Company hacked after accidentally hiring North Korean cyber criminal

Published

3 weeks ago

October 18, 2024

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A company was hacked after it hired a North Korean cyber criminal posing as an IT contractor.

The unnamed company fell victim to a new North Korean hacking tactic, according to cybersecurity company Secureworks, which investigated the incident.

A North Korean cyber criminal posing as an IT contractor was hired for a fixed-term contract by the firm, which is based either in the UK, US or Australia.

Secureworks is keeping the company’s location general in order to protect the company.

Within days of starting work, the criminal “accessed and exfiltrated company data”, according to Rafe Pilling, who is the director of threat intelligence at Secureworks.

Then, when the employment contract was finished, the criminal used the hacked data “to demand a hefty ransom in return for not publishing” it, said Mr Pilling.

This is a new tactic for the North Korean regime, which was already trying to sneak its workers into UK companies.

“It is almost certain that UK firms are currently being targeted by [North Korean] IT workers disguised as freelance third-country IT workers to generate revenue for the DPRK regime,” said an advisory note published by the government’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) last month.

UK companies that hire these workers could be breaching the “significant” sanctions currently placed on North Korea, according to OFSI.

Although it is thought those workers’ salaries were being used to fund the North Korean regime, this latest incident, and others like it, mark “a serious escalation” of risk for companies, said Mr Pilling.

“No longer are [the fake workers] just after a steady paycheck, they are looking for higher sums, more quickly, through data theft and extortion, from inside the company defences,” he said.

UK companies should protect themselves from these kinds of attacks by being on “high alert”, he said.

OFSI published a list of tell-tale signs that a new contractor is not who they say they are and is, in fact, an agent for the North Korean government.

Some of those include being inconsistent with the spelling of their name, their nationality, location, experience and online presence or refusing to appear on camera.

Mr Pilling said companies should monitor for long pauses if they do appear on camera for job interviews and OFSI warns that people who request prepayment but then fail to complete tasks, or just generally fail to do the job, could also be suspicious.

Attempts to re-route corporate IT equipment sent to the contractor’s home, routing paychecks to money transfer services and accessing the corporate network with unauthorised remote access tools should also be red flags.

UK

Lee Anderson: Reform MP told to apologise for ‘swearing at security officer’ in parliament

Published

2 hours ago

November 6, 2024

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Lee Anderson: Reform MP told to apologise for 'swearing at security officer' in parliament

Reform MP Lee Anderson has been told to apologise in the House of Commons for “swearing twice at a security officer after his pass did not work” as he tried to enter parliament.

A report by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) now requires Mr Anderson to “make an apology in the House of Commons for a breach of parliament’s bullying and harassment policy”.

The MP for Ashfield was found to have sworn twice at a security officer after his pass did not work when he was trying to enter the parliamentary estate in November 2023.

According to the report, on 3 November last year Mr Anderson instructed the guard to open a door at the Derby Gate search post, an entrance to parliament.

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When asked to show his pass, Mr Anderson allegedly said: “F*** off, everyone opens the door to me, you are the only one.”

Asked again to show his pass, Mr Anderson said ‘f*** you, I have a train to catch’, before walking out of the search post”, according to the complaint.

The report said Mr Anderson “accepted that he was ‘upset, impatient and angry’ but not ‘aggressive’, and denied swearing at the complainant.

The finding followed a complaint made to the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS) and an investigation by an independent investigator appointed by the ICGS who recommended that the complaint should be upheld.

Mr Anderson appealed the finding to the IEP, but the sub-panel considering the case dismissed it, concluding it failed to raise any substantive grounds.

It concluded Mr Anderson should apologise to the complainant, and to the House by way of a personal statement.

Mr Anderson was first elected to the seat of Ashfield in 2019 as a Conservative. He defected to Reform in March this year after he was kicked out of the parliamentary Conservative Party for refusing to apologise after alleging that London mayor Sadiq Khan was controlled by “Islamists”.

UK

Thomas Kwan: GP jailed for trying to kill mother’s partner by poisoning him with fake COVID booster jab

Published

4 hours ago

November 6, 2024

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Thomas Kwan: GP jailed for trying to kill mother's partner by poisoning him with fake COVID booster jab

A GP who tried to kill his mother’s partner by disguising himself as a community nurse before poisoning him with a fake COVID booster jab has been jailed for 31 years.

Sentencing Dr Thomas Kwan, 53, at Newcastle Crown Court, Mrs Justice Lambert said: “It was an audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight and you very nearly succeeded in your objective.”

The Sunderland-based GP had written to Patrick O’Hara pretending to be a nurse called Raj Patel in November 2023.

He offered a home visit to administer the booster jab, which prosecutor Peter Makepeace KC said was a “pretext” to inject Mr O’Hara with a dangerous poison.

