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NEC gave cyber defense training to Thailand government officials

NEC Corporation in Thailand provided the cyber defense training to more than 50 government officials from the  Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) and other government agencies from  6 to 9 December.

The ETDA, is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, is one of the agencies responsible for cyber security in Thailand.  ThaiCERT, which is responsible for handling computer Security incidents,  the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), is also operated by ETDA.

The motive behind this training was to enhance the abilities of system administrators in government agencies to effectively handle the increasing threat of cyber-attacks by providing simulations of a customer's ICT infrastructure, the practical training enables the cultivation of system administrators with comprehensive cyber defense capabilities.

"We are proud to be selected as a partner for providing cyber defense training programs for government agencies in Thailand," said Takayuki Kano, President, NEC Corporation (Thailand). "Building on NEC's successful track record in the field of cyber security, we look forward to reinforcing our ties with government agencies throughout the world in the cultivation of personnel who defend against cyber-attacks."

The training not only focussed on technical skills in handling a cyber-attack but provided important organizational measures for preventing the spread of damages, including possible instructions for staff and the sharing of information with related institutions.

In April 2015, Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) and Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (now the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society) issued a joint statement announcing that the two countries would expand their existing cooperation in cyber-security and cooperate in the area of mission-critical ICT infrastructure protection. Under this agreement, Japan is expected to contribute to cyber-security in Thailand through a provision of its advanced technologies.

In November 2015, NEC, in collaboration with the Embassy of Japan in Thailand, provided hands-on cyber defense training for government agencies in Thailand through a project commissioned by the MIC. 
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Legion hacker group: Behind celeb twitter hack

Over the past week, there has been an escalation in the hack of digital accounts of prominent Indians like Rahul Gandhi, Vijay Mallya, Ravish Kumar and Barkha Dutt, which arose the question of political motive behind the hack. But, an unknown group, Legion, had taken the responsibility of all the hacks and overruled the political motive behind it.


Now the hacker group has said that their next target  their next hack would be of sansad.nic.in , and  Indian banking system as there  are major flaws in it, and they do not believe in  a cashless economy, in an online conversation with ET.

"Let me tell you...the banking system of India is deeply flawed and has been hacked several times," said the person who spoke to ET.  During the interview, the person also revealed the names of some of the financial institutions they  have targeted. But ET didn't publish their names.

The first victim  Rahul Gandhi, whose twitter account was hacked, and group tweeted after hacking his account. Soon after this, the officials  of All India Congress Committee took it as an opportunity to blame this on the opposition party. “Truth is that every Indian’s privacy is similarly under attack and the onus lies on the Modi government to do suitable course correction for protecting the privacy of everyone who is on social media,” said Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala.

The group  revealed  that they do not have an Indian passport and that they are not of Indian origin.

After hacking multiple accounts they tweeted: "Okay Brothers we're back. #legion. Support our cause to expose the rats in our system."

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Europol arrests 34 DDoS attackers


Europol and law enforcement agencies from 13 countries around the globe have arrested 34 users of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyber-attack tools and warned 101 suspects in a major crackdown.

Authorities from Australia, Belgium, France, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States carried out the coordinated action from December 05-December 09.

Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) supported the countries in their efforts to identify suspects in the EU and beyond, mainly young adults under the age of 20, by hosting operational meetings, collating intelligence and providing analytical support. During the raid, different suspects were interviewed, detained and arrested or fined, notifications were sent to parents and house searches were conducted.

Those arrested are accused of paying for DDoS tools like stressers and booters services which flood websites and web servers with a massive amount of data, leaving them inaccessible to users.

Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) supported the law enforcement agencies in their efforts to identify suspects in the European Union and beyond.

Since the emergence of Mirai IoT botnet, there has been a noticeable increase in DDoS attacks.

The authorities urged teenagers to use their skills for good and quit conducting DDoS attacks.

Steven Wilson, Head of EC3, commented: “One of the key priorities of law enforcement should be to engage with these young people to prevent them from pursuing a criminal path, helping them understand how they can use their skills for a more constructive purpose.”

