U.S. Space Operations Command strengthening cyber capabilities / 50K Revolut customers possibly hacked / Hackers claim they've deleted stolen data from InterContinental 'for fun'

Plus: DynamoFL raises $4.15M led by Y Combinator

Inside.com Part of   Network September 20, 2022

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The U.S. Space Operations Command is increasing its cybersecurity capabilities. The statement was made by Maj.Gen. Douglas Schiess. More: The U.S. Space Operations Command is specifically preparing to defend the country's satellite operations. This campaign is being executed as a result of a decision made by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. He believes that the U.S. needs to prepare to defend against cyber attacks that may come from China. In addition to deploying more cyber specialists, the U.S. Space Operations Command is intelligence detachments to satellite operations. The devices will load information in real time. Zoom Out: The decision to expand its capabilities comes as cybersecurity was allocated its largest budget ever by the U.S. government: $15.6B. The U.S. Space Command began expanding its team in early 2021, with the war in Ukraine being one of the major boosting factors behind this campaign.

A recent hacking campaign may affect as many as 50,000 Revolut customers. According to the company, the number represents only 0.16% of its total user base. More: Revolut is a fintech platform founded in London in 2015. The platform offers currency exchange, debit cards, virtual cards, Apple Pay, interest-bearing vaults, commission-free stock trading, crypto, commodities, etc. Hackers managed to steal information such as names, postal and email addresses, telephone numbers, partial card details, and account information. Revolut claims that the threat actor was not able to steal money. Zoom Out: Hackers have targeted different financial platforms numerous times this year. Earlier today, it was reported that hackers managed to steal over $160M from a crypto exchange. Two weeks ago, a hacker claimed that he had been able to access PayPal users' information through a backdoor that was used to breach TikTok.

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Two hackers have stated that they destroyed InterContinental's data simply for fun. The statement was made during an interview with the BBC. More: The two hackers claim that they are a couple from Vietnam. The threat actor, tracked as TeaPea, failed to complete its ransomware attack as the hotel chain apparently did not pay a ransom. As a sign of retaliation, the duo decided to delete the data they stole from InterContinental Hotels. The threat actor managed to steal an employee's password by sending them an email that contained a file infected with malware. Once the employee clicked the file, their 2FA code was captured, making the rest of the steps relatively easy. Researchers have stated that one of the reasons the password was broken is also the fact that it did not adhere to security protocols and that it was a weakly structured password. Zoom Out: According to reports, weak passwords such as "123456" are used by 23 million internet users worldwide, with cases of using other weak passwords being common as well. Companies such as Microsoft and Google have launched numerous campaigns where they've shared their vision of a passwordless future for the internet, where users will log in to their accounts by unlocking their phones.

DynamoFL has raised a $4.15M Seed round led by Y Combinator. The startup aims to protect customer data by using machine learning. More: The Y-Combinator Winter 2022 batch-incubated startup also raised funds from Global Founders Capital and Basis Set. The company claims its product can deploy federated learning more efficiently than its competition. Part of how the company achieves this feat is by enabling its customer to send small and specific amounts of data rather than large chunks. This allows the process to get completed faster, more safely, and cheaper. DynamoFL has four employees but aims to use the funds toward expansion throughout the year.

A message from SECURITY COMPASS Current approaches to software threat modeling simply don’t work. They are manual, inconsistent, take too long, don’t scale, and don’t give developers what they need. When software security and compliance are considered more as an afterthought, rather than a vital step in the development process, organizations end up trying to remediate security and compliance issues after software has been written, rather than preventing issues in the first place. Here you can find a series of posts breaking down how you can anticipate threats earlier in the software development life cycle to create more secure and compliant software. Empower DevSecOps teams to make software secure and compliant by: Design through automating threat modeling Generating application security requirements Providing secure development Compliance best practices. The SD Elements platform is the best solution for organizations who need to scalably model software threats, identify countermeasures, and deliver secure, compliant code quickly. Download the whitepapers

Cybersecurity startup Ostra has raised $3.5M. The company was founded in 2018. More: The news regarding this round was reported after an SEC filing was discovered. While the filing does not give many details regarding the participants of the round and the valuation at which the start raised the round, the Minnesota-based cybersecurity company is expected to come out with more information soon. The company offers tools that give companies access to advanced cyber defense capabilities. Its clients are Small and Medium-sized businesses. Ostra currently has a leadership team made of five employees that have over 20+ years of experience in the industry.

Quick Hits: Spending a lot of time managing your cloud infrastructure? Free up your schedule by using intelligent technology to streamline CloudOps.* Russian malware variant Sandworm is still being used to target Ukrainian organizations. Hackers are trying to deploy the malware by pretending to be telecom companies. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has stated that it is going to analyze the effectiveness of its long list of recommendations and directions it has given during the last few years. This analysis will be conducted over three years.  The United Veterinary Services Association has published four cybersecurity recommendations. The recommendations come as a recent cyber attack managed to breach over 700 animal care networks globally. American Airlines has been breached, and the company claims that a small number of employees and customers may be affected. The company is cooperating with third parties to solve the matter. *This is sponsored content.

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Arbër is an Inside writer who also has experience in entrepreneurship. He has experience covering Consumer Tech, Venture Capital, NFTs, Crypto, etc. Arbër holds a Bachelor's degree in Business from XAMK University in Finland. When he is not reading(and writing) business news, he chooses to watch sports or anime...and then read news about sports or anime. Editor Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 and 1972 Fords.

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