Prominent Jewish rabbi targeted by Iranian phishers masquerading as podcasters
Iranian threat actor TA453, known for going to great lengths in its spear-phishing campaigns, recently attempted to target a well-known religious figure in Israel. They set up a trap by inviting the rabbi to join a podcast about “Jewish life in the Muslim world.” Proofpoint researchers have identified a new campaign by the threat actor, tracked by different names, such as TA453, APT42, Charming Kitten, Yellow Garuda, or ITG18. The hackers were armed with a new malware toolkit called BlackSmith, which delivers a PowerShell trojan dubbed AnvilEcho.
Man who hacked Hawaii state registry to forge his own death certificate sentenced to 81 months
A Kentucky man who hacked into a state registry and faked his own death to avoid paying child support was sentenced on Monday to 81 months in prison. In January 2023, Jesse Kipf used stolen login credentials belonging to a physician to access the Hawaii Death Registry System, where he submitted and “certified” his own death — thereby avoiding paying more than $116,000 in owed child support. He also hacked into other state death registry systems, as well as “governmental and corporate networks” using stolen credentials, and tried to sell access to those entities on the darkweb.
“We will hold them accountable”: General Motors sued for selling customer driving data to third parties
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued General Motors (GM) for the unlawful collection and sale of over 1.5 million Texans’ private driving data to insurance companies without their knowledge or consent. In June, the Attorney General (AG) announced he had opened an investigation into several car manufacturers over allegations that the companies had improperly collected mass amounts of data about drivers directly from the vehicles and then sold the information to third parties. Following that investigation, the AG explained in a press release, he decided to sue General Motors.
Toyota Customer, Employee Data Leaked in Confirmed Data Breach
Toyota has confirmed its data was breached by a hacker who stole roughly 240GB of data from a third party.
The automaker said it has contacted those impacted by the breach. However, the company hasn’t released any information on the attack, such as when it was discovered, who the thief is, and how many customers’ data was exposed. It also told Dark Reading, “Toyota Motor North America was not the subject of this activity. Contrary to what has been reported, our systems were not breached or compromised. The cited post appears related to a third-party entity that is misrepresented as Toyota. Toyota takes cybersecurity very seriously and we will work to address the concerns of those involved.”
Most Ransomware Attacks Now Happen at Night
The majority of ransomware attacks now occur between the hours of 1am and 5am in an attempt to catch cybersecurity teams off guard, according to a new report from Malwarebytes. The security vendor’s 2024 State of Ransomware Report is based on threat intelligence gathered by the company and its ThreatDown detection and response unit during incident response engagements, as well as ransomware leak sites. It claimed that a majority of the incidents handled by ThreatDown Malware Removal Specialists (MRS) over the past year have occurred in the early hours of the morning. Malwarebytes clarified to Infosecurity that this means the time zone in which the victim organization operates.