The raids came after European Commission Servers and Deutsche Telekom suffered a series of massive DDoS attack a couple of weeks ago.
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Get tips on cyber security in five different languages

Cyber Security  awareness is minimal in India. Cyware, a cyber awareness platform has started  a new service to educate Indians about the cyber-security in five different languages through SMS and Whatsapp.

 In a statement released by the company, they said that they  have launched this service "free" of cost   after witnessing the  emerging challenges of "Cyber Suraksha"  faced by common man in India just after effect of  demonetization.

"In India, people keep the same default ATM card pin as provided by the banks and never change it. The cyberculture in India is such that for many people PIN does not stand for 'Personal Identification Number' rather they treat it as 'Public Information Number'," Akshat Jain, Co-Founder of Cyware said.

"Cyware is using commonly used messaging services like SMS and WhatsApp to make common people aware about cyber security hygiene. Cyware wants to bring change by educating people about do's and don't's  of Cyber Suraksha," he added.

To get the tips about the  cyber hygiene  through SMS  just needs to  give a missed call on toll-free number 7676610000.

While, to  activate the service  through  WhatsApp, add the same number on  your phone and send   Whatsapp message  'START'.

The subscribers of this service  will  receive security tips daily, and they can even know how  to safeguard their online banking, debit and credit cards, e-wallets and other digital assets from cyber criminals.

This cyber  security  service is currently available in English, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu and soon will be launched in other languages too.





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Indian government needs to worry about rising cyber-security


The demonetization drive by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi struck at a time when banks in the country are still in the process of updating their security architecture for online operations. Now with the cashless motive of the government, more and more people are making use of plastic money and e-wallet which increases the risk of cyber attack all the more. Banking sector thus faces the challenge of fending off cyber attacks in the wake of rising digital transactions.

Paytm, a digital wallet platform, has registered a 435 per cent rise in its traffic and a 1,000 percent jump in online recharges in the two days following a ban on high-value currency bills. Another mobile wallet Ola Money has reported a 1,500 per cent increase in recharges across the 102 cities of its operation since the day.

In today’s tech era, our digital identities are immensely linked to our actual personas.

Last week, a handful of personal and institutional twitter handles and emails were hacked. Cyber fiends also broke into the official website of main opposition party, Congress and hacked the twitter handle of party’s vice-president, Rahul Gandhi. The repeated cyber invasions prompted senior leaders to question digital safety at a time Modi has been urging his fellow citizens to go cashless.

Incidents like this have happened across the world, hackers have been brought to book, hackers have got away.

While people are mostly looking at these as mere Twitter hacks, an intrusion into the virtual social existence and email accounts of a person exposes the personal data as well and it can be an attack on the person’s identity, personality, private life and more dangerously, financial profile.

While the nation is still not questioning these hacks as a society, it poses a bigger threat to the future of cyber security and it is scary that our society is happy to live with a constant threat to our digital security.

Do we really have a robust banking network spread inclusively in all parts of the country as has been claimed by our finance minister, Arun Jaitley? India still isn’t prepared to imbibe the language of technology in day to day life but the policy has forced people to resort to e-banking mode.

Despite India’s prowess in information technology, a major worry is that most banks and financial institutions have until recently underestimated cyber-security as a threat. Just a simple SMS from a bank stating your bank balance could end up being a key to exploiting you, email access is like opening the entire door.

Data and information security are particularly weak in India. Many firms take months before undertaking the required security upgrades. There is a need to upgrade cyber-security infrastructure as data from the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) shows a 69 per cent increase in cyber-crimes in recent years.

To top all the risk is the weak policy of government against cybercrime which needs to be strengthened if Mr Modi really needs to develop India as a strong cashless country. Even misuse of a digital wallet should be dealt with in the toughest way to send a message that cyber security is not something that can be messed with.
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CIA report: Russia helped Trump in Presidential election

A month later result of US Presidential election, American intelligence agencies have found out that Russian government helped Donald J. Trump in winning the election  by hacking and publishing the emails of Democratic party  nominee Hillary Clinton via Wikileaks.

