Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

July 2024

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KnowBe4 Named a Leader in the Summer 2024 G2 Grid Report for Security Awareness Training

Jul 31, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
We are thrilled to announce that KnowBe4 has been named a leader in the latest G2 Grid Report that compares security awareness training (SAT) vendors based on user reviews, customer satisfaction, popularity and market presence. Have you ever wanted to peek behind the curtain of Security Awareness Training (SAT) platforms and see which one truly stands out? Well, you don't need to wonder anymore.
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The First Half of 2024 Results in More Than 1 Billion Data Breach Victims

Jul 31, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
New data shows that cyber attacks have resulted in double the number of data breaches in 2024 than throughout all of 2023. After a data breach, there are two common impacts– an organization with disrupted operations and customer victims. We tend to focus only on the duration it takes for an organization to regain normal operations, but the total number of victims from a data breach can take years to tally.
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Dark Angels Ransomware Group Scores Record-Breaking $75 Million Payday

Jul 30, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
In the ever-evolving world of cybercrime, ransomware attacks continue to be a lucrative business for cybercriminals. The latest development comes from the Dark Angels ransomware group, who have reportedly secured a staggering $75 million ransom payment from an undisclosed victim. This eye-watering sum shatters the previous record of $40 million paid by insurance giant CNA Financial in 2021, setting a new and alarming benchmark in the ransomware landscape.
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Organizations Prepare for More Evolved AI-Based Cyber Attacks as Deepfakes Become Top Concern

Jul 30, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
New data on how the threat of AI in cyber crime is being seen as a growing risk provides insight into how organizations are shifting from reaction to prevention. According to endpoint security vendor Deep Instinct’s Voice of SecOps report, 97% of organizations are concerned they will suffer a security incident as a result of adversarial AI. The advent of new malicious LLM-based AI platforms are allowing cybercriminals to get their hands on sophisticated tech and create convincing deepfakes.
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IoT: Internet of Threats?

Jul 29, 2024 By Javvad Malik In KnowBe4
The Internet of Things (IoT) has slowly but surely weaved its way into our homes and places of work. From smart homes to industrial control systems, IoT has brought convenience and efficiency to our lives. However, with this increased connectivity we have increased our risk. The IoT Attack Surface IoT devices are often designed with functionality in mind, rather than security. This means that many devices have weak or default passwords, unpatched vulnerabilities, and insecure communication protocols.
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Nearly All Ransomware Attacks Now Include Exfiltration of Data...But Not All Are Notified

Jul 29, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
Organizations are falling victim to ransomware attacks where data is stolen, but the victim isn’t being told about it. I have a theory as to why this is happening. Many assume data is being exfiltrated as part of a ransomware attack and it’s going to be used as part of the extortion component of the attack. But according to Arctic Wolf’s The State of Cybersecurity: 2024 Trends Report, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
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QR Code Phishing is Still on the Rise

Jul 29, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
Organizations need to be aware of the threat posed by QR code phishing (quishing), according to researchers at Trend Micro. “Phishing emails continue to be the number one attack vector for organizations,” the researchers write. “A QR code phishing, or quishing attack, is a modern social engineering cyber attack technique manipulating users into giving away personal and financial information or downloading malware.
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New Phishing Scam Leverages Chat To Add Credibility And Ensure Success

Jul 26, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
A new phishing scam is leveraging trusted aspects of ecommerce to make their scams look legitimate. Perception Point has spotted a new level of credibility used by phishing scammers in which fake payment pages include the use of legitimate support chat. Spoofed payment pages resembling marketplace, like Etsy and Upwork, ask business owners to “claim” payments for products or services sold.
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Is Your Bank Really Calling? How to Protect Yourself from Financial Impersonation Fraud

Jul 23, 2024 By Anna Collard In KnowBe4
Protecting your financial information has never been more crucial. With the rise of sophisticated scams, it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between legitimate bank communications and fraudulent attempts to access your accounts. So, how can you be sure it's really your bank contacting you? The Vulnerability of Personal Information First, it's important to understand that our personal details are more accessible than we might think.
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Phishing Campaigns Abuse Cloud Platforms to Target Latin America

Jul 23, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
Several threat actors are abusing legitimate cloud services to launch phishing attacks against users in Latin America, according to Google’s latest Threat Horizons Report. One threat actor, tracked as “PINEAPPLE,” impersonated Brazil’s revenue service, Receita Federal do Brasil, to deliver the Astaroth infostealer.
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Phishing Attacks Will Likely Follow Last Week's Global IT Outage

