July 19, 2024 at 10:12AM
SecurityWeek’s cybersecurity news roundup offers concise and valuable summaries of stories often overlooked. This week’s highlights include Mac malware linked to North Korean hackers, cybercriminals arrested in Ukraine, threats to the 2024 Summer Olympics, and significant cybersecurity funding increase in Q2 2024. Other topics involve data breaches, DDoS attacks, and phone-hacking technology.
Here are the key takeaways from this week’s meeting notes:
1. Mac malware analysis: Security expert Patrick Wardle conducted an analysis of BeaverTail, a piece of macOS malware linked to North Korean threat actors, distributed as a trojanized version of the MiroTalk communications app.
2. Cybercriminal arrests in Ukraine: Hackers responsible for stealing money from the bank accounts of industrial organizations in Ukraine have been arrested after installing malware on employee devices.
3. Threats to 2024 Summer Olympics: Reports from Fortinet and ZeroFox focus on cyber and physical threats to the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, including Russian interference, vulnerabilities in mobile applications, phishing attacks, and more.
4. Senators’ inquiries into recent incidents: Two senators have requested information from AT&T and Snowflake regarding recent incidents, including a data breach affecting AT&T’s wireless customers.
5. Crypto platform cyberattack: Indian cryptocurrency platform WazirX said $230 million worth of funds were stolen from a wallet as a result of a cyberattack, with efforts now underway to recover the stolen cryptocurrency.
6. Operation Spincaster: Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis has announced a new initiative, Operation Spincaster, which aims to disrupt and prevent losses caused by cryptocurrency scams.
7. Cybersecurity funding surge: Crunchbase reported that Q2 2024 was the best quarter for cybersecurity funding since Q1 2022, with cyber startups receiving $4.4 billion, a 144% year-over-year surge.
8. DDoS attack service sentencing: Texas man Scott Raul Esparza was sentenced to nine months in prison for running a DDoS attack service named Astrostress between 2019 and 2022.
9. FBI’s phone hacking: Cellebrite, an Israeli company, helped the FBI crack the phone of the man who shot at former President Donald Trump, but leaked documents indicated that Cellebrite is unable to unlock some modern iPhones.
10. One billion data breach victims: A new report from the Identity Theft Resource Center revealed that 732 data breaches in Q2 2024 impacted more than one billion individuals, marking a 1,170% increase compared to the second quarter of 2023.
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