Kwan disguised himself by wearing a long coat, flat cap, surgical gloves, a medical mask and tinted glasses as he carried out a 45-minute examination of the 72-year-old in January.

The visit took place at the home of Kwan’s mother Jenny Leung – where Mr O’Hara was staying at the time.

He had initially denied attempted murder but changed his plea after he heard the prosecution open the case against him.

Speaking after Kwan was sentenced, Mr O’Hara said he thinks “justice has been done” and thanked police and prosecutors.

“The sincerity and the professionalism they have shown has been amazing,” he added.

Police initially thought the GP used the chemical weapon ricin to try to kill Mr O’Hara, but an expert believed a pesticide was more likely.

The prosecution said Mr O’Hara had been a “potential impediment” to Kwan inheriting his mother’s estate upon her death.

Ms Leung had named the 72-year-old in her will to the effect that he could stay in her home in St Thomas Street, Newcastle, should she die before her partner.

This led to a strained relationship between Kwan and Ms Leung, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

The court previously heard how Kwan wrote to Mr O’Hara posing as the nurse, and how he had forged NHS documentation to set up the home visit.

He also used false number plates for the journey to Newcastle and booked a city centre hotel using a false name.

Speaking in court on Wednesday, Mrs Justice Lambert said the letters were “good forgeries,” and said Mr O’Hara and Ms Leung would not have had reason to suspect they were fake.

“By your masquerading, you struck at the heart of public confidence in the health care profession,” she told Kwan.

In October, Mr Makepeace told Newcastle Crown Court that Mr O’Hara “had done absolutely nothing to offend Mr Kwan in any way whatsoever”.

It was noted that police were called to Ms Leung’s property after Kwan burst in uninvited in November 2022.

Prosecutors also described Kwan as “money-obsessed” and noted he installed spyware on his mother’s laptop to monitor her finances.

Mrs Justice Lambert then said Wednesday that Kwan was “certainly obsessed by money and more particularly, the money to which you considered yourself entitled”.

“Whatever the deep-rooted cause, by 2024 and well before,” she said, “your resentment and bitterness towards your mother and Mr O’Hara was all to do with money and your belief you were not being given money which you thought you were entitled to.”

The judge then said Kwan chose iodomethane – used in pesticides – as it would be difficult for medics to detect, and added the GP showed “distorted thinking,” a “morbid obsession” with toxic chemicals, and a “capacity for most extreme behaviour in order to meet your own needs”.

When he attended his mother’s home last year, the court was told Kwan also checked Ms Leung’s blood pressure when she asked.

While Kwan administered the injection, Mr O’Hara shouted in pain. The GP told him the reaction was not uncommon while speaking in broken English using an Asian accent, and left the home quickly.

A day after the fake COVID jab, Mr O’Hara’s arm had become blistered and seriously discoloured as he developed necrotising fasciitis, a flesh-eating disease.

Officers were able to track Kwan – still in disguise – back to a city centre hotel and then to his home in Ingleby Barwick, Teesside.

They then discovered an array of dangerous chemicals which the GP had amassed in his garage.

Paul Greaney KC, defending, said on Wednesday that the GP was previously of positive good character and had “ruined his life”.

He described Kwan’s disguise, when he passed himself off as a nurse, as “amateurish” and “clumsy”.

UK

Bird flu outbreak reported in Yorkshire, mass cull of poultry ordered

Published

11 hours ago

November 6, 2024

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Bird flu outbreak reported in Yorkshire, mass cull of poultry ordered

A mass cull of poultry has been ordered after an outbreak of bird flu on a farm in Yorkshire.

A 3km protection zone and 10km surveillance zone have been put in place around the farm near Hornsea in the East Riding of Yorkshire and all the fowl on the property will be destroyed, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said.

The discovery of the H5N5 variant of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) on the farm means DEFRA has increased the risk warning for wild birds “from medium to high”.

The virus is typically spread through birds’ faeces, mucus and saliva.

“All bird keepers are urged to remain vigilant and take action to protect their birds following a further increase in the avian influenza (‘bird flu’) risk levels in Great Britain,” DEFRA said in a statement.

Bird flu may be evolving under the radar

Bird flu has killed hundreds of millions of birds around the globe in recent years, and has increasingly spread to mammals, raising concerns it may lead to human-to-human transmission.

The last avian flu outbreak in the UK happened in February and was described as the country’s largest ever.

That was the H5N1 strain, while the latest outbreak in Hornsea is the H5N5 strain.

In July, US scientists said their was “strong evidence” bird flu has spread from mammals to humans for the first time, marking another step in the evolution of the deadly virus.

Analysis concluded a Texas farm worker who tested positive for the H5N1 virus caught it from sick dairy cattle.

Although there have been other people infected with the virus in recent years – including some who have died – they all acquired it from birds.