Cybercrime

1
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Cybercrime is a growing challenge both for governments and private companies, data breaches are increasing fast. Which ones have the biggest experience based on your experience and on this area? Spyware, ransomware, trojan, worm, botnet, rootkit? Please feel free to point out other ones.

Cyber-security
Cybersecurity
Malware Analysis
Paolo Beffagnotti
75 months ago

17 answers

3

A hospital paid that because they don't have a good virtual environment in place to do a hot restore in Veeam or even a regular restore in a quick way. Imagine a virus that propagates to all PCs and servers in different ways that many AVs cannot adapt to and it locks out admin accounts. MUCH more of a threat than knowing your enemy.

Mark Mancini
75 months ago
Correct, the in a quick way was the issue in this specific case. Even if they had a quick resstore method and the technical side wasn't an issue Ransomware is still a large potential issue for Hospitals as it could fall under a reportable breach under HIPAA, but that's more a legal question that each organization would need to determine. - Robert 75 months ago
These bad guys are earning millions of $ with these attacks, just looking at these for the last months there are several cases - Paolo 75 months ago
How Antivirus Software Can Be Turned Into a Tool for Spying https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/technology/kaspersky-lab-antivirus.html - David 74 months ago
Mr. Wardle’s research demonstrated, an untrustworthy vendor, or hacker or spy with access to that vendor’s systems, can abuse its deep access to turn antivirus software into a dynamic search tool, not unlike Google, to scan customers’ computers for documents that contain certain keywords. “And no one would ever know,” he added. “It’s the perfect cybercrime.” - David 74 months ago
Happened in Georgia several times, recently- - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
3

Pattern of threats as they have emerged and will emerge in future.

Mayank Lau
75 months ago
Interesting, thanks for sharing it - Paolo 75 months ago
Agree - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
2

Ransomeware has the largest potential impact within my field. Not only can it disrupt business by causing downtime but it can also potentially have external costs paying off the cyber criminal. Ransomware has also become a big news topic which increases visibality to our staff and management.

Robert Siersema siersema@gmail.com
75 months ago
Thanks Robert. Which is your area of work? - Paolo 75 months ago
DITTO - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
2

You rightly mentioned quite a few. However, I would like to take your attention towards phone call thing. There are bots identifying phone numbers and calling to the victims. The dangerous part is VoIP and Bots kind of services are being used in this. 

Hitesh Mathpal
75 months ago
That's a great addition. I would even include SWATing within this threat vector. - Robert 75 months ago
Frequently happens; SAD - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
2

I am curious, when there will be more cases that hackers are able to "kidnap" Siri, Alexa or Cortana. Maybe they could spy on us or via "key words" start to order at Amazon...

Patrick Henz
75 months ago
I guess this could happen shortly as we are leaving several footprints about our behaviors and such data are beneficial to criminals - Paolo 75 months ago
Agreed. Also an risk, as many employees have two smart-phones at work, the corporate and the private one. The last may be more vulnerable against such attacks. - Patrick 75 months ago
I think both could be vulnerable, it depends from the use employees are doing - Paolo 75 months ago
Such interfaces could have a lot of different uses, for example as interface on equipment or also to control at which time employees are entering and leaving the office. Maybe also for a potential approval process. - Patrick 74 months ago
Are they "spies" - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
Yes, they could use a such. It is up to government and management to exclude such potential uses, as "data privacy is a human right", as defined by Microsoft. - Patrick 63 months ago
MSFT privacy = Ha Ha Nelson Muntz - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
2

my personal opinion about cyber crime might be different from other people on this forum,i think that us gov. need to step up and in case on foreign attacks on companies in US and our infrastructure should not be penalized individual companies on branches and impose heavy fines and class action lawsuits but offer gov infrastructure like military/security response to prevent other govt or individuals or group of individuals from foreign countries to continue there harmful activities

amit patel
75 months ago
I think they tried to do this but it was not successful according to all the breaches we heard about during the last time - Paolo 75 months ago
The government can not do a thing except collect taxes. - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
And, pass laws for taxes - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
2

I would like to add on a few potential cybercrime.

  • Fake job offer emails
  • Phone calls offering job
  • Winning lottery text messages or emails
  • US visa offer emails and phone calls
  • Fake Profit sharing, Fund transfer, Business deals, etc. emails
  • Selling of duplicate branded products like watches, clothes, jewelleries, etc.

Abhishek Raj
74 months ago
The first would be cognitive attacks, targeting the employee or even private person. The last is to digitalize existing physical markets, as you can often find, for example in Mexico or other countries, and - Patrick 74 months ago
I work on the last topic, sometimes this is even connected with the previous ones. - Paolo 74 months ago
Nice list: TNTC - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
1

Worms and botnets are your biggest issue as you don't know what you are dealing with compared to ransomware which just wants money and they will give you access back (besides the fact a virtual rollback is common place and easy nowadays).

Mark Mancini
75 months ago
Agreed - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
1

I work in Healthcare Information Technology as well as Education. Healthcare is the area I'm referring to with regards to Ransomware being a large issue. Just recently a Hospital paid over $50,000 to unlock computers impacted by ransomware.

