Should You Block Connections to Your Network From Foreign Countries?

Slashdot reader b-dayyy quotes the Linux Security blog: What if you could block connections to your network in real-time from countries around the world such as Russia, China and Brazil where the majority of cyberattacks originate? What if you could redirect connections to a single network based on their origin? As you can imagine, being able to control these things would…

Russians Are Believed To Have Used Microsoft Resellers in Cyberattacks

As the United States comes to grips with a far-reaching Russian cyberattack on federal agencies, private corporations and the nation’s infrastructure, new evidence has emerged that the hackers hunted their victims through multiple channels. From a report: The most significant intrusions discovered so far piggybacked on software from SolarWinds, the Austin-based company whose updates the Russians compromised. But new evidence from…

Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla Ban Kazakhstan’s MitM HTTPS Certificate

Browser makers Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, have banned a root certificate that was being used by the Kazakhstan government to intercept and decrypt HTTPS traffic for residents in the country’s capital, the city of Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana). From a report: The certificate had been in use since December 6, 2020, when Kazakh officials forced local internet service providers to block…

Microsoft: 2021 Is the Year Passwords Die

Usama Jawad writes via Neowin: has been a proponent of passwordless technology for quite some time, saying that it wants traditional and unsafe passwords to die. To that end, it has invested in various solutions over the past few years such as Windows Hello, Microsoft Authenticator, FIDO2 security keys, and a palm vein authentication system, among other things. Now, the company…

Patients of a Vermont Hospital Are Left ‘in the Dark’ After a Cyberattack

A wave of damaging attacks on hospitals upended the lives of patients with cancer and other ailments. From a report: At lunchtime on Oct. 28, Colleen Cargill was in the cancer center at the University of Vermont Medical Center, preparing patients for their chemotherapy infusions. A new patient will sometimes be teary and frightened, but the nurses try to make it…

Microsoft: Russian, North Korean Cyberattacks Target COVID-19 Vaccine Efforts

Microsoft said Friday it has detected at least seven attacks on companies working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine or treatments. From a report: The company said attacks by three nation-state actors — two from North Korea and one from Russia — have targeted companies in Canada, France, India, South Korea and the United States. “Two global issues will help shape people’s…

Russians Who Pose Election Threat Have Hacked Nuclear Plants and Power Grid

The New York Times reports:
Cybersecurity officials watched with growing alarm in September as Russian state hackers started prowling around dozens of American state and local government computer systems just two months before the election. The act itself did not worry them so much — officials anticipated that the Russians who interfered in the 2016 election would be back — but the…

National Guard Called In To Thwart Cyberattack in Louisiana Weeks Before Election

The Louisiana National Guard was called in to stop a series of cyberattacks aimed at small government offices across the state in recent weeks, Reuters reported Friday, citing two people with knowledge of the events, highlighting the cyber threat facing local governments in the run up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. From the report: The situation in Louisiana follows a…

How Ransomware Puts Your Hospital At Risk

nickwinlund77 quotes a New York Times opinion piece: In March, several cybercrime groups rushed to reassure people that they wouldn’t target hospitals and other health care facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic. The operators of several prominent strains of ransomware all announced they would not target hospitals, and some of them even promised to decrypt the data of health care organizations for…

Some Coronavirus Vaccine Trials Resort To Pen and Paper After Ransomware Hits Software

A software company supporting hundreds of clinical trials — including coronavirus vaccine trials — has been hit by a ransomware attack that “has slowed some of those trials over the past two weeks,” reports the New York Times. Employees “discovered that they were locked out of their data by ransomware…” eResearchTechnology (ERT) said clinical trial patients were never at risk, but…