Database of a South Korean resettlement agency called “Hana Center” has been compromised.
Database contain personal information like name, date of birth and address of nearly 1000 people who defected from North Korea.
Identity or origins of the hackers has not been identified yet. authority this is the first large-scale information leak of North Koreans.
There is a wide-spread fear the safety of the family members and relatives of the defectors living in North Korea.
A new global cyber attack took place in 27 June, 2017. The attack was originated in Ukraine.A tax accounting software company named M.E.Doc become the initial victim. Then ransomware spread to at least 64 countries. Though Ukraine seems to have been particularly badly hit this time round.
The computers affected by the attack showed a message of red text on a black screen: “Oops, your important files have been encrypted. If you see this text then your files are no longer accessible because they have been encrypted. Perhaps you are busy looking to recover your files but don’t waste your time.”
Aircraft manufacturer Antonov, and two postal services
Rosneft (Russia’s biggest oil producer)
Danish shipping company Maersk
Pennsylvania hospital operator (Heritage Valley Health System)
Mondelez (Spanish food giant)
TNT (Netherlands-based shipping company)
St Gobain (French construction materials company)
Merck (Pharmaceutical Company)
Companies are paying. A bitcoin wallet associated with the outbreak has received several payments since the outbreak began.
Author – Rubayat M.
Recently we have witnessed some extremely high profile and dangerous cyber attack. High profile – because these attack happen simultaneously in few countries. I am talking about the cyber attack that took place in UK and other European countries in May 20, 2017.
An attack like this shows us, what happen to people and their life, when some of the lifesaving system become un-accessible. It teach us, we need to be vigilant when we are online.
So how these attack took place ? Answer is – in many ways. But I am going to talk about a specific kind of attack that can happen against anyone. It’s called “Spearphishing”
Spear Phishing is a scam. An attacker will send an email to you, disguise as a friend or a business and collect your information. Attacker then use those information and steal money from you.
One of the common place is Facebook. Most people like to share every detail of their life. Phisars collect these information from their Facebook account. So they know your name, your contact email, phone, address and a good understanding about your personality.
I am going to use an example to describe this. Let say you bought an expensive lens for your Nikon digital camera. And posted this in Facebook. Phisars learn about this. Then they start their attack.
Step 1: After your buy the lens, few days later your received an email. Now this email came from your Credit card company and they are saying their have some error happen and your card has been charged few times and they need to rectify the issue.
Step 2: They are also saying they have included a link with the email. And you need to click the link and answer few security question. Then the credit card can start fixing the multiple charge issue.
Step 3: You – who is now worried about your money, will click the link to fix the problem.
Step 4: The moment click the link, it will take you to a friendly looking website where the phisars already included some malicious code. The code will give the attacker direct control of your computer and your would not even know about it.
Step 5: As the phisars have control over your system, they can now collect any information they want and use them to steal money from you.
Now this is just an example. But actual like this happen on a regular basis. A big example of phishing attack was the September 2015’s Democratic National Committee’s cyber attack Attack.
There is no actual protection against Spear phishing. Staying alert is the only defense.
Writer – Rubayat M.
Nov 29, 2016 Carleton University of Canada confirms their computer network was attacked by ransomware. Mostly the windows based systems ware compromised. To stop further attack and to fix the issue, users ware advised not to use windows based system.
University’s other operation remains unchanged and classes continued without interruption.
Attacker demands payment in bitcoins. To release the encrypted files, they demanded two bitcoin per machine which is equal to $38,941 (Canadian dollar). But university management did not pay anything. Systems are coming back online slowly when we wrote this article.
Carleton University (www.carleton.ca) is located in Ottawa, capital of Canada. University was found in 1942.
What is Ransomware ? Click here to learn more about Ransomware.
Writer – Rubayat M.
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