Cybersecurity News Update: Week of February 28, 2022

Hello and welcome to our wrap-up of some of the cybersecurity industry's biggest stories in the last week. Here's what's been happening...

Shortly after the Russia-Ukraine conflict began,?the Ukrainian government warned that phishing emails were sent to email addresses belonging to Ukrainian military personnel and related individuals. Now, employees at several European government organizations have been receiving malicious emails that appear to be coming from email accounts belonging to members of the Ukrainian military.?The incident has been attributed to the cybercrime group UNC1151.

The U.S. Senate passed important legislation in an effort to?bolster the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure owners in the country. The?"Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act" calls for entities that experience a cyber incident to report the attacks within 72 hours to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in addition to alerting the agency about ransomware payments within 24 hours. The proposal's intent is to give CISA the information it needs to more widely share threat data to help curtail major cyberattacks rippling through key targets. Despite bipartisan support for the bill,?not everyone?is pleased with it.?

Meanwhile, some well known companies have been hit by attackers recently, including?Toyota, Nvidia and Aon.?

Car?manufacturer Toyota was forced to suspend?production at 14 plants in Japan for at least a day in response to a “system failure” at components supplier Kojima Industries. Fortunately the company?was?up and running again within a few days.?

Then, electronics giant Nvidia was the victim of?an apparent ransomware attack on its networks, during which?hackers were able to grab data. It's also been reported that Nvidia?*may* have hacked back the hackers, though nothing has been confirmed.?

In addition, insurance and professional services provider Aon disclosed late last week in an SEC filing the company "identified a cyber incident impacting a limited number of systems. Promptly upon its identification of the incident, the Company launched an investigation, and engaged the services of third-party advisors, incident response professionals, and counsel." Aon says the hack has not had a significant impact on its operations.?

Finally, Microsoft announced the launch of a new endpoint security solution for small and medium sized business owners (SMBs), Defender for Business. The product is designed to help organizations of up to 300 employees stay protected from ransomware and other malicious threats. According to Rob Lefferts, corporate vice president of security at Microsoft, "It's a perk for smaller organizations, which may have just one IT person doing everything."

That is a wrap for the week. Thanks for stopping by, for further details visit our blog!