Facebook has once again been the victim of a data breach. Its image sharing company, Instagram, which Facebook purchased in 2012, was attacked in late September. Millions of users had their phone numbers and usernames leaked. However, the attacker was deemed a “white hat hacker” and was a security researcher. The hacker claimed to have found vulnerabilities in the “Sync Contacts” feature and said other hackers could have done the same.
October is known internationally as Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and this year, more firms than ever are recognising the increasing importance of cybersecurity. The awareness month was started by the National Cybersecurity Division of Homeland Security in the USA, and now its principles have reached businesses around the world. Many are publishing their own tips on how to stay safe in the workplace and state that employee training and refresher courses are a must.
A new white paper on decentralised password security is now live. Published by Julia O’Toole of MyCena, Redefining Password Security explores the most common flaws in password management, and the need for a decentralised password management system that is not vulnerable to cloud hacks. Read more on the MyCena website or visit the Mycena LinkedIn page.
Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia said it was experiencing “intermittent outages” when it appeared to have been the target of a cyber-attack in early September. The site was down over the course of one evening and early morning, affecting 94% of all users in Russia, America and the Middle East. A later statement on the Wikimedia German Twitter account claimed that the platform had been the victim of a “very broad DDoS attack”.
The UK, US and India are among the top countries facing the increasing threat of nation-sponsored attacks, new data reveals. According to a Thomson Reuters Labs blog, 22 countries are suspected to have sponsored cyber operations with financial backing from the state. Notable historic cases include the 2017 attack on Solarworld, an owner of cutting-edge IP and global contracts in the steel industry. The attacks were attributed to China. Vitaly Kamluk of Kaspersky Labs warned the attacks are a “growing concern”.
Chinese multinational technology company Huawei has been suspended from a membership to an exclusive forum designed to tackle security breaches. The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, otherwise known as FIRST, confirmed that the company will not be involved. Executive Director Chris Gibson said: “After extensive consultation and review, we regret ending up in a position where we had to suspend Huawei’s membership in order to ensure we meet these evolving regulations, and we intend to work closely with both Huawei and the Bureau of Industry and Security to address any concerns related to their participation in FIRST.”
