CYBERCRIME

CYBERCRIME FRENZY

It is common knowledge that Cybercrime cost global business more than £200bn last year. Statistically one in six companies have been hacked in the past year alone, and the financial and legal sectors are especially targeted but no exclusively. Having said that, the Talk Talk Telecom Group got hacked last Thursday  and the customers' bank details were stolen for the third time in eight months. TalkTalk previously got hacked in August and again in February. Management speculated that the hackers made off with some the 4 million client accounts, but after further investigation realized it to be a lot less. In an attempt to appease worried customers, Dido Harding apologized for the hacking before TalkTalk released official figures based on their internal investigation.  Announcing that some 20,000 bank account numbers and 28,000 partially obscured credit card details were accessed. Their investigation further showed that some 1.2 million customer email addresses, names and phone numbers were accessed.  

TalkTalk just got hacked

To add insult to injury, these very customers' bank details are already up for sale for £1.62 each (Bitcoins) on Alpha Bay Website by a hacker with the alias 'Martian'.  It is believed that Eastern European criminal gangs are the main buyers of such stolen financial data. A  hacker claimed that he could make £150,000 by getting hold of the data and selling it on to many gangs.

Beware of Alpha Bay on the deep web

Tuesday marked the 98th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, and Pro-Palestinian hackers on took over over the Twitter feed of the Hebrew-language Haaretz news website and sending threatening text messages to journalists. Among the tweets posted by the unknown hackers: “The Holocaust of the Balfour Declaration will continue the knife intifada”; “The mothers of our martyrs will drink the blood of your soldiers and settlers,” and “The memory of the Balfour Declaration has changed the situation, wait for the massacre that will be arriving soon.” Apart from the tweets, a sms expressing similar sentiments and threats was sent out to cell phones around Israel. “A continuous Holocaust upon you until you give back the right to its owners,” 

Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investment Group have just coughed up $35 million to a Cybersecurity company to secure their computer network because in 2014 hackers gained access to confidential and personal information of 83 million of JP Morgan's customers. The credentials of the Cybersecurity company has been verified by Deloitte and their hype seems very promising but only time will tell. This is the type of mark that hackers find very, very interesting and a challenge to prove that any and all forms of cybersecurity is purely a deterrent and not hacker proof.