Jul 22, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
Organizations should expect to see phishing attacks exploiting the global IT outage that occurred last Friday, the Business Post reports. I recently wrote my thoughts about the outage that was caused by a faulty CrowdStrike update that was extremely disruptive globally. The outage was caused by a faulty CrowdStrike update that crashed Windows systems, disrupting airlines, banks, hospitals, governments, and businesses around the world.
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78% of Organizations Are Targets of Ransomware Attacks Two or More Times in Twelve Months

Jul 19, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
New data puts the spotlight on the frequency and impact of modern ransomware attacks, highlighting the overconfidence organizations are showing in their ability to defend and respond to attacks. If you’re like one of the organizations surveyed in Halcyon’s latest Ransomware CISO Survey report, the findings were quite eye opening.
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CrowdStrike Phishing Attacks Appear in Record Time

Jul 19, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
I have been the CEO of an anti-virus software developer. We had a special acronym for catastrophic events like this, a so-called "CEE". As in Company Extinction Event. Within hours of mass IT outages on Friday, a surge of new domains began appearing online, all sharing one common factor: the name CrowdStrike. As the company grapples with a global tech outage that has delayed flights and disrupted emergency services, opportunistic cybercriminals are quick to exploit the chaos.
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7 in 10 Organizations Experienced a Business Email Compromise Attack in the Last 12 Months

Jul 18, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
Despite ransomware getting the lion’s share of the tech pub headlines, business email compromise (BEC) attacks are alive and well… and having a material impact. New data from Arctic Wolf’s 2024 State of Cybersecurity report shows that BEC attacks – whether attempted or successful – are far more widely felt than previously thought.
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Change Healthcare Ransomware Attack May Cost Nearly $2.5 Billion

Jul 18, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
The ransomware attack against UnitedHealth Group’s Change Healthcare platform is expected to cost the company up to $2.45 billion, more than a billion dollars more than was previously estimated, Cybersecurity Dive reports. The incident has already cost the firm nearly $2 billion.
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New Ransomware Threat Group Calls Attack Victims to Ensure Payments

Jul 17, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
Analysis of new ransomware group Volcano Demon provides a detailed look into how and why calling victims ups the chances of ransomware payment. Security researchers at Halcyon have uncovered a new ransomware threat group that initially follows traditional methods – harvesting admin credentials, data exfiltrated to a C2 server, logs cleared and data was encrypted using LukaLocker. However, Volcano Demon attacks take a different direction in the extortion phase.
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Reveal Your Network's Hidden Weaknesses with KnowBe4's BreachSim Data Exfiltration Simulator

Jul 17, 2024 By KnowBe4 In KnowBe4
As cyber threats evolve, the target has become crystal clear: your data. A staggering 90% of ransomware attacks now include a data exfiltration component. With this in mind, KnowBe4 has introduced a robust free tool, BreachSim, to identify your network's vulnerabilities and shore up your cyber defenses. Financial losses, reputation damage, intellectual property theft, regulatory repercussions and operational disruptions are just a few of the harsh consequences of data exfiltration assaults. KnowBe4 BreachSim can help you nip these risks in the bud.
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SEC Fines Publicly Traded Company $2.125 Million For Negligence Before, During, and After a Ransomware Attack

Jul 16, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
According to the filing, the organization in question failed to devise controls to adequately detect, respond to, and disclose an attack that included data exfiltration and service disruption. Back in 2021, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co.
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Espionage-Intent Threat Groups Are Now Using Ransomware as a Diversion Tactic in Cyberattacks

Jul 16, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
A new report focused on cyber espionage actors targeting government and critical infrastructure sectors highlights the strategic use of ransomware for distraction or misattribution. It was inevitable: a threat group using a secondary attack type to cover their tracks – whether those “tracks” are the groups true intent, who’s responsible – or to simply make some additional money after they’re done with the initial attack.
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From Reactive to Proactive: Cyber Insurance is Driving Optimal Security Investments for Organizations

Jul 15, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
New data shows that only 3 percent of organizations are solely relying on their current cyber defenses when adding on cyber insurance, indicating that organizations are beginning to understand the true value and place of a cyber insurance policy. For the last few years, it felt like organizations were seeing cyber insurance like they do their car insurance; have an “accident” and let the policy cover it.
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Ransomware Attacks on Healthcare Is Costing Lives

Jul 11, 2024 By Roger Grimes In KnowBe4
Ransomware is more prolific and expensive than ever. Depending on the source you read, the average or median ransomware payment was at least several hundred thousand dollars to well over several million in 2023. Marsh, a leader in cybersecurity insurance, wrote that its customers paid an average of $6.5 million in ransom in 2023 (after just paying an average of $1.4 million in 2023).
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Phishing Attacks Against State and Local Governments Are Surging

