Cyber Attack Forces Swatch to Disconnect Online Services

Though not confirmed by Swatch, the Swiss watchmaker was forced to take many of their systems offline after falling victim to a likely ransomware attack. While the company did not verify the exact type of attack, ransomware has been increasingly prevalent this year, and Swatch has announced that they plan to seek legal action against the attackers. Hopefully Swatch was quick enough in their discovery of the attack that shutting down their own systems was able to prevent the attack from spreading.

New Jersey Hospital Pays Massive Ransom

In the wake of a ransomware attack on the University Hospital in New Jersey, officials have decided to pay the demanded ransom of roughly $670,000. The hospital was likely pushed to this decision due to the 240GB of data that was stolen in the attack on their systems and were not capable of returning to normal operations from proper backups. It’s not entirely clear what information was stolen, but with the haste of payment, it was presumably highly sensitive patient data.

COVID-related Cyber Attacks Target Canadian Companies

A recent survey revealed that over 25% of all Canadian business organizations had been targeted by a COVID-19 themed cyber-attack since the beginning of the year. Most of the surveyed organizations also claimed that they had seen a significant rise in overall cyber-attacks since the start of the pandemic. A worrisome figure also revealed that 38% of the organizations were completely unsure if they had fallen victim to any type of cyberattack, which could mean the amount of customer information floating around for sale could be significantly higher.

Backdoor Found in Children’s Smartwatch

Researchers have discovered that the X4, made by Norwegian smartwatch seller Xplora, has a backdoor that can allow for a wide variety of compromising tasks. The X4 watch is designed specifically for children and has a limited number of capabilities that are mostly for children’s security. This backdoor, however, could allow attackers to take snapshots, view message and call records, and even access geolocational data on the wearer. The watches in question are both designed and built in China and have undetermined consequences for those wearing them and the information both created and stored on the devices.

Adobe Flash No Longer Allowed on Windows Systems

Following an announcement back in September, Microsoft has finally pushed out the update that removes Adobe Flash from all Windows 10 systems and stops the program from being installed again. It should be noted, however, that this update only removes the version of Adobe Flash that comes bundled with Windows 10. Internet browser extensions and stand-alone installs of the software will remain unaffected by this update as well. Should the user want to re-install Adobe Flash on a system that has already been updated, they will have to either revert to a point before the update or do a fresh install of Windows 10.