Author name: Cymon

On 4 October Bloomberg published an article claiming that tiny microchips had been implanted in computer equipment manufactured for a US company in China, with the aim being to steal sensitive data or engage in cyber espionage activities.[1] The microchips were allegedly designed by the People’s Liberation Army before being placed – possibly via bribing […]

A lot of time and effort is spent trying to monitor and track some of the Darknet’s ‘key vendors’ – and for good reason. Top players on the underground constitute the most established, popular, reputable and highest-earning actors across a range of different marketplaces and forums. A plethora of different services and products are offered

This month has seen numerous developments in the malware environment, with APTs changing their tactics, various ransomware evolving rapidly, and Google continuing in its seeming inability to prevent malicious apps hitting the Play Store. The GandCrab ransomware was first detected in January of this year, but we are already onto version 5. This swiftly mutating

In recent months we have seen an increase in the number of damaging cyber attacks carried out by hacker groups believed to be affiliated with the Iranian state. For example, APT33, a group of hackers linked to the Iranian government, launched a large-scale spear-phishing campaign in July this year, targeting firms in the USA and

On 6 September 2018 British Airways (BA) announced that it had been hit by a cyber attack, resulting in data from around 380,000 booking transactions being stolen. The theft took place between 21 August and 5 September, with both personal and financial details of customers being compromised. When informing people affected by the compromise, BA

Detections of malicious apps continue to be a major problem for users of the Google Play Store. Whilst there is a vetting process in place, it seems malware are getting around them with techniques as simple as changing their registered developer name on the platform. This has meant that every day there are more detections

In recent months, following the furore over the activities of ‘Russian bots’ and their impact on the US presidential election, the Brexit referendum and indeed elections in a range of other western nations, Twitter has been taking a proactive approach to the problem, and has suspended more than 70 million fake accounts. The move followed

During the night of 13 – 14 August 2018, gangs of masked youths rampaged in towns across Sweden setting vehicles alight. According to some reports, more than 100 cars were burned in the country’s four major cities: Stockholm, Malmö, Gothenburg and Uppsala. By the following morning the police were already commenting on the role social

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) was forced to close several factories on 4 August 2018 after its systems were hit by a computer virus. TSMC, based in Hsinchu, Taiwan, manufactures Apple’s A11 processor that is used in the iPhone X; it is also producing the A12 processor for newer iPhone models that may be released