Cyber Defense Advisors

Year: 2024

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  • November 15, 2024

Bitfinex Hacker Sentenced to 5 Years, Guilty of Laundering $10.5 Billion in Bitcoin

Ilya Lichtenstein, who pleaded guilty to the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency stock exchange Bitfinex, has been sentenced to five years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Thursday. Lichtenstein was charged for his involvement in a money laundering scheme that led to the theft of nearly 120,000 bitcoins (valued at over $10.5 billion […]

Cyber News
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  • November 15, 2024

CISA Flags Two Actively Exploited Palo Alto Flaws; New RCE Attack Confirmed

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday warned that two more flaws impacting the Palo Alto Networks Expedition software have come under active exploitation in the wild. To that end, it has added the vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to apply the […]

Cyber News
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  • November 15, 2024

An Interview With the Target & Home Depot Hacker

In December 2023, KrebsOnSecurity revealed the real-life identity of Rescator, the nickname used by a Russian cybercriminal who sold more than 100 million payment cards stolen from Target and Home Depot between 2013 and 2014. Moscow resident Mikhail Shefel, who confirmed using the Rescator identity in a recent interview, also admitted reaching out because he […]

Cyber News
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  • November 14, 2024

Experts Uncover 70,000 Hijacked Domains in Widespread ‘Sitting Ducks’ Attack Scheme

Multiple threat actors have been found taking advantage of an attack technique called Sitting Ducks to hijack legitimate domains for using them in phishing attacks and investment fraud schemes for years. The findings come from Infoblox, which said it identified nearly 800,000 vulnerable registered domains over the past three months, of which approximately 9% (70,000) […]

Cyber News
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  • November 14, 2024

ShrinkLocker ransomware: what you need to know

What is ShrinkLocker? ShrinkLocker is a family of ransomware that encrypts an organisation’s data and demands a ransom payment in order to restore access to their files. It was first identified by security researchers in May 2024, after attacks were observed in Mexico, Indonesia, and Jordan. So far, so normal. What makes it noteworthy? The […]

Cyber News
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  • November 14, 2024

Google Warns of Rising Cloaking Scams, AI-Driven Fraud, and Crypto Schemes

Google has revealed that bad actors are leveraging techniques like landing page cloaking to conduct scams by impersonating legitimate sites. “Cloaking is specifically designed to prevent moderation systems and teams from reviewing policy-violating content which enables them to deploy the scam directly to users,” Laurie Richardson, VP and Head of Trust and Safety at Google, […]

Cyber News
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  • November 14, 2024

5 BCDR Oversights That Leave You Exposed to Ransomware

Ransomware isn’t just a buzzword; it’s one of the most dreaded challenges businesses face in this increasingly digitized world. Ransomware attacks are not only increasing in frequency but also in sophistication, with new ransomware groups constantly emerging. Their attack methods are evolving rapidly, becoming more dangerous and damaging than ever. Almost all respondents (99.8%) in […]

Cyber News
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  • November 14, 2024

IT specialist Jack Teixeira jailed for 15 years after leaking classified military documents on Discord

Jack Teixeira, the 22-year-old former Air National Guardsman who leaked hundreds of classified documents online, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Teixeira, who served as an IT specialist at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, was arrested in April 2023 after abusing his privileged position to share highly-sensitive documents with friends he […]

Cyber News
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  • November 14, 2024

New iOS Security Feature Makes It Harder for Police to Unlock Seized Phones

Everybody is reporting about a new security iPhone security feature with iOS 18: if the phone hasn’t been used for a few days, it automatically goes into its “Before First Unlock” state and has to be rebooted. This is a really good security feature. But various police departments don’t like it, because it makes it […]

Cyber News