According to the two major US newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York Times,  reported that in a “closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill last week,”   intelligence agencies admitted that  “it was now ‘quite clear’ that electing Trump was Russia’s goal.”

Citing  an anonymous senior US official, The Washington Post reported: "It is the assessment of the intelligence community." The Post reported the CIA has reached the conclusion  "that Russia's goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected."

The New York Times reported that Russians hacked the computer systems belonging to both the parties, but they only published Democrats' emails via Wikileaks, while  Republican emails stayed under wraps.

An unnamed senior administration official told the Times, "We now have high confidence that they hacked the DNC and the RNC, and conspicuously released no documents" on the Republicans.

 The Trump's transition  team fired back on both the newspapers as well as the intelligence community.

"These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," the president-elect's transition team said in a statement to both papers. "The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again.'"

 However, the outgoing President Barack Obama ordered a full report on cyber attacks and foreign intervention during the election before  he leaves office on January 20.
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Cyber attack on banks thwarted by Russian security services



Russia's security service had uncovered plans and blocked a series of cyber attacks by foreign intelligence services  on the country's leading banks on Friday.

Russia's telecom operator, Rostelecom released a statement and mentioned that they "successfully thwarted DDoS [distributed denial of service] on the five biggest banks and financial organizations in Russia."

"The most sustained attack lasted more than two hours," it said.

Last week, Russia's FSB security service had uncovered plans of various foreign intelligence services to carry out massive cyberattacks on the country's financial system.

The FSB did not release the name of the countries'  which were involved in the latest plot against Russian banks. However,  they alleged that the attackers  would use servers and "command centers" located in the Netherlands  belonging to Ukrainian hosting company, BlazingFast.

Russia himself has been accussed by many countries of hacking their  security system and halting the security systems. Recently US has accussed Moscow of  leaking of private  documents online during the run-up to the US presidential election aimed at influencing the outcome.

Vice President Joe Biden had warned that the US will take revenge of this, "at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that have the greatest impact".

Moscow-based security giant Kaspersky  had said in November that  a massive DDoS cyber-attack had hit at least five of Russia's largest banks.

Kaspersky said those attacks used devices located in 30 countries, including the US.

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Uber Now Collects Your Location Data After You Are Dropped Off

(pc-Google Images)
Uber can now even track your location after you have been dropped. The latest update on the app will track the location of their users after they have left the car.

The latest app update, which introduces the redesign and new features also changes the way how its service collects location data for commuters.

Uber is now looking to gather location data even when you’ve exited the app — you’ll be prompted to share your current location. Uber just needs your location data from the start of your ride up until five minutes after the driver drops you off.

Uber claims they are aiming to "enhance safety" by collecting more rider data as opposed to just gathering information about the driver and the trip.

Uber also wants to track how often riders cross the street directly after a drop-off, which the company believes could indicate a safety hazard.

“We’re always thinking about ways we can improve the rider experience from sharpening our ETA estimates to identifying the best pick up location on any given street. Location is at the heart of the Uber experience, and we’re asking riders to provide us with more information to achieve these goals,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement.

The company updated its privacy policy last summer to allow for background location data collection, which prompted backlash from privacy groups and a Federal Trade Commission complaint.
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Talk-Talk does not urge customers to change passwords


TalkTalk has been vastly criticised for the handling of a wi-fi password breach by several cyber-security experts.

The cyber attack, which left some Post Office and TalkTalk customers without internet for days last week, also involved up to 57,000 of TalkTalk’s customers having their Wi-Fi passwords stolen. Tens of thousands of TalkTalk customers are at risk of having had their passwords stolen after it was revealed that a hack against the company's broadband routers was more severe than initially thought.

The BBC has presented the company with evidence that many of its customers' router credentials have been hacked, putting them at risk of data theft. The UK broadband provider confirmed that the sample of stolen router IDs it had been shown was real.

Computer security experts were astounded by TalkTalk's lack of concern over its customers' passwords being at risk.

