Plus: Google Cloud joins the Critical Providers Program to help improve cybersecurity for cloud companies
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The Russian government has reportedly told its officials to stop using iPhones due to concerns over cyberespionage. The officials need to change their devices by April 1, 2023. More: - The first officials that were told the directive were those tasked with preparing for Russia's 2024 presidential election.
- The decision was reportedly communicated by the first deputy head of the Russian presidential administration, while the government's spokesperson has denied commenting on the issue.
- This directive is in line with President Vladimir Putin's previous claims that he does not use smartphones for his day-to-day activities.
Zoom Out: - Cyberespionage has become one of the most controversial topics in global politics. With the advancement of mobile phone technology, spyware has become common.
- Pegasus, arguably the most famous spyware in the world, has been at the center of this controversy. The spyware has been used by government officials in numerous countries to spy on political opponents, civil society members, journalists, etc.
- In 2022, it was reported that Pegasus had been used to spy on Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez, Greek PM Mitsotakis, EU Parliament members, etc.
- A Polish mayor was reported to have been spied on only two weeks ago.
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A newly tracked Google Pixel security flaw could have enabled hackers to recover edited images. The flaw went unnoticed for the last five years. More: - The flaw is being tracked as the Acropalypse.
- Hackers have reportedly used the flaw to restore the photo of a credit card that had its information covered using the Markup tool.
- Hackers recovered the original version of the picture and later uploaded it as proof.
- The researchers reported the flaw to Google in January 2023, and Google patched it on March 13, 2023.
- Researchers believe that the security flaw was found by hackers from how the image file was opened for editing, leaving truncated data behind.
- The flaw is tracked as CVE-2023-21036.
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Ransomware incidents increased by 17% in the U.K. in 2022, according to a report. LockBit was the most active threat actor using this vector. More: - LockBit accounted for 30% of all ransomware attacks in the U.K., with the group being involved in several high publicity breaches such as:
- The first part of 2023 has shown an increase in ransomware breaches.
- While Lockbit was the most active in terms of volume, Karakurt was the most active when it came to hacking campaigns that stole large amounts of money.
- The hacker group has been responsible for attacks on large U.K. organizations with cash-in-the-bank assets exceeding $24M.
Zoom Out: - A report earlier this year claimed ransomware volumes declined globally by 21% YOY in 2022, while in the U.K., the figure rose 112%.
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Google Cloud has joined the Critical Providers Program to help improve cybersecurity for cloud companies. The announcement was made by the not-for-profit organization FS-ISAC. More: - According to FS-ISAC, the company will focus on helping the financial industry implement better security practices for its cloud infrastructure.
- Google has stated that it will bring its experience to the member organization, including reports from Threat Horizon and the Google Cybersecurity Action Team.
- FS-ISAC stated that it is a member-driven, not-for-profit organization that advances cybersecurity and resilience in the global financial system.
- The organization was founded in 1999.
- Member firms manage $100T worth of assets in 75 countries.
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AWS has launched global condition context keys to improve EC2 Security. The technology aims to reduce the risk of having admin credentials stolen by threat actors. More: - IAM roles for EC2 are used to allow applications to make API requests by using temporary credentials.
- The two new keys that the company has launched are:
- aws:EC2InstanceSourceVPC
- aws:EC2InstanceSourcePrivateIPv4
- Developers had to hard-code the VPC IDs and/or IP addresses of the roles in the role policy or VPC Endpoint policy to restrict the network location where these credentials could be used.
- According to a statement from AWS officials, by using the two new credential-relative condition keys with the existing network path-relative aws:SourceVPC and aws:VpcSourceIP condition keys, SCPs can be created to help ensure that credentials for EC2 instances are only used from the EC2 instances to which they were issued.
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- A trojan tracked as Mispadu has been used to steal over 90,000 banking credentials. The trojan targets Latin American users.
- Researchers have tracked a new botnet that could launch 3.3 Tbps DDoS attacks. This botnet, named HinataBot, abuses security flaws such as CVE-2014-8361 and CVE-2017-17215.
- According to a new report from Microsoft, Pro-Russia hackers are increasingly targeting hospitals.
- A New York resident who is suspected of having been the administrator of a website known as BreachForums has been arrested.
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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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