Russia’s biggest Internet company has embedded code into apps found on mobile devices that allows information about millions of users to be sent to servers located in its home country. The revelation relates to software created by Yandex that permits developers to create apps for devices running Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, systems that run the…

Cryptocurrency has been thrust into the spotlight during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) have been playing an unprecedented role in the war effort in both countries. As millions of Ukrainians flee their homes and even their country, they face a cap on cash withdrawals from banks, leaving cryptocurrency…

Russian hackers have been scanning the systems of energy companies and other critical infrastructure in the United States, and state-sponsored hacking by Russia presents a “current” threat to American national security, a top FBI official told lawmakers on Tuesday. “The threat from Russia in a criminal sense, in the nation state sense, is very, very real…

One of the UK’s top security agencies has urged the public sector, critical infrastructures (CNI) and other organizations to reconsider the potential risks associated with any “Russian-controlled” parts of their supply chain. Ian Levy, technical director of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said there’s no evidence to suggest that the Russian state is about to…

The Ankura Cyber Threat Investigations & Expert Services (CTIX) team conducted a technical analysis of historical and ongoing adversarial activity associated with the current Ukrainian/Russian conflict. In doing so, the CTIX team leveraged proprietary sources of threat intelligence which were then enhanced with additional data points collected from various open and closed sources. This report…

Massachusetts hospitals have been warned to be on high alert for cybersecurity threats as the war in Ukraine continues. The warnings have come from several federal and industry organizations, including the White House, FBI, federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, and the American Hospital Association. In a bulletin to…

Supply chains are once again being tested, this time by the extraordinary events in Ukraine. The time has long since passed when supply chain disruptions can be treated as one-off events, with organizations scrambling to mitigate the disruption to their business and to keep goods, funds, and information flowing across the supply chain. The conflict…

Russian tech developers are building an alternative to Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google Play store and plan to launch it on May 9, a national holiday in Russia that celebrates victory in World War Two, the organisation behind the initiative said on Tuesday. YouTube and Google Play this month suspended all payment-based services in Russia, including subscriptions,…

A “powerful” cyberattack has hit Ukraine’s biggest fixed line telecommunications company, Ukrtelecom. Described as the most severe cyberattack since the start of the Russian invasion in February, it has sent the company’s services across the country down. Victor Zhora, deputy head of the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection, confirmed to Forbes that the…

Organisations using Russian-linked software or products have been told to take time to consider the risk involved with using those technologies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. New guidance from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) – part of GCHQ – says organisations in several key areas in particular should reconsider the risk of using Russian-controlled products…

Japan will revise its foreign exchange law to prevent Russia from evading Western financial sanctions following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine through cryptocurrency assets, top government officials said on Monday. The government will submit a revision of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act to the current parliament session to strengthen protections against potential sanctions-busting by Russia…

In 2014 Russia annexed Crimea and NATO nations retaliated with economic sanctions. This prompted the Central Bank of Russia to establish Mir cards, a national payment system linked to 150 banks in the Russian Federation. Cut to eight years later, another invasion, this time of Ukraine itself. Even stronger sanctions loomed, but Russians could still…

Cybersecurity concerns could once be written off as the preserve of large companies. But, in today’s networked world — where many are still partly working remotely as a result of the pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is raising cyber warfare threats — that era is long gone. According to Santha Subramoni, global head of…

State-sponsored cyber attacks have been increasing— and Russia and China are among the most likely suspects of being behind these successful cyberattacks that resulted in data loss, service disruption, and industrial espionage, said a new report published by Trellix, a cybersecurity company and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). For the uninitiated, state-sponsored attacks…

The supply chain is in chaos—and it’s getting worse. Air freight warehouses at Shanghai Pudong Airport are log-jammed as a result of strict Covid testing protocols imposed on China’s biggest city following a local outbreak. At the city’s port, Shanghai-Ningbo, more than 120 container vessels are stuck on hold. In Shenzhen, a major manufacturing hub…

