News
Monthly selection of cyber news
February 2021, issue 11
Kazakhstan News
1 February
How EAEU countries can work together to fight Internet pirates
Blocking illegal content can become the key to combatting Internet pirates in the EAEU, according to Timur Zhaksylykov, Minister of the Eurasian Economic Commission, adding that the problem of protecting intellectual property rights on the Internet is becoming more urgent and that the commission has studied the global experience and developed recommendations, Sputnik reports.
8 February
In 2020, 24 thousand information security incidents were processed in Kazakhstan
The recent Almaty international forum “Digital Almaty 2021 — Digital Reset: a leap into a new reality” hosted a panel session to discuss the “information security challenges during the pandemic”, where the speaker was Alexander Kosenkov, Deputy Director of the National Coordination Centre for Information Security.
15 February
In 2020, Internet fraud in Nur-Sultan increased by 59%
As online trading gains popularity due to the pandemic, scammers have found new ways of committing fraud, under the pretext of selling medical masks, antiseptics, medicines, fur coats, cell phones and furniture, but through hundreds of fake accounts and social network ads. The online resources are being identified and blocked.
17 February
Common Internet scam mechanisms according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Kanat Nurmagambetov, Deputy Head of the Criminal Police Department has explained that the most common Internet fraud mechanisms are online trading platform ads for goods or services. Scammers attract their victims with low prices or quick delivery, and buyers are then asked to make a partial or full prepayment to an account, usually belonging to a third party, Zakon.kz reports.
Caspian news
1 February
The electronic portal e-psixoloq.az has been launched within the Psychological Service project
The electronic portal e-psixoloq.az has been launched as part of the State Examination Centre’s "Psychological Service" project, to:
- educate the public about the psychological aspects of education and examination processes;
- help applicants choose a profession;
- provide psychological support to exam participants, parents, teachers and teaching staff.
Azerbaijani scientists will conduct research in the field of information security
A number of studies in the field of information security are planned to be conducted in Azerbaijan this year. According to the Institute of Information Technologies of ANAS, in the direction of information security problems it is planned to develop methods of multifactor assessment of threats in e-government environment, artificial intelligence approaches for detection and analysis of malware, methods of information security management in organizations and methods of information security in geoinformation systems.
3 February
Azerbaijan's AzScienceNet science computer network will join the GN4-3 project of the European electronic science and education network. According to the Institute of Information Technologies of ANAS, the main goal is to provide users with access to research infrastructure and e-infrastructure sources in Europe with high-performance network access.
9 February
The impact of artificial intelligence on various areas in Azerbaijan will be studied
The Institute of Information Technologies of ANAS will conduct research on the impact of artificial intelligence technologies on various spheres of society. This year's work includes research on the formation and development of an intellectual e-government.
17 February
Azerbaijan and Turkey discussed cooperation in transport, cyber security and communications
Azerbaijani Minister of Transport, Communications and High Technologies Rashad Nabiyev has arrived in Turkey. During the visit, he met with Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Adil Karaismailoglu. Nabiyev wrote about this on his Facebook. The Minister said that issues of mutual interest in the fields of transit and transport, cyber security and communications were discussed at the meeting.
Microsoft: Azerbaijani language will be taught to artificial intelligence language
“To teach the Azerbaijani language to artificial intelligence, we need about 5 million sentences with parallel translation into English” Gachay Mirzayev, general manager of Microsoft Azerbaijan, said that these sentences will be processed by the AI Machine Learning Algorithm to understand the corpus of the Azerbaijani language by artificial intelligence.
18 February
Bank cards attacked via WhatsApp
Fraudsters abusing the name of Azerpost LLC, using WhatsApp to target their targets and deceiving them into stealing bank cards, are already using Azerbaijani numbers. This was reported by the State Service for Special Communications and Information Security.
26 February
Kyrgyzstan’s "Safe City" has generated 1.527 billion Som
Since the start of the “Safe City” project on 4 March 2019, local drivers have been issued with 2,163,576 fines according to Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, October Urmambetov. He added that 64.9% of 1,403,467 fines had been paid, which translates to 1.527 billion Som, Sputnik reports.
Attacks by bank trojans on Azerbaijani users have increased
According to Kaspersky, in 2020, 44% of home users and 35% of corporate users in Azerbaijan were exposed to local threats (i.e. on computers or removable media - USB flash drives and memory cards, external hard drives, etc. threats). 11% of home users and 7% of corporate users are at risk of infection on the Internet. In 2020, bank trojans began to attack Azerbaijani users more often.
Russian news
2 February
Experts explain how fraudsters manage to call from government agency or bank phone numbers
Progress in telecommunications systems means that attackers with the necessary skills and technical ability can create the illusion that they are calling from government agency and bank phone numbers, Izvestiya writes. According to information security expert Taras Tatarinov, personal data leaks are very common in Russia, and attackers have the opportunity to buy the data on the black market and use it to commit fraud.
3 February
Cybercriminals set up fake sites to match the characteristics of the victims
Fake site administrator have begun to use more sophisticated means of committing fraud by selecting victims according to criteria, Kommersant writes. Since November 2020, Infosecurity a Softline Company has discovered over 20 sites created using this mechanism and focus on clients of large Russian banks. The main victim selection criteria are geolocation, browser type and the device from which they enter the fraudulent resource, Sergey Trukhachev explained, head of the Infosecurity a Softline Company special services block.
4 February
Almost 80% of personal data leaks are due to internal violations
“In January-September 2020, 96.5 million personal data and payment information records were leaked in Russia. Interestingly, according to the information available, 79% of personal data leaks occurred not as a result of hacker attacks, but due to internal violations. The fraudulent actions of employees account for 72% of leaks”, said Irina Rukavishnikova, First Deputy Chairperson of the Federation Council Committee for Constitutional Legislation and State Construction, at a conference dedicated to forming an integrated digital environment of trust in society. She referred to data from a study conducted by InfoWatch, a Russian company specialising in information security in the corporate sector.
12 February
Yandex disclosed an internal leak with almost 5 thousand mailboxes compromised
“A regular check by Yandex's security service revealed that an employee had been providing unauthorised access to user mailboxes. He was one of three system administrators with the necessary technical support access rights for the service. As a result of his actions, 4,887 mailboxes were compromised”, Yandex reported.
Previous issues
Previous issues | January 2021, issue 10
Previous issues | December 2020, issue 9
Previous issues | November 2020, issue 8
Previous issues | September 2020, issue 6
Previous issues | August 2020, issue 5
Previous issues | July 2020, issue 4
Previous issues | June 2020, issue 3
Previous issues | May 2020, issue 2
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