News

Company says data exfiltration was extremely difficult to detect

Fujitsu Japan says an unspecified "advanced" malware strain was to blame for a March data theft, insisting the strain was "not ransomware", yet it hasn't revealed how many individuals are affected.…

BlackByte, LockBit among the criminals using bespoke tools

As ransomware crews increasingly shift beyond just encrypting victims' files and demanding a payment to unlock them, instead swiping sensitive info straight away, some of the more mature crime organizations are developing custom malware for their data theft.…

Fixes have been made, it appears, but disclosure or discussion is invisible

Column  Found a bug? It turns out that reporting it with a story in The Register works remarkably well ... mostly. After publication of my "Kryptonite" article about a prompt that crashes many AI chatbots, I began to get a steady stream of emails from readers – many times the total of all reader emails I'd received in the previous decade.…

Freeware AutoIt also used to hide entire PowerShell environments in scripts

A rapidly-changing infostealer malware known as ViperSoftX has evolved to become more dangerous, according to security researchers at threat detection vendor Trellix.…

If someone can do a little MITM'ing and hash cracking, they can log in with no valid password needed

Cybersecurity experts at universities and Big Tech have disclosed a vulnerability in a common client-server networking protocol that allows snoops to potentially bypass user authentication via man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks.…

Citrix, SAP also deserve your attention – because miscreants are already thinking about Exploit Wednesday

Patch Tuesday  Clear your Microsoft system administrator's diary: The bundle of fixes in Redmond's July Patch Tuesday is a doozy, with at least two bugs under active exploitation.…

RT News snarks back after it's accused of building social nyet-work for Kremlin

The FBI and cybersecurity agencies in Canada and the Netherlands say they have taken down an almost 1,000-strong Twitter bot farm set up by Russian state-run RT News that used generative AI to spread disinformation to Americans and others.…

Understanding the power needs of the UK begins with knowing when renewals are due

Certificate Watch  Demonstrating that Microsoft is not alone in its inability to keep track of certificates is UK power market biz Elexon.…

Making cyberattack among the largest ever recorded in finance industry

Evolve Bank & Trust says the data of more than 7.6 million customers was stolen during the LockBit break-in in late May, per a fresh filing with Maine's attorney general.…

Fairly 'low budget', unsophisticated malware, say researchers, but it can collect the same data as Pegasus

Interview  When it comes to surveillance malware, sophisticated spyware with complex capabilities tends to hog the limelight – for example NSO Group's Pegasus, which is sold to established governments. But it's actually less polished kit that you've never heard of, like GuardZoo – developed and used by Houthi rebels in Yemen – that dominates the space.…

Google's absence creates software distribution issues not even mighty Microsoft can handle

Microsoft China will provide staff with Apple devices so they can log on to the software giant's systems.…

Scum keep databases of the people they've already skimmed

Australia's Competition and Consumer Commission has warned that scammers are targeting scam victims with fake offers to help them recover from scams.…

Lax patching and vulnerable small biz kit make life easy for Beijing's secret-stealers

Law enforcement agencies from eight nations, led by Australia, have issued an advisory that details the tradecraft used by China-aligned threat actor APT40 – aka Kryptonite Panda, GINGHAM TYPHOON, Leviathan and Bronze Mohawk – and found it prioritizes developing exploits for newly found vulnerabilities and can target them within hours.…

Injecting Copilot branding will not make TLS certificates auto-renew

Another Microsoft certificate has expired, leaving SwiftKey users that are seeking support faced with an alarming certificate error.…

Good riddance to another pesky tribe of miscreants

Updated  Researchers at Avast have provided decryptors to DoNex ransomware victims on the down-low since March after discovering a flaw in the crims' cryptography, the company confirmed today.…

How to get ready for the future of digital identity in the European Union from eIDAS 1.0 to eIDAS 2.0 and beyond

Partner Content  : Opening a bank account, making or receiving a payment, instructing an accountant or booking a doctor's appointment. These everyday tasks depend on identity, either proving who you are or verifying who you're dealing with.…

Vietnam now requires it for some purchases. It may be a fraud risk in Singapore. Or ML could be making it safe

The use of selfies to verify identity online is an emerging trend in some parts of the world since the pandemic forced more business to go digital. Some banks – and even governments – have begun requiring live images over Zoom or similar in order to participate in the modern economy. The question must be asked, though: is it cyber smart?…

Also: F1 authority breached; Prudential victim count skyrockets; a new ransomware actor appears; and more

security in brief  It's been a week of bad cyber security revelations for OpenAI, after news emerged that the startup failed to report a 2023 breach of its systems to anybody outside the organization, and that its ChatGPT app for macOS was coded without any regard for user privacy.…

Plus: Samsung strike; India likely upping chip subsidies; Asian nations link payment schemes

Asia In Brief  Mt Gox, the Japanese crypto exchange that dominated trading for a brief time in the early 2010s before collapsing amid the disappearance of nearly half a billion dollars worth of the digicash, likely as a result of its own shoddy software, has said it will start to repay some investors – in Bitcoin.…

Mozilla shows guts with its extensions – but that's the way the Cook, he crumbles

Updated  At least two VPNs are no longer available for Russian iPhone users, seemingly after the Kremlin's internet regulatory agency Roskomnadzor demanded Apple take them down.…