Cybersecurity Expert

A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, August 2020. Taking security training courses and passing certification exams are common ingredients in the makeup of the vast majority of accomplished cybersecurity and information security professionals. As such, two security incidents last month raised more than just a surprising eyebrow or two within the UK security industry.  The first involved the renown and well respected United States security training company, The SANS Institue , announcing that a successful email phishing attack against one of its employees resulted in 28,000 personal records being stolen .  SANS classified this compromise as "consent phishing", namely where an employee is tricked into providing malicious Microsoft Office 365 OAuth applications access to their O365 accounts. In June 2020,  Microsoft warned 'consent phishing' scams were targetin...

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...

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...