Talk Talk has been advising users that there is no need to change their router's settings.

However, Talk Talk’s PR department tried to cover up the negative media coverage.

A spokeswoman for TalkTalk said that customers could change their settings "if they wish" but added that she believed there was "no risk to their personal information".

Ken Munro, a security researcher at Pen Test Partners, said passwords could have been stolen from the faulty routers, which could give cyber criminals access to all of the information on customers' home networks, including further passwords and financial details. Munro also added that if the hacker has access to the password key, they can even see all the traffic on the home network, including social media accounts and other passwords.

The risk to TalkTalk's subscribers was first flagged over the weekend by cyber-security researchers at Pen Test Partners who warned that a variant of the Mirai worm was exploiting a vulnerability to force TalkTalk routers to reveal their Wi-Fi passwords but the UK broadband provider played down the discovery saying it was making ‘good progress to protect its routers.

The company’s site has posted up instructions on how to change the wireless name and password on your Talk Talk router but before doing so, it is best recommended to reset your router by pressing a small reset button at the back with a paperclip to force the device to download a new version of its firmware.

It is high time the telecommunications company start caring about its users’ security.
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Ransomware took down systems in NHS cyber-attack


An NHS hospital trust which was forced to shut down hospital systems and cancel operations revealed that the cyber attack was the result of the ransomware infection.

Systems of Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust suffered a major Globe2 ransomware infection in October which interrupted the operations for four days. The incident led to the cancellation of 2,800 patient appointments in three hospitals on October 30 which didn’t resume till November 02.

Globe2 works similarly to other ransomware viruses, but uses a Blowfish data encryption, by encrypting files and demanding money to release them. It has been described by security experts as very aggressive.

Although it was initially believed that the issue was caused by a malware infection spreading via USB, Pam Clipson, director of strategy and planning at Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, confirmed that a ransomware infection had affected the systems.

Ransomware infections usually involve a ransom that organizations need to pay to hackers in order to unlock systems, but Clipson explained that the hospital took systems offline in order to remove the malware themselves.

When the systems were attacked, all servers were checked and cleaned both prior to switching off and before returning to 'live' status.

NHS spokesperson has confirmed that no ransom was paid to the perpetrators of the attack in order to restore systems.

The attack is also being examined by West Yorkshire Police.
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Hacked San Francisco Muni lost $50,000 in fares


In yet another ransomware attack happened last month, San Francisco’s Municipal Transport Agency (SMTA) is expecting to have suffered a $50,000 loss.

SMTA, also known as ‘Muni’ was hacked on November 25 resulting in customers being able to travel for free on the city’s light-rail system. The cyber extortionists hacked into the transit system’s computers and denied access to its ticket machines, e-mail and personnel systems. Hackers succeeded in encrypting over 2000 computers and demanded 100 bitcoin (£56,000; €66,000).

Muni operates city trains, trams and buses which usually bring in around $120,000 in fares on a weekend day. That figure includes fares paid on all the three public transport systems both inside and outside the stations.

Though Muni did not pay the ransom and saved $73,000 but the attack did cost half a million dollar, said the officials on December 02. The officials had shut down the ticket machines in the Muni Metro system’s subway stations and threw open the fare gates as soon as they learned about the hack. The actions were taken to stop the spread of the cyber attack , in case the hacker was still inside the network and to ensure that passengers’ financial information couldn’t be accessed.

The rides remained free on November 26 which meant a hefty hit to Muni profits. Fare gates and ticket machines were back in service by the morning of November 27.

The attackers used a variant of the HDDCryptor malware resulting in every computer displaying a black screen with a ransom note. The ransomware attack was triggered when an employee clicked on an email attachment, pop-up or link following which around 900 office computers were taken out of action with the following message clearly visible on some:

“You Hacked, ALL Data Encrypted. Contact For Key(cryptom27@yandex.com)ID:681.”

City officials have confirmed a full investigation is now underway.

Though no report of train stopping or passenger safety came to light, but if Muni does not upgrade its systems the next attack can harm the passengers as well.
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