Jul 11, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
Researchers at Abnormal Security have observed a 360% increase in phishing attacks against state and local government entities over the past year. The researchers write, “While phishing tends to consistently increase each year and regularly accounts for the majority of advanced threats, this level of growth is extraordinary.” Threat actors often use phishing to gain a foothold within an organization before launching more follow-on attacks.
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From Policy to Practice in Security Culture: What Security Frameworks Recommend

Jul 10, 2024 By Anna Collard In KnowBe4
Recently I had to prepare for a governance, risk and compliance conference. I promptly realized that although I used to be quite immersed in this field as an ISO 27k implementation consultant and even a short stint as a Payment Card Industry (PCI QSA) auditor years ago, it has been a while since I looked into this.
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The Importance of Security Culture: When Telecom Giants Resort to Malware

Jul 9, 2024 By Javvad Malik In KnowBe4
I recently read a story about a South Korean telecom company that pushed out malware to over 600,000 of its customers who were using torrents to share files, in a bid to limit their file-sharing capabilities. Users reported that their files went missing, random folders appeared, and in some cases, their PCs were disabled.
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Amazon-Related Scams Spike Ahead of Prime Day

Jul 9, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
Researchers at Check Point observed more than a thousand newly registered malicious or suspicious web domains related to Amazon last month. The criminals are likely gearing up to target users during Amazon Prime Day next week. “While Prime Day offers incredible savings, it is crucial for shoppers to remain vigilant, exercise caution while clicking on links or providing sensitive information, and ensure they are navigating legitimate platforms,” the researchers write.
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New Phishing Platform Targets Microsoft 365 Accounts at Financial Firms

Jul 9, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
Analysis of the latest phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform ONNX Store highlights just how successful these platforms can be. Security analysts at threat intelligence vendor Eclectic IQ have been tracking ONNX Store, noting it’s a rebranded evolution of the Caffeine PhaaS platform. According to analysis, ONNX has been used to target financial institutions, “including banks, private funding firms and credit union service providers across the EMEA and AMER regions.”
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New "Paste and Run" Phishing Technique Makes CTRL-V A Cyber Attack Accomplice

Jul 5, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
A new phishing campaign tries to trick email recipients into pasting and executing malicious commands on their system that installs DarkGate malware. Security researchers at Ahnlab have discovered a new phishing campaign that leverages a unique user interaction. Normally, phishing campaigns simply need users to open an HTML attachment.
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Don't Fall for It: How to Spot Social Media Job Scams a Mile Away

Jul 5, 2024 By Anna Collard In KnowBe4
As social media becomes more intertwined with our daily routines, cybercriminals are using it to trick people with fake job offers. What are these social-media recruitment scams, and how can you spot the red flags? With unemployment surging in many countries around the world, in particular countries like South Africa, which is currently at the top of the highest unemployment list in the world at over 32%, it’s no wonder that scams targeting job seekers are becoming more common.
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Ransomware Attack on U.K. Health Service Laboratory Disrupts Major London Hospital Services

Jul 2, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
What likely started as a quick ransomware “smash and grab” has turned into a headline case resulting in responses from both U.K. and U.S. law enforcement. Earlier this month, several larger London hospitals suddenly had no access to lab results. It turned out to be the result of a ransomware attack on laboratory partner Synnovis that crippled hospitals and health services that rely on Synnovis.
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Hacked Customer Support Portal Being Used to Send Phishing Emails

Jul 2, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
A hacked customer support portal belonging to router manufacturer Mercku is being used to respond to customer queries with phishing emails, BleepingComputer reports. If a customer files a support ticket through the company’s Zendesk portal, they’ll receive an automated response that attempts to trick them into granting access to their Metamask cryptocurrency account.
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New Malware Campaign Impersonates AI Tools To Trick Users

Jul 1, 2024 By Stu Sjouwerman In KnowBe4
Researchers at ESET warn that malvertising campaigns are impersonating AI tools to trick users into installing malware. The Rilide infostealer, for example, is being distributed via a malicious browser extension posing as Sora or Gemini. “In the case of the malicious browser extension, it is delivered to victims who have been duped into clicking on malicious ads, typically on Facebook, that promise the services of a generative AI model,” the researchers write.
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The Curious Case of the Payroll Pilfering

Jul 1, 2024 By Javvad Malik In KnowBe4
In a world where cyber espionage has become as common as a rainy day in London, the recent events surrounding the UK armed forces' payroll database have had us all raising our eyebrows higher than a butler's in a posh British drama. The plot twists in the world of cybersecurity often reminds me of a Bond film, albeit with fewer martinis and more malware.
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