Cybersecurity blogger and Founder of Have I Been Pwned, Troy Hunt kicked off the week with an update that detailed his experience with a scammer who attempted to swindle $800 from his wife. For security professionals who live and breathe cybercrime statistics and indicators of compromise, it’s important to remember that “innocent victims are stung to the tune of more than 3 billion dollars every year by fraudsters.” That’s in Australia alone. In Hong Kong, scammers stole HK$830 million from cyber fraud victims between January and March 2023.
It was only a couple weeks ago that I received two “Congratulations on your new account,” emails from my bank. I didn’t click on any of the links in the email, but I did go directly to my online account. Sure enough, a criminal had opened two new accounts in my name. I immediately reported it as fraud and asked that the accounts be closed. Meanwhile, an acquaintance received an urgent message from his bank, claiming someone was attempting to use his card to make a purchase at that very moment. He was instructed to go to a retailer and purchase gift cards and share the card numbers with the customer service representative on the other end of the line. He did.
That’s why we all have to take a page from Troy Hunt and continue to share these stories so that our friends and family can “avoid being an easy target for similar ploys.”
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Now let’s take a look at headlines you might have missed this week.
Jun. 2: The Hacker News reported, “U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies have issued a new alert warning of North Korean cyber actors' use of social engineering tactics to strike think tanks, academia, and news media sectors.”
Jun. 2: Tirana Hassan, the new head of Human Rights Watch, suggested in an interview with The Telegraph that, “AI holds the potential to turbo charge the fight against human rights abuses.”
Jun. 1: California-based email security firm, Armorblox, is being acquired by Cisco.
Jun. 1: The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claims to have uncovered an American cyber espionage campaign using surveillance software on thousands of iPhones.
May 31: A bipartisan group of legislators introduced the Abraham Accords Cybersecurity Cooperation Act of 2023, which authorizes deeper cooperation between participating countries
May 31: With generative AI stealing industry headlines, Computer World’s Matthew Finnegan explores the future of the metaverse.
May 31: According to Fortune, “National Eating Disorder Association shuts down A.I. chatbot it planned to use to replaces humans saying it ‘may have given’ harmful information.”
May 31: “Millions of PC motherboards were sold with a firmware backdoor,” according to news from Wired.
May 30: Infosecurity Magazine reported, “The tactics of a Nigerian cybercrime group have been revealed, including their complex phishing techniques and extensive fraud scheme.”