Cybersecurity News of the Month - July 2022

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

At Secora, we believe that learning from past cybersecurity incidents can enable organisations to better withstand and even prevent future cyber security attacks. With that in mind, in this blog, we take a look back at last month's cyber security breaches, cyber security awareness and hot topic of the month.

Be sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive the latest cyber security news and advice.

Latest Cyber Security Breaches

Alio.it cyber incident could have potentially leaked customer data

Alio.it, a Lithuanian ads website, was struck by a cyber attack in early July in which the data of thousands of customers may have been leaked.

Speaking on the cyber security incident, head of IT at alio.it, Kristijonas Siaulys stated that “It looks like it might have been yet another Russian attack against Lithuania’s online space, a kind of attack, which the majority of business entities appear unable to resist”.

“We are making considerable efforts to protect our users and contain the data security breach and are already implementing the entire legal action plan,” he added.

The malicious actors attempted to extract the data of 345,000 users from the website's database during the attack.

The company has not yet specified the amount of data stolen as of yet but they have notified the States Data Protection Inspectorate, the Computer Emergency Response Team and the police about the incident.

The company has stressed that it does not store any sensitive customer information such as credit card or bank account details, personal ID codes or home addresses on its databases.

Investigations into the incident are ongoing.

French Telecoms Firm hit with ransomware attack

La Poste Mobile, a French telecoms operator, notified their customers of a cyber security attack on their systems on July 4th.

The ransomware attack, which was believed to have been carried out using LockBit, targeted the company's administrative and management systems.

In response to the attack, La Post Mobile took the customers' systems and website offline in an attempt to reduce damage from the attack. The website was offline for a number of days while the company’s IT team investigated the extent of the incident.

In an announcement on the incident, the company stated that “Our initial analysis shows that our servers, which are essential to the operation of your mobile line, have been well protected. However, it is possible that files on the computers of La Poste Mobile employees have been affected. Some of these files may contain personal data,”.

“La Poste Mobile invites its customers to be vigilant, in particular by monitoring any attempt at phishing and/or identity theft, and will of course keep them informed of the lessons learned from the ongoing investigations. Our teams are fully committed to resolving this situation as quickly as possible,” the company added.

La Poste Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator with close to 2 million customers in France and reported revenues of over $500m in 2021.

Data of 5.4 million Twitter users leaked

In July, the personal data of approximately 5.4 million Twitter users was published for sale on the dark web for an asking price of $30,000.

The leaked information was the result of a breach confirmed by Twitter in December 2021. The data reportedly includes the names, phone numbers and email addresses of exposed users, which includes celebrities and businesses.

A post on HackerOne alerting readers to the breach explained that the leaked details were ‘a serious threat’ and that it could lead to the discovery of users who restricted their profiles. IT also noted that any hacker with “basic knowledge of scripting” could access the data.

Commenting on the breach, digital privacy advocacy group, Restore Privacy, noted that Twitter has since patched the vulnerability but the leak still leaves users at risk of identity theft.

In a statement, Twitter stated that after it was made aware of the problem, it “immediately investigated thoroughly and fixed the vulnerability.”

Cybersecurity Awareness

60% of eCommerce businesses don’t take any precautions in protecting their customer's sensitive information

When considering cybersecurity for your business, it’s not only your data you need to protect, it’s also your customer's personal information and payment details.

‘Protect Your eCommerce Business from Cyber Threats’, walks you through the main threats to your business and key steps to take to strengthen your cybersecurity.

Malicious attackers are targeting systems in industrial control environments

Attackers are utilising backdoor malware hidden in fake password-cracking tools to access the environments. The tools, being touted for sale on a variety of social media websites, offer to recover passwords for hardware systems used in industrial environments.

Malicious Browser extension used to steal users emails undetected

A North Korean-backed threat group is using a malicious browser extension to steal emails from users reading their webmail.

The extension, dubbed SHARPEXT supports three Chromium-based web browsers (Chrome, Edge, and Whale) and can steal mail from Gmail and AOL accounts.

Hot Topic of the Month

IBM Security recently released their annual ‘Cost of Data Breach Report’ revealing that the cost of data breaches has hit a record high at €4.29 million ($4.35 million), an increase of almost 13% over the past two years.

On our blog, we take a look through more of the key revelations outlined in the report. Read a full summary of the report, here.

How our experts can help

Identifying cyber security vulnerabilities without the input of an expert can be a difficult task.

At Secora Consulting, our experts provide a range of services that can help you to assess the security of your organisation. Our cyber security assessment focuses on gaining an insight into weaknesses in your organisation's current security posture which may make you vulnerable to the most common cyber-attacks.

Our baseline assessments focus on quickly bringing your systems in line with best practices by identifying missing patches and known issues in your systems. If you are interested in a more in-depth assessment of your infrastructure, ask us about our penetration testing services, where we will identify and exploit vulnerabilities in your network, showing just how far an attacker could get.

Get in touch with us today to discuss your specific requirements.