Robert Siersema siersema@gmail.com
75 months ago
yes unfortunately hospitals and medical organizations are the perfect targets as they work on critical data and will more likely pay a ransom - Paolo 75 months ago
Agreed - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
1

Correct. In the case of the recent hospital that paid they even had backups of the critical data, but it was faster to pay the ransom than it was to restore backups, and so they decided it was worth the cost.

Robert Siersema siersema@gmail.com
75 months ago
yes criminals are counting on this when targeting hospitals, issues need to be fixed as soon as possible with any solution - Paolo 75 months ago
Agreed - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
1

AI assisted IoT infiltration and Ransomware is where its at.

Chris Allen
75 months ago
Depending the "intelligence" of the connected hardware, it even would not have to be AI assisted, but could be an "old-fashioned" algorithm. - Patrick 75 months ago
Yes - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
1

The more high-tech a company, including its IT-firewall, the more common hackers may try "low tech"-strategies. For example spread-out prepared USB sticks on the company's parking place or bribe / threaten an internal employee.

Patrick Henz
75 months ago
I heard about the USB sticks technique. I agree that low tech strategies work well on high tech companies and the other way round. - Paolo 75 months ago
Exactly - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
1

11 arrested in Icelandic bitcoin heist March 5, 2018

Police in Iceland say they have cracked the case of the largest series of thefts ever in the country — and it's over bitcoin. Nearly 600 computers used to mine cryptocurrencies have been stolen from data centers in Iceland in four burglaries, the AP reported. A security guard and 10 others were arrested, although the stolen computers worth almost $2 million have not been found. Police are monitoring electric consumption with the hopes of finding unusually high energy usage, a clue that could lead to an illegal bitcoin mine.

David Barckhoff-Sag-Aftra/Producer, Director
74 months ago
Yes - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
1

As technology advances and our societies rely more and more on computers across the Earth, there is a corresponding increase in cybercrimes. These crimes can be more sophisticated, become harder to detent and even harder to stop.

David Barckhoff-Sag-Aftra/Producer, Director
74 months ago
The UN panel that is enforcing trade sanctions against North Korea has been hacked, according to a report from the Washington Post. The panel is said to have been hacked repeatedly by a “nation-state actor” who has compromised email accounts of panel members. The Post said it reviewed a heavily redacted draft of a UN Panel of Experts report, which included details of the attack. Although the repo - David 74 months ago
How Antivirus Software Can Be Turned Into a Tool for Spying https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/technology/kaspersky-lab-antivirus.html - David 74 months ago
Mr. Wardle’s research demonstrated, an untrustworthy vendor, or hacker or spy with access to that vendor’s systems, can abuse its deep access to turn antivirus software into a dynamic search tool, not unlike Google, to scan customers’ computers for documents that contain certain keywords. “And no one would ever know,” he added. “It’s the perfect cybercrime.” - David 74 months ago
Thanks - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
1

Last September, the Department of Homeland Security ordered all federal agencies to cease using Kaspersky products because of the threat that Kaspersky’s products could “provide access to files.”
A month later, The New York Times reported that the Homeland Security directive was based, in large part, on intelligence shared by Israeli intelligence officials who successfully hacked Kaspersky Lab in 2014. They looked on for months as Russian government hackers scanned computers belonging to Kaspersky customers around the world for top secret American government classified programs.
In at least one case, United States officials claimed Russian intelligence officials were successful in using Kaspersky’s software to pull classified documents off a home computer belonging to Nghia H. Pho, an N.S.A. developer who had installed Kaspersky’s antivirus software on his home computer. Mr. Pho pleaded guilty last year to bringing home classified documents and writings, and has said he brought the files home only in an attempt to expand his résumé.

David Barckhoff-Sag-Aftra/Producer, Director
74 months ago
Thanks Paolo. I'm reading that now. We will eventually see what the outcome of that lawsuit will be. Looks like more research needs to be done before anyone who is considering selecting/buying anti-virus software buys it.. - David 74 months ago
Very nice discussion - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
1

Recently one of my friend came across a fake job offer from DBZ Pharmaceuticals, USA. The job offer and email looked so genuine and professional as it was from an official email id <careers@dbzpharmaceuticals.com>. My friend was ready for the processing but I was in a doubt and asked him to forward the emails to me. The address and phone numbers of the company was matching exactly as per the company's website. My friend was selected just on the basis of his CV and he was asked to fill the application form with written interview questions. The was offered a job as a Manager with high salary and other benefits. He was asked to contact a US visa consular in India whose mobile number was provided in the email and he was asked to pay some amount for his visa processing. I called directly to US visa center in India and inquired about the name of Visa consular and they informed me that nobody by that name works there. I informed the same to my friend who was ready to pay money.

Abhishek Raj
74 months ago
It looks this was an accurate scam, well prepared. You did a good job to sort it out. - Paolo 74 months ago
Thanks Paolo. - Abhishek 74 months ago
Is anyone really that naive? - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
Yes several people is, reason why scammers keep doing this - Paolo 63 months ago
Fer sure - Dr. David E. 63 months ago
1

Cyber Attack patterns evolves when they become public. This is a war in a new ground of cyber space. When there is information technologies, sophistication or innovation likewise cybercrime will evolve. We can only empower individuals , businesses and government and document it once we uncover such event .

Orlando Trajano
73 months ago
OK - Dr. David E. 63 months ago

Have some input?