Cybersecurity Expert

A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, November 2020. Manchester United FC remains impacted by a seemly major cyber-attack, which I covered in a blog post titled  The Multi-Million Pound Manchester United Hack . At this point, United have provided few details about their cyber-attack which has been impacting club's IT systems for well over a week. However, the UK media are widely reporting United's leaky IT defences was unable to prevent a ransomware attack and data theft.   London's Hackney Borough Council have also been tight-lipped about what they describe as " a serious cyber-attack "  which has impacted its service delivery to Londoners. Like United, this attack has all the hallmarks of a mass ransomware outbreak. Both Manchester United and Hacknet Council said they are working UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). Man.Utd hit by ransomware, w...

Earlier this year I wrote a blog post about the Manchester City Billion Pound Hack , which explored cyberattacks within elite football. Now it is the turn of City big rivals Manchester United, after they reported their IT systems had been impacted by a cyber-attack , widely reported in the UK media as a cyber-extortion attack. In the last couple of years, cybercriminals have significantly ramped up efforts in targeting UK businesses with cyber extortion attacks, using ransomware malware and confidential data theft to leverage their victims into paying large ransom payments anonymously in Bitcoin. Many businesses have been quick to pay out ransoms after their operations ground to halt due to their IT systems being rendered unusable due to ransomware, and also to avoid dumping their confidential data on the internet by the cybercriminals.   In July 2020 the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) specially warned that cybercriminals were targeting UK sports teams with ransomwar...

A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, July 2020. The standout hack of July 2020, and possibly of the year, was the takeover of 45 celebrity Twitter accounts, in a bid to scam their millions of followers by requesting Bitcoin  in tweets.  Scam Tweet The high-profile Twitter accounts compromised included  Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Kanye West, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Kim Kardashian, and Joe Biden. Around £80,000 of Bitcoin was sent to the scammer's Bitcoin account before Twitter swiftly took action by deleting the scam tweets and blocking every 'blue tick' verified Twitter user from tweeting, including me .  While the Twitter hack and scam dominated media headlines around the world, the attack was not the 'highly sophisticated cyber-attack' as reported by many media outlets, but it was certainly bold and clever. The attackers phoned Tw...

A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, February 2020. Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council became the latest UK organisation to become the victim of a mass ransomware attack  which started on 8th February.  The north-east Council's servers, PCs, mobile devices, websites and even phone lines have been down for three weeks at the time of writing. A Redcar and Cleveland councillor told the Guardian it would take several months to recover and the cost is expected to between £11m and £18m to repair the damage done . A significant sum for the cash-strapped council, which confirmed their outage as ransomware caused 19 days after the attack. The strain of ransomware involved and the method initial infiltration into the council's IT systems has yet to be confirmed. The  English FA shut down its investigation into allegations Liverpool employees hacked into Manchester ...

The sport of football is a multi-billion-pound global industry, where the world's top-drawer football clubs push competitive advantages to the extreme, not just for the prestige of winning trophies, as success on the pitch also means a greater slice of jaw-dropping TV, sponsorship and advertising revenues.  The key commodity in the football industry are football players, elite talent players command transfer fees up to 100 times their weight in gold and receive millions a year in wages.  Investing in recruiting the best football players increases the likelihood of winning matches, titles and lucrative financial rewards. The competition for success is especially fierce between Europe's largest football clubs. This is leading to ever-inflating player transfer fees and wages, rippling downwards throughout football's global pyramid of leagues, with many clubs gambling with financial outlays on recruiting player talent, in hope of achieving the financial rewards which succes...