A multinational coalition of law enforcement agencies arrested over 150 individuals with chargers stemming from a crackdown of an illicit dark web marketplace. In other cybersecurity news, Her Majesty’s Treasury revealed they suffered nearly 5 million unique email attacks over the last 3 years.
Ukrainian police arrest multiple vaccine fraudsters
Ukrainian law enforcement arrested several individuals in connection to unauthorized infiltrations of the National Health Services of Ukraine (NHSU) that resulted in fraudulent vaccine certificates. The hackers worked with a group of doctors to create and sell hundreds, or potentially thousands, of illicit certificates. The certificates even had working QR codes, allowing them to scan as if they were legitimate. This group could also be tied to a fraudulent version of Ukraine’s “Action” app, allowing users to create fake vaccine certificates and driver’s licenses (though these certificates do not scan properly).
HM Treasury sees record number of malicious email attacks
Her Majesty’s Treasury revelaed that they suffered nearly 5 million unique email attacks over the past 3 years. While the number of overall email attacks has dropped from over 1.2 million a year to the current number of around 1,000 a year, officials believe that the threat of these email attacks is still a top priority. Though they were quick to reveal the number of threats that were successfully blocked, they haven’t been as forthcoming about the number of attacks that made were successful in bypassing their security measures.
Fullerton health compromised in third-party attack
Agape Connecting People, a third-party healthcare services vendor, revealed a data breach affecting the patients of Singapore’s Fullerton Health. Fullerton Health confirmed their systems weren’t affected and the third-party vendor has claimed responsibility. It’s still unclear how many patients were affected, but Fullerton officials are working closely with Agape to remediate and begin contacting those affected individuals.
Cyberattack takes down Iranian gas station network
Hackers compromised a network of over 3,500 gas stations belonging to National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC), and programmed them to display a message pertaining to cyberattacks that occurred in July. Most of the stations were completely unable to operate and left thousands of customers unable to properly refuel their vehicles. It’s believed the attack was carried out by a rival nation-state group with the goal of disrupting the Iranian government.
European law enforcement makes major drug trafficking arrests
A coalition of European law enforcement agencies arrested 150 individuals in connection with a crackdown on a dark web drug trafficking forum. The arrests mainly took place in the U.S., Germany and the U.K., with officials in Germany believing they detained the site’s operator and confiscated their related hardware. This cybercrime operation is the latest in a string of dark web marketplace crackdowns that have been happening around the world.
