Kwik Fit hack highlights dangers of malware for businesses

Recently we wrote an article detailing predictions from some of the world’s top experts including McAfee and the World Economic Forum forecasting greater levels of hacking and phishing in 2019. Well it appears that we have the first major casualty of 2019 with a major hack of UK firm Kwik Fit’s computer network.

The popular car service specialist has over 600 garages across the United Kingdom and Ireland and provides tyres, exhausts, batteries and breaks as well as MOT testing and car servicing. However, the chain experienced a recent malware attack which caused huge delays to customers’ car repairs as garages were unable to process orders.

Global cyber-attack would cost businesses billions

A new report has produced findings in which it claims that a coordinated global cyber attack could cause economic damage of between £65-96 billion.

In the hypothetical scenario developed for Lloyds of London and Aon, findings showed that a malicious campaign similar to those of real-life ransomware (such as WannaCry and Not Petya) could spread around the world incredibly quickly and cause devastating damage in its wake.

The scenario involved an infected email which once opened forwards itself to all contacts. It estimated that within 24 hours, data on 30 million devices worldwide could be encrypted and business owners faced with the prospect of paying a ransom or losing their data.

The impact on those businesses through reduced operation, productivity, consumption, ransomware payments and disruption to the supply chain was estimated to be in the tens of billions with businesses most heavily impacted in Europe and North America.

Has your email been stolen in massive data leak?

Dubbed a ‘mega-leak’, more than 2.2 billion stolen emails and passwords have surfaced online in a leak that is growing bigger by the day.

First reported on January 17, 2019 by researcher Troy Hunt, the leak included an astonishing number of email addresses and password combinations. However, upon further investigation the list of breached data was even bigger than first suspected, with 2.2 billion user’s worth of data included.

The data is apparently an amalgamation of leaked email addresses and passwords from other various leaks in recent years (Yahoo, LinkedIn, Dropbox, etc.) bundled together in an easily downloadable package for illicit purposes.

It has been reported by tech website Wired that the leak is being shared among hacker circles on forums and through torrents providing what is essentially a ‘phone book’ of email address credentials. This effectively allows any would-be hacker to attempt to gain access to websites using those credentials in the hopes that the password remains unchanged.

Levels of hacking and phishing predicted to increase in 2019

2018 brought with it many major cyber-crime attacks over the year.

A number of global businesses and industries fell victim to data breaches including the likes of Facebook, Under Armour, MyHeritage and the Marriott Hotel Group – even the French President, Emmanuel Macron, had his emails hacked!

Together with increasing levels of ransomware and malware attacks, cyber security is rightly at the top of many business agendas in 2019. Here are what some of the world’s top experts are predicting for the year ahead.

McAfee

Leading software experts McAfee have warned that businesses may well find themselves ‘under siege’ from threats like malware, ransomware and over attacks in the coming months. They predict that criminals will turn to social media, cloud technologies and mobile phones as key windows for attacks and ‘upscale’ their efforts to bypass security controls.

6 ways to protect your business from ransomware attacks

A recent report from cyber security company Sophos has uncovered some disturbing trends in the advancement of online crime. The report found that teams of online criminals are now turning to targeted ransomware attacks as a means of earning millions of dollars from businesses and high-value individuals.

The report by SophosLabs also suggested that cyber criminals are manipulating flaws in Windows systems admin tools as a means of stealing sensitive information and of delivering ransomware. Once activated, the ransomware will cut off access either to the entire system or specific files until the user delivers a ransom payment – usually paid for in untraceable currency such as BitCoin. However, there are no guarantees that a payment will mean your data will be restored.

Following a string of worrying malware strains released last year such as Meltdown, Spectre, Foreshadow, Petya, NotPetya, X-bash and WannaCry, it is important that businesses have protocols in place to defend against and minimise damage carried out by a ransomware attack. Here are just a few things that you can do.

What are the benefits of VDI for businesses?

Virtual desktop infrastructure. Even the name itself can sound confusing. But the benefits of VDI are well worth the small amount of time it takes to understand what it is and how it works. Read on to find out more.

What is VDI?

VDI can be simply described as a type of technology that detaches the application processing from the physical computer in front of you. Rather than running applications on the computer under your desk, you will instead run them from a server that mirrors them on to your PC.

What is X-bash? A look at the all-in-one malware threat

Following on from headline claiming malware like Petya, NotPetya and WannaCry, a new threat to computer users has emerged in the form of an all-in-one malware called X-bash.

What is X-Bash?

Researchers at Palo Alto Networks have named this new form of malware X-bash. They claim it combines bot net, cryptocurrency mining software and ransomware in one singular worm that specifically targets users of Linux and Windows.

Who created it?

The researchers, named ‘Unit 42’, have claimed that the malware can be tied to a collective known as the Iron Group (aka Rocke), who are known to be behind numerous other ransomware attacks.