Security
Vodacom & Accenture Join Forces for Bespoke Cybersecurity
South African telco Vodacom and Ireland-based IT services company Accenture have partnered to launch Vodacom Managed Security services through Vodacom Business. The partnership was publically announced yesterday via press release. Vodacom Managed Security services is a new solution that creates custom cybersecurity modules for small businesses in South Africa. According to Vodacom, South Africa has among the most cybercrime incidents in the world and a lack of sufficient investment in cybersecurity has led to this crisis. This is particularly true for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that simply don’t have the same human capital, technology assets, and financial resources as larger businesses. Vodacom Business and Accenture have launched the Vodacom Managed Security Services to o...
Ukraine War Leads to Largest Ever Spike in DDoS Attacks – Kaspersky
Image sourced from Packetlabs. According to Russian cybersecurity group Kasperksy, compared to Q1 2021, the number of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in Q1 2022 rose 4.5 times with a considerable number of the attacks likely to be the result of hacktivist activity. Kaspersky says it operates independently from the Russian government, even as its antivirus software is being investigated in Europe. The firm continues that the attacks also showed an unprecedented duration for DDoS sessions, particularly those aimed at state resources and banks. Further information has been included in a report issued by Kaspersky. DDoS Attacks Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are designed to interrupt network resources used by businesses and organisations and prevent them from functio...
Bad Actors Innovate, Extort & Launch 9.7M DDoS Attacks
In March 2022 we released our 2H 2021 Threat Intelligence Report. The report covers worldwide distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack activity during 2021—particularly during the second half of the year. As always, it’s chock-full of DDoS attack statistics, trends, and insights from our elite NETSCOUT ATLAS Security Engineering and Research Team (ASERT). Key findings include: DDoS attacks continued to exceed pre-pandemic levels. During the second half of 2021, cybercriminals launched approximately 4.4 million DDoS attacks, bringing the total number of DDoS attacks in 2021 to 9.75 million. These attacks represent a 3 percent decrease from the record number set during the height of the pandemic but continue at a pace that’s 14 percent above pre-pandemic levels. DDoS extortion and ransomw...
Sophos Acquires SOC.OS to Bolster its Cloud Security Offerings
Image sourced from Australian Reseller News. Sophos, the global cybersecurity firm, today announced that it has acquired SOC.OS, an innovator of a cloud-based security alert investigation and triage automation solution. SOC.OS consolidates and prioritizes high volumes of security alerts from multiple products and platforms across an organization’s estate, allowing security operations teams to quickly understand and respond to the most urgent cases flagged. The solution launched in 2020 and is a spinout of BAE Systems Digital Intelligence. The company is privately held and based in Milton Keynes, U.K. Sophos Bolsters its Cybersecurity Offerings with SOC.OS With SOC.OS, Sophos plans to advance its Managed Threat Response (MTR) and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions for organizat...
SA Post Office Warns Customers of New Email Scam
Image sourced from isnews.stir.ac.uk The South African Post Office has sent an alarm to customers about fraudulent e-mails that are designed to make the receiver pay money into a scam account. The bogus emails appear as if they are coming from the Post Office and are titled, “Your package could not be delivered”. They also state that in order for a customer to receive their package they have to pay a certain fee and they include a link, according to Tech Central. “Should the receiver click on the link, a page called Bureau de Poste d’Afrique du Sud opens, requesting payment to ‘release’ the fictitious parcel. The official language of communication for the Post Office is English and no communication is done in French. The website features a photo of the gable of the historic Vredefort post ...
Quantum computing to run economic models on crypto adoption
By many accounts, quantum computing (QC), which uses atomic “spin” instead of an electrical charge to represent its binary 1’s and 0’s, is evolving at an exponential rate. If QC is ever realized at scale, it could be a boon for human society, helping to improve crop yields, design better medicines and engineer safer airplanes, among other benefits. The crypto sector could profit too. Just last week, for instance, a Bank of Canada-commissioned project simulated cryptocurrency adoption among Canadian financial organizations using quantum computing. “We wanted to test the power of quantum computing on a research case that is hard to solve using classical computing techniques,” said Maryam Haghighi, director of data science at the Bank of Canada, in a press release. But, othe...
