Category: Data Breach

The CSRB, Microsoft, China and You

What does the recent report on Microsoft security mean?

By Doug Newdick, on

In May-June 2023 a hacking group affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security (known as Storm-0558) breached the email of several of Microsoft’s customers including the US State Department, the US Department of Commerce, several UK government organisations as well as customers in other countries. They also compromised the personal email accounts of key individuals involved in US relations with China. Read More

2021’s Cyber Security Events: A New Zealand Perspective

By Doug Newdick, on

A few years ago there was an ad campaign for New Zealand making fun of the fact that we are often left off maps. When looking at cyber security news it often feels like we are missed off the map too. There were plenty of international round-ups of cyber security events for 2021, but few mentioned what happened here in Aotearoa New Zealand. To redress the balance, here’s our list of New Zealand’s publicly reported cyber security events from 2021:

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BrickerBot kiss of death to IoT devices

By Jim, on

Reports surfaced on the 12th of April of a botnet that attacks IoT running BusyBox and other Linux-based devices. The bot, which is believed to be active since the 20th of March 2017, exploits hard-coded passwords of devices with published SSH or telnet, as well as attempting to brute-force passwords of devices with non-default credentials. As the name suggest, BrickerBot bricks the devices and leaves them completely useless. This is done by executing a set of commands to delete storage, corrupt routing and others.

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The Human Factor

By Jim, on

Last week Verizon published its Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) 2013. This years report presents Verizon’s analysis of 47,626 security incidents.

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