With Christmas approaching vendors have scaled back on their announcements. However, one must remember that cybercriminals are unlikely to take much of a break at Christmas and organisations must be vigilant against new threats over the coming days.
Avast
The EU Digital Identity Wallet Consortium (EWC) was selected by the European Commission to run one of the Large Scale Pilots for the new EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI) ecosystem. Avast, a leading digital security and privacy brand of Gen™, sits on the Executive Team of the consortium, having been closely involved in its formation.
The EUDI Wallet is a part of the proposed eIDAS2.0 regulation, which will provide all European citizens access to a trusted digital identity provided by their government and accepted by all EU Member States and EFTA.
Starting in early 2023, the initial pilot will focus on travel. Andrew Tobin, Commercial Director for Europe at Avast, a brand of Gen™, and executive team member at the EWC, commented, “With digital wallets becoming mainstream, the EUDI Wallet will be transformational for European citizens.
“It will allow them to prove more securely and privately who they are online and take control over the release of their personal information. By focusing on travel for the EWC’s pilot, we will show how we can simplify often painful travel transactions and make them more secure for both users and travel organizations.”
Europol
Europol, Eurojust and the European Judicial Network have published the 2022 edition of the SIRIUS European Union (EU) Digital Evidence Situation Report. This report includes the results of SIRIUS’ research on the experiences of EU Member States’ competent authorities and Online Service Providers (OSPs) with cross-border access to digital evidence in criminal investigations.
The report highlights the need for cross-border digital evidence. While online gaming platforms are a concern now, the report highlights that the metaverse is both different and of rising importance.
On 15 December 2022, the European Union Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) at Europol coordinated the second Referral Action Day (RAD) against violent right-wing extremist and terrorist content online. The coordinated action involved specialised units from 14 countries, including 13 EU Member States (MS) and one non-EU country, Czechia.
The participating authorities were involved in detecting and flagging terrorist content to online service providers and evaluating their responses. The activities resulted in the referral of 831 items to 34 affected platforms.
Referred materials include content produced by or favouring proscribed right-wing extremist organisations. It also includes content disseminated in relation to terrorist attacks motivated by violent extremism. Such materials include live streams, manifestos, claims and celebrations of attacks.
Experian
Experian has launched Protect My ID service in India. Protect My ID is a dark web monitoring solution that provides real-time alerts to safeguard individuals’ personal and financial information. This is notable for businesses that suffer breaches as it is a service that they may consider offering to customers to mitigate the risk of stolen credentials.
Neeraj Dhawan, Country Manager, Experian India, commented, “There has been a rise in identity fraud in India in the last decade, with increased digitalisation during the pandemic catalysing the trend. Businesses need a robust system in place to safeguard their customers from fraudsters as data breaches continue to pose a significant threat.
“Experian is committed to supporting businesses with innovative solutions to swiftly address and prevent identity fraud risks, and solutions such as Protect My ID provide robust, real-time protection for businesses to secure customer data and identities.”
LogRhythm
LogRhythm has partnered with SentinelOne to provide an enterprise security solution to prevent, detect, and respond to threats in the enterprise environment. The combined solution streamlines security operations and improves response workflow, helping overwhelmed security teams cut through the noise and gain precise insights into cybersecurity threats.
Andrew Hollister, Chief Information Security Officer at LogRhythm, commented, “We are thrilled to formally announce our integration with SentinelOne. This partnership brings together two remarkable platforms that will provide our customers with incomparable visibility for analysts, allowing them to cut through the noise, and recognize and respond to incidents more quickly and effectively.
“LogRhythm is committed to helping customers defend themselves against cyberattacks and we will continue to do so by partnering with leading and innovative cybersecurity companies to expand our offerings.”
Sophos
Sophos has revealed details of how it tracked down the likely culprit behind more than 20 fake criminal marketplaces designed to con cyber scammers in part three of Sophos’ series, “The Scammers Who Scam Scammers on Cybercrime Forums.”
After stumbling upon a surface website mimicking the real criminal underground site Genesis, Sophos researchers further uncovered the 20 fake marketplaces dating back to August 2021. All the fake sites appeared to be run by a scammer who uses the handle “waltcranston,” a likely riff on the television show “Breaking Bad.”
Matt Wixey, Senior Threat Researcher at Sophos, commented, “While investigating this huge sub-economy of scammers scamming other scammers, we examined about 600 scams of varying types. Out of all the scams investigated, this operation stood out for its sheer scope and intricacy.
“The scammer advertises the fake marketplaces on Reddit and replicates not just Genesis, which was the first scam site we ran across, but numerous other prominent or defunct marketplaces, such as Benumb, UniCC, and PoisOn. While these scam sites are not sophisticated at a technical level, the scam operation has been highly successful.
“Seven fake sites are still active, and, to date, the cryptocurrency wallets associated with the scams have received at least $132,000.”
VMWare
VMWare appointed Jason Rolleston, Vice President and General Manager, who will lead the Security Business Unit. Rolleston will continue to lead meaningful product innovations and cross-functional advancements for VMware’s integrated security strategy and the VMware Carbon Black portfolio.
Rolleston has worked at a long list of significant security vendors, including Verisign, Symantec, Cisco, Intel Security, McAfee and Kenna Security. He joined VMWare Carbon Black as Vice President, Product Management in August 2021.
