Cybersecurity News of the Month - May 2022

Welcome to the first in our monthly instalment of “Cyber Security News of the Month”.

In this blog, we take a look back at last month's cyber security breaches, cyber security awareness and hot topics of the month.

Latest cybersecurity breaches

German library services struggle to recover from a ransomware attack

Onleihe, a popular German library service, notified its users of a range of issues connected to a cyber attack on its service provider EKZ. The service allows users to borrow ebooks, audiobooks and music from over 200 libraries located across Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, France and Liechtenstein. The platform has been facing outages since April of this year after EKZ was attacked by the Lockbit ransomware group. As of yet, it is uncertain as to whether the personal data of its customers has been stolen as a result. EKZ has stated that “Our team is still working flat out to recover more systems as soon as possible. According to the current state of affairs, it will still be some time before our media worlds, the associated interfaces to library systems and the editing system for reviewers are fully functional again. We can only make a cautious estimate of the timeframe below.”

Greenland’s health services struggling to recover from a ransomware attack

Greenland’s health service has reportedly been struggling to recover from a ransomware attack since May 9th.

The cyberattack crippled its IT systems causing long wait times for patients and forcing doctors to write appointment notes out as the computer systems were rendered unusable.

According to local reports, the group suspected of hacking the country's health service is believed to have breached the systems belonging to the government of Greenland in March of this year.

Currently, it's not believed that any data has been stolen by the attackers.

Mattress company hit with a cyber attack on e-commerce website

Emma Sleep Company, based in Germany, has confirmed that it suffered an attack on its Magento ecommerce platform which enabled malicious attackers to skim customer credit or debit card data from the company website.

Customers were informed of this breach via email in which the company stated, "This was a sophisticated, targeted cyber-attack on the checkout process on our website and personal information entered, including credit card data, may have been stolen, whether you completed your purchase or not".

Overall the attack affected 12 countries but there is no evidence that personal or payment data has been abused in the wild. Customers have been advised to contact their banks or credit card providers and check for any unusual activity on the customer's accounts.

Cybersecurity awareness

The cybersecurity risks to hybrid working

A new survey by Dell Technologies has revealed that 69% of Irish businesses believe hybrid working arrangements will increase the chances of a cyber-attack or incident.

Employees working remotely, whether it be full time or on a hybrid basis, can give cybercriminals the opportunity to exploit vulnerabilities in a more widespread fashion if the correct security controls aren’t in place.

In ‘Securing Your Organisation's Remote Workforce’, we offer insight into what businesses and employees need to do to create a robust cyber security posture for remote and hybrid working options.

Download your free 21-page guide for both employees and employers here: https://bit.ly/3NWtBqR

Protect your ecommerce business from cyber threats

Ecommerce is crucial in generating sales for 72% of businesses. Only 15% of businesses have cybersecurity measures in place to protect their site from cyber threats, leaving most at huge risk of attack and loss of income.

Discover how to protect your e-commerce site from the most common cybersecurity threats in our latest blog

The wild, wild web - securing your web applications

If you are building or scaling your business's website application, you know that vulnerabilities can arise at any point. Web apps often contain a myriad of moving parts and the need for new features and fixes may often outpace your ability to fix them.

Daire Kennedy, Security Consultant at Secora, discusses some of the most frequently encountered web application vulnerabilities and how they can be remediated.

Cybersecurity intelligence

An increase in cyber attacks on Irish businesses has been recorded, with nearly half of companies being hit with at least one attack in the past year.

Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report shows that cyberattacks in Ireland have increased 26% year on year and has no sign of slowing any time soon.

In addition, the study has shown that Irish businesses have paid out ransom regularly with 25% paying five times or more to recover the data. The single largest ransom paid in Ireland in 2021 was €42,693.

Hot cybersecurity topic of the month

The European Parliament and EU member states have agreed on measures for a common level of cybersecurity across the European Union. The directive, known as NIS 2 is an updated version of the NIS directive which came into force in 2016.

The update is due to the increasing degree of digitisation and interconnectedness of society in addition to the increasing number of malicious activities on a global scale.

The new directive will cover medium and large organisations from a wider range of sectors that are critical for the economy and society. This includes organisations who provide public electronic communications services, digital services, waste water and waste management, manufacturing of critical products, postal and courier services and public administration, both at central and regional level. It also broadly covers the healthcare sector, for example by including medical device manufacturers, given the increasing security threats that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NIS 2 Directive also strengthens the cybersecurity requirements imposed on organisations and addresses the security of supply chains, supplier relationships and introduces accountability of top management for non-compliance with their cybersecurity obligations.

It also aims to streamline organisations reporting obligations, introduces more stringent supervisory measures for national authorities and implements stricter enforcement requirements. These obligations will help to increase information sharing within the EU and cooperation on cybersecurity crisis management.

The updated NIS 2 Directive is now subject to formal approval by two co-legislators. Once it's published in the Official Journal, NIS 2 Directive will come into force 20 days after publication and EU member states will have 21 months to transpose the new Directive into National Law.