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, October 2020. London's Hackney Borough Council has been tight-lipped about "a serious cyber-attack" which took down its IT systems, impacting its service delivery to citizens. Providing scant information about the attack, but it does have all the hallmarks of a ransomware outbreak. The council says it is working with the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Ministry of Housing to investigate and understand the impact of the incident. Ransomware attacks continue to be a major blight for UK public services, with councils to hospitals struggling to defend their IT systems against ransomware. Earlier this year Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council said it had been hit by a ransomware attack, which cost it more than £10m. It looks like the ransomware will continue to pose a major threat to the UK for some time to c...

A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, September 2020. COVID-19 wasn't the only virus seriously disrupting the start of the new UK academic year, with ransomware plaguing a number of University and Colleges in September.  Newcastle University was reportedly hit by the 'DoppelPaymer' crime group , a group known for deploying malware to attack their victims, and behind leaking online documents from Elon Musk's SpaceX and Tesla companies. The northeast university reported a personal data breach to the UK Information Commissioner's Office after its stolen files were posted online, along with a Twitter threat to release further confidential student and staff data if a ransom payment was not paid. In a statement, the university said "i t will take several weeks" to address the issues, and that many IT services will not be operating during this period"...

A roundup of UK focused cyber and information security news stories, blog posts, reports and threat intelligence from the previous calendar month, January 2020. After years of dither and delay the UK government finally nailed its colours to the mast, no not Brexit but Huawei, permitting 'limited use' of the Chinese Telecoms giant's network appliances within the UK's new 5G infrastructure . Whether this is a good decision depends more on individual political persuasion than national security interest, so just like Brexit the general view on the decision is binary, either its a clever compromise or a complete sell out of UK national security. I personally believe the decision is more about national economics than national security, as I previously blogged in ' The UK Government Huawei Dilemma and the Brexit Factor' . The UK government is playing a delicate balancing to safeguard potentially massive trade deals with both of the world's largest economic superp...

A roundup of UK focused cyber and information security news stories, blog posts, reports and threat intelligence from the previous calendar month, December 2019. Happy New Year!  The final month of the decade was a pretty quiet one as major security news and data breaches go, given cybers attack have become the norm in the past decade. The biggest UK media security story was saved for the very end of 2019, with the freshly elected UK government apologising after it had accidentally published online the addresses of the 1,097 New Year Honour recipients.  Among the addresses posted were those of Sir Elton John, cricketer and BBC 'Sports Personality of the Year' Ben Stokes, former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, 'Great British Bakeoff Winner' Nadiya Hussain, and former Ofcom boss Sharon White.  The Cabinet Office said it was " looking into how this happened ", probably come down to a 'user error' in my view. An investigation by The Tim...