the new contract “will need to expunge all Twitter data stored and cached in your systems”. Researchers will be required to post screenshots “that showcase evidence ..read more

A new study by Proofpoint researchers found that Advanced persistent threat (APT) actors are increasingly using vulnerable regional managed service providers (MSPs) to leverage attacks on the small and medium-sized businesses (SMB’s) they service. Once through the MSP’s defenses, the attackers are feeding off of the less well defended SMB’s for financial gain. The report published this week found that the state aligned actors from Russia, Iran and North Korea were increasingly using this supply chain approach to breach SMB’s defenses. Proofpoint: “Regional MSPs often protect hundreds ..read more

Earlier this year, news came out that TELUS might have been the victim of a cyberattack. Here’s what was said to be out in the wild at the time: Canada’s second-largest telecom, TELUS is investigating a potential data breach after a threat actor shared samples online of what appears to be employee data. The threat actor subsequently posted screenshots that apparently show private source code repositories and payroll records held by the company. At the time, TELUS said that they were investigating this. And today we have the results of that investigation: We have concluded our in ..read more

While there’s always a new malware of the moment, Snake Malware, which is associated with Russian hackers affiliated to FSB is one that you might want to be concerned about. The CISA are so concerned about it that they have put out an advisory on this malware. And when you read the technical description on this malware, it should make you re-evaluate your defences. Kevin Bocek, VP,Ecosystem and Community at Venafi had this comment on Snake: “According to more information released about the Snake Ransomware uncovered by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this month, cybercriminals ..read more

Public Mobile has launched Canada’s first 5G subscription phone service, offering Canadians the unique opportunity to experience mobility differently on an award-winning network. Different from traditional postpaid and prepaid plans, Public Mobile’s subscription service offers a number of features and benefits: For the first time ever, Public Mobile customers have the ability to access premium 5G wireless service, backed by an award-winning wireless network. The ability to choose between a monthly or 90-day subscription, the speed plan and premium features (like unlimited data) that best fits ..read more