America’s Data Held Hostage is the name of the just-released report by the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security. The report provides a profile of three anonymous companies of varying sizes that were all attacked by the Russia-based ransomware group REvil and the experiences of those companies during the incident response. “Ransomware is a type of…

The total amount invested in cryptocurrency broke above $2 trillion this week, according to data from CoinGecko. It’s the first time since early March that the market has passed this price barrier. At time of writing, crypto’s total market cap sat at $2.12 trillion, up about 3% in the past 24 hours. Cryptocurrency prices have struggled…

Faced with stiffening sanctions from Western countries over its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is considering accepting bitcoin as payment for its oil and gas exports. In a videotaped news conference held on Thursday, the chair of Russia’s Duma committee on energy said in translated remarks that when it comes to “friendly” countries such as China…

The US has unveiled criminal charges against four Russian government officials, saying they engaged in two major hacking campaigns between 2012 and 2018 that targeted the global energy sector and affected thousands of computers across 135 countries. In one now-unsealed indictment from August 2021, the justice department said three alleged hackers from Russia’s Federal Security Service…

The soaring energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have plunged the energy sector into a state of crisis. Europe, which ordinarily sources almost 40% of its gas from Russia, is particularly vulnerable. The price of natural gas in Europe has seen a tenfold increase since the start of 2021. Beyond soaring energy prices and…

The Li Finance swap aggregator has experienced a smart contract exploit leading to the loss of around $600,000 from 29 users’ wallets. The exploit took place at 2:51 am UTC on Sunday. The attacker was able to extract varying amounts of 10 different tokens from wallets that had given “infinite approval” to the Li Finance protocol.…

On Monday night, Arthur Cheong—the founder of DeFinance Capital, a crypto-centric VC fund—had about $1.7 million worth of NFTs stolen from his wallet in what appears to have been a social engineering attack. “Well not sure what happened, need to take time to figure it out. Didn’t expect this to happen to me as well,” Cheong…

More than 22,000 miles above Earth, the KA-SAT is locked in orbit. Traveling at 7,000 miles per hour, in sync with the planet’s rotation, the satellite beams high-speed internet down to people across Europe. Since 2011, it has helped homeowners, businesses, and militaries get online. However, as Russian troops moved into Ukraine during the early…

US President Joe Biden has called on private companies and organisations in the US to “lock their digital doors”, claiming that intelligence suggests Russia is planning a cyber-attack on the US. The UK’s cyber-authorities are also supporting the White House’s calls for “increased cyber-security precautions”, though neither has given any evidence that Russia is planning a…

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said today that cryptocurrency is “certainly being used” as a means of evading international sanctions on the Russian Federation. However, industry experts may not be persuaded of that. Speaking at the Bank for International Settlements’ Innovation Summit on Tuesday, Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, stated that cryptocurrencies…

M, a Ukrainian engineer in his early 20s, is not healthy enough to enlist in the military. So every day, he sits down at his computer to do what he can as part of Ukraine’s IT army, an informal group of volunteer hackers whose job it is to wreak as much havoc on Russian websites…

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday warned the private sector to prepare for potential cyberattacks, saying U.S. agents were “particularly focused on the destructive cyber threat” from Russian agents. The FBI director spoke just a day after The White House warned companies to bolster defenses and prepare for potential cyberattacks with the Russian invasion of…

Fearing Russia’s elite will evade economic sanctions by converting their wealth to cryptocurrency, high-profile US Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren has introduced a bill into US Congress to stymie Russian crypto transactions. Warren warned a Senate committee hearing: So no one can argue that Russia can evade all sanctions by moving all its assets into crypto. But…

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is seldom reserved with her distaste for the crypto industry. Name any common criticism of Bitcoin, and she’s probably shared it already: volatility issues, environmental damage, ‘shadowy super coders’, and what have you. I won’t claim that her criticisms are entirely invalid (though I’ll cover those later), but they’ve become predictable to the…