The Register

Central bank worries that block-bucks reduce government control and are used by crims

Russia has floated the prospect of Putin a ban on cryptocurrencies.…

Won't reveal net loss, says it stopped some withdrawals and has reimbursed those who had funds taken

Crypto.com on Thursday said in a roundabout way that an unidentified person stole or attempted to steal as much as $34m in cryptocurrency from customer accounts.…

Computer users can disable it and install Linux as normal. Just sayin'

PCs coming out this year with Microsoft's integrated Pluton security chip won't be locked down to Windows 11, and users will have the option to turn off the feature completely and install, say, Linux as normal, we understand.…

And to pay for the privilege. Consultation's open, though

Small and medium-sized managed service providers (MSPs) could find themselves subject to the Network and Information Systems Regulations under government plans to tighten cybersecurity laws – and have got three months to object to the tax hikes that will follow.…

So far we've got a pisspoor video and... er, that's it

Opinion  The British government's PR campaign to destroy popular support for end-to-end encryption on messaging platforms has kicked off, under the handle "No Place To Hide", and it's as broad as any previous attack on the safety-guaranteeing technology.…

Red Hat agrees

The CVE-2022-0185 vulnerability in Ubuntu is severe enough that Red Hat is also advising immediate patching.…

CMA invites comments from 'interested parties' on what merger means to them

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has invited comments from industry and interested parties about NortonLifeLock's proposed $8bn purchase of fellow infosec outfit Avast.…

Director-general pleads with cyber-scum: leave this data alone, because the people involved have suffered enough

Humanitarian organization the International Red Cross disclosed this week that it has fallen foul of a cyberattack that saw the data of over 515,000 "highly vulnerable people" exposed to an unknown entity.…

The Vectra Masked CISO series gives security leaders a place to expose the biggest issues in security and advise peers on how to overcome them.

Advertorial  I’ve seen it countless times. Another CISO walks into a board meeting and muddles through stats showing their compliance status. Great, you’re 75% compliant with ISO 27001, but what does this tell anyone about their level of risk?…

To evoke support for growing things, not the 1990s vendor of web-pages-made-easy-ware

LogoWatch  Newly combined security outfits McAfee and FireEye have revealed a new name: "Trellix".…

Edict follows widespread bank phishing scam claiming well over $6.3 million

A widespread phishing operation targeting Southeast Asia's second-largest bank – Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) – has prompted the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to introduce regulations for internet banking that include use of an SMS Sender ID registry.…

Exploit, vulnerability discussion online can offer useful signals

Organizations looking to minimize exposure to exploitable software should scan Twitter for mentions of security bugs as well as use the Common Vulnerability Scoring System or CVSS, Kenna Security argues.…

NotPetya started over there, don't forget

US companies should be on the lookout for security nasties from Ukrainian partners following the digital graffiti and malware attack launched against Ukraine by Belarus, the CISA has warned.…

Visitors have to install it 14 days prior to arrival in China until their departure

Toronto-based Citizen Lab has warned that an app required by Beijing law to attend the 2022 Olympics contains vulnerabilities that can leak calls and data to malicious users, as well as the potential to subject the user to scanning for censored keywords.…

Last set of rules written in 2010 – a whole different era in tech terms

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DoJ) Antitrust Division are launching a joint public inquiry as a first step to modernising merger guidelines and preventing anticompetitive deals.…

Security biz PeckShield claims $15m in Ethereum taken

Crypto.com, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, has denied reports that the firm lost nearly $15m in Ethereum in a possible network intrusion over the weekend.…

VPN service used by crims to support ransomware attacks and other illicit activity

Some 15 server infrastructures used by crims to prepare ransomware attacks were seized by cops yesterday as part of an international sting to take down VPNLab.net.…

Ransomware suspected but not confirmed

SJD Accountancy and Nixon Williams – both contractor-focused beancounting firms owned by the same corporate parent as cyber-attack-struck UK umbrella company Parasol – have been hit by online attackers.…

Scam has claimed 469 victims in December alone, of which OCBC has issued goodwill payments to 30

The Monetary Authority of Singapore says it is considering supervisory action against Southeast Asia's second largest bank, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), which was criticised for its incident response to a widespread phishing scheme across the island nation.…

‘If you don’t have Anycast it’s not a good DNS service’

Paid Feature  In October 2021, in an incident lasting more than six hours, Facebook disappeared from the Internet. This wasn’t a temporary .com outage on the company’s primary domain but a complete shutdown of its public existence that also dragged into the darkness WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.…