Crypto Scams on the Rise in SA: Here’s How to Protect Yourself
Image sourced from Shutterstock. The world seems to have gone ‘crypto-mad’. Digital currencies like bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum, and even Dogecoin, are all over the internet. Their soaring value promises big wins for investors (if you’re “buying the dip”, that is). And the ‘fortunes’ to be made by mining for virtual money have echoes of gold rushes that formed the first mining towns in South Africa back in the 1800s. Or at least, that’s what many, including a long list of scammers, will have you believe. In reality, if you’re interested in cryptocurrency today, you’re quite possibly at a major risk for fraud. In many respects, in this new unregulated world, bad actors often have the upper hand. In 2021, South African-based Africrypt was reportedly hacked, effectively wiping out a staggering ...
SA University to Start Issuing Certificates with Blockchain Security Features
Image sourced from Pixabay The University of Johannesburg (UJ) reportedly plans to start issuing degrees and certificates with blockchain security features to avoid fraud. According to Broad Media, the certificates will help stop counterfeiting and avoid the fraudulent representation of qualifications. UJ is one of the first universities to start offering digital certificates to its students to make it easier for them to recover lost certificates and share them with third parties such as potential employers. The South African university will start including blockchain security features on its digital certificates in 2022, according to reports. “The new blockchain-based certificate features will enhance the security of certificates even more. Certificates issued from this year on will have ...
Ransomware: The Threat that Lies in Wait
There can be no doubt that ransomware attacks are on the rise across the globe. A simple online search will reveal thousands of statistics in this regard, and South Africa is no exception. What is also clear from numerous examples of successful breaches, is the potentially devastating effect of a ransomware attack, which can cripple a business and shut down essential services for extended periods, not to mention cost a fortune to recover from. They are, in fact, legitimate business disasters, and need to be considered as such when it comes to disaster recovery and business continuity planning. Under Siege There is no shortage of high-profile examples of ransomware attacks in South Africa over the past two years, from Johannesburg City Power to the Life Healthcare hospital group, Transnet P...
Sophos Launches New Features for its Cloud Workload Protection
Image sourced from Australian Reseller News. Sophos, a global leader in next-generation cybersecurity, today unveiled new advancements to Sophos Cloud Workload Protection, including new Linux host and container security capabilities. These enhancements accelerate the detection and response of in-progress attacks and security incidents within Linux operating systems, improve security operations and bolster application performance. According to new SophosLabs research, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) tools, cryptocurrency miners and various types of backdoors were the top three types of Linux threats detected by Sophos in a dataset from January through March 2022. DDoS tools accounted for nearly half of all Linux malware detections during this time, likely due to automate...
New Phishing Report Shows the Top Email Headlines to Beware Of
Image sourced form Broad Media. KnowBe4, provider of one of the world’s largest security awareness training and simulated phishing platforms, today announced the results of its Q1 2022 top-clicked phishing report. “In our latest quarterly phishing report, we found that holiday-themed emails were the most tempting for employees to click on,” said Stu Sjouwerman, CEO, KnowBe4. “HR-related messages such as a change in the schedule for the holidays likely piqued interest from employees to see if they would receive an extra day off or shortened work schedule due to the holidays. It is important to remember that cybercriminals utilize various tactics such as preying on people’s emotions when executing their malicious scams. Remaining vigilant and adopting a heightened sense of suspicion around e...
The 5 Most Common Security Concerns for the Web 3.0 World
Fady Younes, Cybersecurity Director for Cisco Middle East and Africa. Cisco Talos has revealed the top 5 security risks in Web 3.0. This latest iteration of the world wide web will include the immersive 3-D experience known as the “Metaverse” – a virtual reality environment where people can explore, shop, play games, spend time with friends, attend a concert, or take part in business meetings. “As the internet morphs into the metaverse a whole new range of opportunities, capabilities and features are opening up to users, institutions, governments and businesses. Despite all these possibilities, Web 3.0 is also seeing increasing security threats that can be exploited by hackers and criminals. The team of researchers at Cisco Talos has done a deep dive to highlight the most common security c...
