Mercenary advanced persistent threat (APT) groups, sometimes called “hackers-for-hire” – and dubbed private-sector offensive actors (PSOAs) by Microsoft – have become a significant part of the threat landscape in recent years. These cyber-soldiers of fortune have been executing increasing numbers of attack campaigns for their clients, usually nation-states, that are looking for surveillance capabilities. Not …
Until recently, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) remained a strong bloc of the six Gulf nations of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Since its inception in 1981, it has been regarded as the only effective political and economic alliance in the Arab world. However, on 5 June 2017, …
COVID-19 Cybersecurity Update Internet and cloud providers have been challenged to reliably handle increased traffic and bandwidth strain due to the sudden shift to remote working. Between March and April, there was a 17 per cent increase in the number of DDoS attacks from the previous peak (in 2019), with over 864,000 DDoS attacks observed …
Geopolitical and Cybersecurity Weekly – 11 May 2020 Read More »
COVID-19 cybersecurity update In the face of the continuing coronavirus pandemic, individual cybercriminals and groups have re-geared their operations to use coronavirus lures. Recent research revealed a 148 per cent month-on-month increase in ransomware attacks from February to March, alongside a spike in attacks on financial institutions. Over a dozen state-sponsored threat groups have been …
Geopolitical and Cybersecurity Weekly – 27 April 2020 Read More »
COVID-19 Cybersecurity Update COVID-19 continues to dominate the cybersecurity landscape with several national security bodies releasing warnings about scams and malicious operations using the pandemic as a lure. US-CERT, CISA, and the UK NCSC issued a joint security advisory outlining an increase in COVID-19-related themes in SMiShing, phishing for credential theft, and malware delivery. The …
The global coronavirus pandemic has spread rapidly, triggering a deluge of disinformation and misinformation. It is worth defining the two terms before progressing because they are often confused and conflated. Disinformation refers to content that is intentionally false and designed to cause harm. Misinformation is inaccurate or misleading content shared by someone that believes it …
Misinformation, disinformation and the COVID-19 infodemic Read More »
Check out the podcast on our YouTube channel – here. Iran Iran dominated the headlines at the beginning of January after a US drone strike killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani. In the immediate aftermath of the strike, the media, numerous cybersecurity vendors, and even various governments warned of swift retaliation from Iran: World War …
Cyjax Geopolitical Podcast – January 2020 – The Blog Read More »
