Russian-Canadian man arrested, awaiting U.S. extradition for alleged global ransomware crimes

A Russian-Canadian man from Ontario is in police custody and awaiting extradition to the United States for his alleged participation in a global ransomware campaign, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

Mikhail Vasiliev, a 33-year-old dual Russian and Canadian national from Bradford, Ont., is charged with conspiracy to intentionally damage protected computers and to transmit ransom demands in connection with his alleged role in the LockBit global ransomware scheme, the department said in a press release.

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Sobeys, Safeway grappling with IT issues as Maple Leaf Foods announces cybersecurity incident

Some stores across Canada owned by Empire Company Ltd., including Sobeys, Safeway and affiliated pharmacy services, continue to experience disruptions due to an information technology systems issue.

Empire, which owns Sobeys, Lawtons, IGA, Safeway, Farm Boy, Foodland and FreshCo, among other brands, announced Monday an IT problem is preventing some of its pharmacies from filling prescriptions.

The issue has also caused some services to be delayed or to function only intermittently.

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Not So Fast: U.S. Seizes Ransom Payment from North Korean Hackers

The Department of Justice has revealed that it successfully seized a $500,000 ransom payment that a hospital paid in Kansas to a North Korea-based hacking and ransomware gang.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco revealed the operation in a speech delivered on Tuesday, as she spoke at the International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS) in New York.

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Canada eyes new measures to protect economy from national security threats

New measures to ensure Canada doesn’t export sensitive technology to foreign adversaries are among the changes being eyed by Ottawa to bolster the country’s economic security.

Other possibilities include making it easier to fine companies that fail to comply with investment screening rules and mapping supply chains to identify critical vulnerabilities, according to a federal consultation paper.

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Canada, allies warn of Russian cyberattacks on critical infrastructure due to Ukraine war

Western governments jointly warned on Wednesday about a potential threat of increased malicious cyber activity by Russia against critical infrastructure as a response to sanctions imposed as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine.

The cybersecurity agencies of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand that together form the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance said the war could expose organizations everywhere to cyber crime.

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Canada truck convoy donor names leak after reported hack of GiveSendGo

A leak site says it has been given reams of data about the donors to the Canadian anti-vaccine mandate truckers after the fundraising platform popular with supporters of the movement allegedly suffered a hack.

Distributed Denial of Secrets announced on its website that it had 30 megabytes of donor information from Christian fundraising site GiveSendGo, including names, email addresses, zip codes, and internet protocol addresses.

At the same time, GiveSendGo appeared to be offline. Visitors to the website were met with the message that it was under maintenance and “we will be back very soon.” Messages seeking comment from the site’s operators were not immediately returned.

h/t RM

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Canada’s cyberspy agency warns of Russian cyberattacks on critical infrastructure

Canada’s cyberspy agency is warning of Moscow-backed cyberattacks on Canadian critical infrastructure as Western countries prepare economic sanctions in the growing expectation that Russia will invade Ukraine.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security joined its counterparts in the United States and United Kingdom on Thursday in urging Canadian companies, such as electrical utilities and energy firms, to watch out for cyberattacks from Russia.

I bet the Russians will be pissed to find the ChiComs got there first.

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U.S. Catches Kremlin Insider Who May Have Secrets of 2016 DNC Hack

(Bloomberg) — In the days before Christmas, U.S. officials in Boston unveiled insider trading charges against a Russian tech tycoon they had been pursuing for months. They accused Vladislav Klyushin, who’d been extradited from Switzerland on Dec. 18, of illegally making tens of millions of dollars trading on hacked corporate-earnings information.

Yet as authorities laid out their securities fraud case, a striking portrait of the detainee emerged: Klyushin was not only an accused insider trader, but a Kremlin insider. He ran an information technology company that works with the Russian government’s top echelons. Just 18 months earlier, Klyushin received a medal of honor from Russian President Vladimir Putin. The U.S. had, in its custody, the highest-level Kremlin insider handed to U.S. law enforcement in recent memory.

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The “most serious” security breach ever is unfolding right now

The fact that log4j is such a ubiquitous piece of software is what makes this such a big deal. Imagine if a common type of lock used by millions of people to keep their doors shut was suddenly discovered to be ineffective. Switching a single lock for a new one is easy, but finding all the millions of buildings that have that defective lock would take time and an immense amount of work.

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Recently uncovered software flaw ‘most critical vulnerability of the last decade’

A critical vulnerability in a widely used software tool – one quickly exploited in the online game Minecraft – is rapidly emerging as a major threat to organizations around the world.

“The internet’s on fire right now,” said Adam Meyers, senior vice-president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. “People are scrambling to patch”, he said, “and all kinds of people scrambling to exploit it.” He said on Friday morning that in the 12 hours since the bug’s existence was disclosed, it had been “fully weaponized”, meaning malefactors had developed and distributed tools to exploit it.

Update: CRA takes down online services amid cybersecurity threat

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Google sues alleged Russian cyber criminals

Google has sued hackers believed to be part of a cybercrime gang that has stolen user information from around the world.

A complaint names two Russians and 15 unknown individuals said to be behind Glupteba, a malicious “botnet” that has infected over a million computers.

Criminals use these systems of compromised devices to hack private data.

It is the first case Google has launched against a botnet.

According to a lawsuit filed in New York and unsealed on Tuesday, the botnet built by Dmitry Starovikov, Alexander Filippov and their associates has become a “modern technological and borderless incarnation of organised crime”.

Kinda hard to pick out the bad guys here.

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Canadian energy, health, manufacturing sectors were major targets of ransomware attacks: cyber spy agency

More than half of the known ransomware victims in Canada this year were critical infrastructure providers, according to a new threat assessment from Canada’s cyber spies, and the number is likely even higher.

As part of a push a new awareness campaign, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s foreign signals intelligence agency, released a ransomware bulletin Monday looking at the key trends of ransomware in 2021.

“Brazen, sophisticated, increasing in frequency, and, for the cybercriminals, very profitable,” assessed CSE’s Cyber Centre in its report.

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