Episode 01: COVID, IoT Botnets, Ransomware and Online Events - a podcast by TJ Nel, Ryan Hays

COVID-19 Related Attacks

• COVID-19 has hit the entire world extremely hard. We have seen an uptick in COVID-19 related attacks targeting businesses and consumers around the world. Recently we have witnessed spear phishing attacks related to streaming platforms as well as an uptick in malicious mobile applications related to COVID-19. 
  • References
    
    
    • https://research.checkpoint.com/2020/covid-19-goes-mobile-coronavirus-malicious-applications-discovered/
    
    
    • https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/hackers-target-netflix-disney/
    
    
    
    
  
  

Dark Nexus IOT Botnet

• IoT attacks have seen an uptick in IoT related attacks over the past few years. One of the largest currently operating in the Dark Nexus botnet. 
  • References
    • https://labs.bitdefender.com/2020/04/new-dark_nexus-iot-botnet-puts-others-to-shame/
    
    
  
  

Ransomware Attacks (Travelx and Cognizant)

• Ransomware attacks have always been an issue, but with employees in work from home mode and using VPNs, it increases the risk to the corporate network for attack. Two companies that we have seen hit recently Travelex were hit with Sodinokibi ransomware causing them to pay out $2.3M in ransom to unlock the systems. Cognizant is an MSP for some large organizations, and they were hit with MAZE ransomware. The difference here is attackers are exporting this data so the victims can no longer just restore from backups they are forced to pay out the ransom. 
  • References
    
    
    • https://threatpost.com/travelex-pays-2-3m-in-bitcoin-to-hackers-who-hijacked-network-in-january/154666/
    
    
    • https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/maze-wage-ransomware-attack-on/
    
    
    
    
  
  

Online Training/Events

• It seems with the world in its current state all of the infosec conferences have quickly adapted to still providing training within the virtual space. TJ and I collected several upcoming events and listed them for everyone to enjoy hopefully. 
  • References
    
    
    • https://wildwesthackinfest.com/deadwood/tickets-and-training-info/
    
    
    • https://www.sans.org/blog/and-now-for-something-awesome-sans-launches-new-series-of-worldwide-capture-the-flag-cyber-events/
    
    
    
    
  
  

Intro/Outro Music Credits

Something Elated (Broke For Free: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Something_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Something_EP_-_05_Something_Elated) / CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

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