Cybersecurity Expert

A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, June 2020. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a sophisticated nation-state actor is causing increasing havoc by attacking the country’s government, corporate institutions, and his country's critical infrastructure operators . He said,  “We know it is a sophisticated state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting and the tradecraft used". While Morrison didn't actually name the specific country responsible in his statement, Reuters said its sources confirmed China was the culprit.  Political t ensions have ramped up between Australia and China in recent months after Australia called for an investigation into China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. China then reacted by placing tariffs on Australian exports and banning shipments of beef from Australia . Why am I leading a UK cyber...

A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, April 2020. As well reported, UK foreign exchange firm Travelex business operations were brought to a standstill after its IT systems were severely hit by the Sodinokibi ransomware at the start of the year. It was reported that  REvil group were behind the attack and had stolen 5Gbs of customer personal data, and then demanded $6 million (£4.6m) in ransom. The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2020 that Travelex had reached a deal, paying $2.3 million (£1.84m) in Bitcoin  to the cybercriminals. This sort of response incentivises future ransomware activity against all other businesses and could lead to an inflation of future cyber-extortion demands in my opinion. Cognizant, a US large digital solutions provider and IT consultancy, was reportedly  hit by the Maze ransomware .  Maze, previously known as the 'ChaCha...