Ransomware groups keep mega-corporations in the crosshairs as their ever-evolving extortion techniques help them pocket hefty ransoms. A world-leading chemical distribution company discreetly paid millions in ransom, whereas a national health service in Ireland was at sea after ransomware attackers left no ransom note for them. In a welcome move, U.K. announced free access to a cyber threat warning service for all businesses. With this, let’s dive in to brush through the key highlights in the cybersecurity landscape from the past 24 hours.
01
Brenntag disclosed being hit by the DarkSide ransomware, for which it paid a $4.4 million ransom in Bitcoin to obtain a decryptor for encrypted files.
02
Ireland’s Health Service Executive, which also runs its COVID-19 vaccination program, had to temporarily bring its IT systems offline owing to a ransomware attack.
03
An internal error at Manchester City Council laid bare personal data, including number plates of over 60,000 cars slapped with parking tickets.
04
FireEye revealed that DarkSide’s DarkNet website is no longer accessible by its owners and their cryptocurrency was transferred to an unknown wallet. The DarkSide group was behind the recent attack on a critical U.S. gasoline pipeline.
05
Experts are looking into a security incident at the European subsidiaries of Toshiba Tec Group that led to a network disconnect between Japan and Europe, to mitigate the impact.
06
The U.K’s NCSC announced that all the businesses in the country would get free access to Early Warning, a newly launched cyber-threat warning service.
07
Penn State researchers developed a new cybersecurity device—using graphene— called a Physically Unclonable Function to make encrypted keys harder to break.
08
QNAP alerted its customers against Roon Server zero-day bug and eCh0raix ransomware attacks aimed at their NAS devices.
09
Cloud-native application security company Snyk acquired FossID, a software composition analysis tool that scans code for open source licenses and vulnerabilities.
10
Fidelis Cybersecurity, an extended detection and response (XDR) solution provider, acquired cloud security vendor CloudPassage to expand its portfolio.
