A new report from the U.K. government’s Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS) outlines both just how likely an attack on critical national infrastructure is and where they are vulnerable. The impact of a coordinated cyberattack on the U.K.’s national infrastructure could impact millions of citizens within its country, according to the JCNSS’s report A hostage to fortune: ransomware and UK national security.

With so much of an attack riding on a cybercriminals ability to gain access to systems, applications and data, experts predict the trend of rising impersonation is only going to get worse.

Cybersecurity researchers at Group-IB have identified a single scam campaign leveraging over 1500 websites impersonating postal carriers and shippers leading up to Christmas this year. Scammers are always taking advantage of those current trends that involve the potential for heightened emotions. During tax season it’s tax returns. During the NBA’s Final Four, it’s about sports betting or tickets to the game.

With November demonstrating multiple increases when compared to various previous time periods, new data signals that we may be in for a bumpy ride in 2024. It’s nice when we get to see reports that are published relatively quickly to let us get a sense of where cyberattacks are today versus, say, a quarter or two ago (or even last year!). The NCCGroup’s Cyber Threat Intelligence Report was just published and covers ransomware attacks through November of this year.

In response to what Google calls “over trust” in the web address lock icon to indicate that a site is authentic and its’ communications are secure, they’ve swapped the lock out in an attempt to engage Chrome users in thinking about their own secure browsing. You may have not noticed it if you’ve updated to Google Chrome version 120, but the long-familiar lock icon is no longer.

Marketplaces such as OLVX are shifting from the dark web to the open web to take advantage of traditional web services to assist in marketing to and providing access to new customers. One of the challenges of existing on the dark web is the need to use a Tor browser and have some knowledge of how to navigate your way through the dark web’s depths. In addition, customers of dark web services may not be as readily accessible to advertising as they would be on the open web.

This new attack is pretty simple to spot on the front, but should it be successful in launching its’ malicious code, it’s going to take its’ victims for everything of value they have on their computer. The new Mr. Anon infostealer captures much more than just browser caches and passwords. It also uses basic social engineering tactics that prove to be effective enough to make attacks successful.

Midstride in this year’s holiday shopping, it’s important to realize just how many websites exist that impersonate legitimate online retailers. More importantly, your users need to know how to spot these types of attacks before falling victim.

Researchers at Bitdefender warn that scammers are tricking victims with fake remote job opportunities. In this case, the scammers tell victims that they’ll get paid for liking YouTube videos. Notably, the scammers send the victims a small amount of money (around six dollars) to gain their trust. After this, the victim is invited to a Telegram channel, where the scammer offers to give them much higher-paying tasks if they pay an entry fee of between $21 and $1,083.

As more cybercriminal gangs continue to enter the game, the massive increase in unique types of malware means it will become increasingly difficult to identify and stop attacks. Blackberry just put out their Global Threat Intelligence Report in November, covering June through August of this year. According to the report, the number of attacks identified and stopped in the three-month period covered equates to an average of 26 attacks per minute.