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This week has had many significant cyber security incidents, with one of the biggest attacks Hungary has seen and a major business email compromise in which the hackers were able to steal $15 million. Keep reading to find out more about this week's biggest stories.
A significant Business Email Compromise (BEC) has been discovered, so far at least 150 organisations have been affected with over $15 million stolen. The criminals were monitoring email communications between a corporate buyer and seller, and at the last minute, stepped in to impersonate the seller, sending over new wire payment instructions. According to the FBI, BECs cost global organisations $1.8 billion in 2019.
One of US's largest healthcare providers was affected by a cyber-attack. Universal Health Services (UHS) operates around 400 hospitals, facilities, and ambulatory centres. They announced on Monday that its IT network across all its facilities was down due to a security issue. The issue was still being resolved throughout the week, in a statement late on Tuesday UHS said they were making "steady progress with recovery". Reports from UHS and employees lead to this being a ransomware attack, although no formal statement has been made.
Google removed 17 apps from its Play Store that were infected with the Joker malware. The Joker malware is a malicious code camouflaged as a system app and allows attackers to perform a broad range of malicious operations, including disabling the Google Play Protect service, installing malicious apps, generating fake reviews, and showing ads.
DDoS attacks are on the rise with one of the latest attacks targeting Hungarian banks and telecommunication services over the weekend. One of the telecoms companies stated that the volume of data traffic in the attack was ten times higher than the amount usually seen in DDoS events with the attack launched from servers in Russia, China and Vietnam. It is said that the attack is one of the most significant hacker attacks Hungary has seen.
More updates from the Blackbaud ransomware attack were revealed this week. The attack affected many organisations back in May. Not only was the incident not disclosed until two months later, but Blackbaud also paid the ransomware which goes against the advice of many law enforcement agencies. It has been announced that some customers bank account information may have been stolen during the attack, even though Blackbaud had previously denied this.
This month marks the 17th Cyber Security Awareness Month with the theme this year being #BeCyberSmart. You can find a variety of free tools, such as a password exposure test, to check if your employees are smart with their password choices here:
