Austal , which is based in Henderson , Western Australia , is one of the country 's largest shipbuilders ; it has built vessels for the U.S. Navy . The company , which is listed on Australia 's ASX stock exchange , announced the breach late Thursday . The announcement came just a day after a security researcher in France posted Attack.Databreach screenshots on Twitter of the purported stolen data . Austal says the material is neither sensitive nor classified and that it has taken steps to secure its data systems. `` The data breach Attack.Databreach has had no impact on Austal 's ongoing operations , '' the company says . Austal 's business in the United States is unaffected by this issue , as the computer systems are not linked . A spokesman for Austal contacted on Friday says he could n't offer further information on the incident . The breach Attack.Databreach exposed Attack.Databreach ship design drawings that are distributed to customers , fabrication subcontractors and suppliers , Austal says . It also exposed Attack.Databreach `` some staff email addresses and mobile phone numbers . '' Those individuals have been informed as well as a `` small number '' of other stakeholders directly impacted by the breach , the company reports . Austal has contacted the Australian Cyber Security Center and the Australian Federal Police . The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner , which enforces the country 's data protection regulations `` will be involved as required , '' Austal says . Companies are increasingly being subjected to ransoms Attack.Ransom by hackers after their networks have been breached Attack.Databreach . Ransoms Attack.Ransom put companies in tough positions : risk public exposure of potentially embarrassing data , or risk paying a ransom Attack.Ransom and still face a chance the data could be released anyway . Security experts and law enforcement generally advise against paying ransoms Attack.Ransom , even after incidents of file-encrypting malware . But some companies have viewed the situation as either a cost of doing business or a shorter route to recovery . Late last month in the U.S , the city of West Haven , Connecticut , paid Attack.Ransom $ 2,000 to unlock 23 servers that had been infected with ransomware ( see : Connecticut City Pays Ransom Attack.Ransom After Crypto-Locking Attack ) . The city 's attorney , Lee Tiernan , was quoted by the Associated Press as saying `` research showed it was the best course of action . '' If the city did n't have a backup file , it may have had little choice .

The Bitcoin Core developers recently fixed Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a major vulnerability in the Bitcoin ( BTC ) network ’ s ( client ) codebase . Explaining the potentially serious nature of the software bug , which is tracked as Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability CVE-2018-17144 and classified as a denial-of-service ( DoS ) attack , Casaba Security co-founder Jason Glassberg said Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability : “ [ It ] can take down the network. ” Glassberg also told Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability ZDNet the vulnerability in the Bitcoin Core codebase “ would [ have ] affected transactions in the sense that they can not be completed , but does not appear to open up a way to steal or manipulate wallets. ” Denial-of-Service ( DoS ) , 51 % Attacks The Bitcoin Core client software is used by BTC miners to validate transactions on the cryptocurrency ’ s blockchain and the recent vulnerability found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in its source code could have been used to intentionally crash bitcoin ’ s full-node operators . Although not logistically feasible , this particular software bug could have been remotely exploited Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by an attacker to launch a 51 % attack in which one entity controls the majority of the hashing ( or computing ) power of a cryptocurrency network . Advisory Notice , Critical Patch Released Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability In most cases , a bad actor has orchestrated a 51 % attack in order to manipulate transactions on a cryptocurrency ’ s blockchain for financial gains . At present , it would cost approximately $ 490,000 to launch such an attack ( for 1 hour ) on the Bitcoin network , according to Crypto51 . However , if the recent Bitcoin Core software bug had not been patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability , a bad actor could have initiated a 51 % attack on the cryptocurrency ’ s network at a considerably lower cost . The Bitcoin Core developers posted Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability an advisory notice ( on September 19th ) regarding this DoS vulnerability . Users of Bitcoin Core have been instructed to upgrade Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability to version 0.16.3 of the software . Previous versions ( 0.14.0 to 0.16.3 ) of the client contain the DoS vulnerability . Bitcoin Knots , one of at least 96 bitcoin forks to date , was considered vulnerable Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability as well and its client software was patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability . `` Copycat '' Cryptos Are At Risk Notably , the CVE-2018-17144 vulnerability could have also affected Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the litecoin ( LTC ) network but its client has received Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a patch . Commenting on the serious nature of these software bugs , Cornell computer science professor Emin Gün Sirer said Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability : “ Copycat currencies are at risk ” - meaning that all bitcoin forks are vulnerable Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability to the attack . The Turkish-American cryptographer , who identified Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability critical vulnerabilities in Ethereum ’ s codebase before its network was hit with the DAO attack , was referring to all the currently 69 active bitcoin forks that could still be exploited Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability with a 51 % attack as their clients might still not have received Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a patch and are not as secure as bitcoin network due to their smaller size . In fact , Crypto51 has estimated it would only cost $ 122 to launch a 51 % attack on the Bitcoin Private ( BTCP ) network . However , this estimate has not been confirmed by another source .

Google 's Project Zero has again called Apple out for silently patching Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability flaws . Apple has secretly patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a bunch of high-severity bugs reported Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability to it by Google 's Project Zero researchers . The move has resulted in Google 's Project Zero once again calling Apple out for fixing Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability iOS and macOS security flaws without documenting them in public security advisories . While it 's good news that Apple beat Project Zero 's 90-day deadline for patching Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability or disclosing Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the bugs it finds Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability , the group 's Ivan Fratric recently argued that the practice endangered users by not fully informing them why an update should be installed . This time the criticism comes from Project Zero 's Ian Beer , who 's been credited by Apple with finding Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability dozens of serious security flaws in iOS and macOS over the years . Beer posted Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a blog about several vulnerabilities in iOS 7 he found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in 2014 that share commonalities with several bugs he has found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in iOS 11.4.1 , some of which he 's now released exploits for . Beer notes Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that none of the latest issues is mentioned in the iOS 12 security bulletin even though Apple did fix Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability them . The absence of information about them is a `` disincentive '' for iOS users to patch Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability , Beer argues . `` Apple are still yet to assign CVEs Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability for these issues or publicly acknowledge that they were fixed Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability in iOS 12 , '' wrote Beer . `` In my opinion a security bulletin should mention the security bugs that were fixed Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability . Not doing so provides a disincentive for people to update Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability their devices since it appears that there were fewer security fixes than there really were . '' In other instances , such as one macOS bug Beer reported Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability , Apple did actually assign a CVE Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability , but it still hasn't updated Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability the relevant security bulletin to reflect the fix . Apple similarly allocated Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability CVE-2018-4337 to another high-severity iOS bug , which was fixed Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability in iOS 12 , but is n't currently acknowledged Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in the iOS 12 security bulletin . In another case , Apple fixed Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a bug that affected Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability iOS and macOS but didn't assign Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a CVE or mention it in the security bulletins . Not only may it be a disincentive for end-users to patch Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability iPhones and Macs , but Beer also points out Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in another bug report that the lack of public acknowledgement Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by Apple means he has no way of knowing whether the issue is a duplicate that another researcher may have already found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability . As he notes Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in the blog , many of the bugs he has found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in iOS are very similar or the same as bugs found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by noted jailbreaking hackers Pangu Team .

Updated WhatsApp ’ s end-to-end encryption can be potentially exploited Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by determined snoops to intercept and read encrypted messages , it was claimed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability today . Essentially , if an attacker can reroute a redelivered encrypted message , it is possible to decrypt the text . Facebook-owned WhatsApp stresses Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability this is not a serious flaw nor a deliberate backdoor in its code . Users can detect and stop the surveillance , if it happens , by activating security notifications in the application 's settings . At the heart of the matter is the exchange of cryptographic keys when two people start chatting to each other : their public keys are sent through Facebook 's servers , and ideally the two people need to verify outside of WhatsApp that their keys have n't been tampered with during the handover . If it 's not possible to verify the keys , or there is n't an opportunity to verify the keys , you 're potentially open to man-in-the-middle surveillance . For example , a snooper could stop a WhatsApp message from being sent , take over the recipient 's phone number , trigger a public key exchange between the sender and the snooper 's handset that 's now using the recipient 's hijacked number , receive the redelivered text before the sender has a chance to verify the new public key , and decrypt the message they 're not supposed to read . This is non-trivial to exploit and rather easy to detect when it happens , rendering it pointless . The problem – which is `` endemic to public key cryptography '' – was raised in April last year , and at the time WhatsApp said it was n't a serious enough design flaw to spend time fixing . Now allegations that WhatsApp deliberate knackered its security have flared up again , this time reported in The Guardian . In response , the Facebook-owned messaging service said it designed its app to redeliver messages as described above to allow texts to be sent in parts of the world where people frequently swap devices and SIM cards . At WhatsApp , we ’ ve always believed that people ’ s conversations should be secure and private . Last year , we gave all our users a better level of security by making every message , photo , video , file and call end-to-end encrypted by default . As we introduce features like end-to-end encryption , we focus on keeping the product simple and take into consideration how it 's used every day around the world . In WhatsApp 's implementation of the Signal Protocol , we have a “ Show Security Notifications ” setting ( option under Settings > Account > Security ) that notifies you when a contact 's security code has changed . We know the most common reasons this happens are because someone has switched phones or reinstalled WhatsApp . This is because in many parts of the world , people frequently change devices and SIM cards . In these situations , we want to make sure people 's messages are delivered , not lost in transit . The alleged weakness in WhatsApp ’ s encryption system was documented Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by Tobias Boelter , a cryptography and security researcher at the University of California , and branded Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a `` backdoor '' today in The Grauniad . The paper fears governments can abuse the messenger app 's design , which is based on Open Whisper 's Signal protocol , to snoop on people 's conversations . Some infosec bods are critical of Facebook ’ s design decisions in rolling out its end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp . Neil Cook , chief security architect at Open-Xchange , commented : “ WhatsApp has already broken their promise not to share user data with Facebook , and now it seems that their promise of end-to-end encrypted messaging isn ’ t quite as secure as everyone had hoped , particularly given the involvement of Open Whisper Systems . It ’ s worth noting that this error in the encryption protocol is not present in Signal , so the team at WhatsApp have made the change intentionally ” . Matthew Aldridge , solutions architect at Webroot , added : “ This flaw allows Facebook/WhatsApp to intercept messages if they choose to , by having the sender ’ s software automatically flip across to a second encryption key . The functionality is designed to create a seamless user experience for users who have connectivity issues or drop offline for a time during a conversation , but it has resulted in a situation where it could be used to intercept messages by WhatsApp . For those sending highly sensitive messages , or simply looking to avoid this , you should switch on the key change warnings in settings , and always check that the two ticks appear after sending messages in an active conversation ” . Others fault Facebook for failing to respond quickly enough . Jacob Ginsberg , senior director at Echoworx , an expert in end-to-end messaging encryption , said Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability : “ The fact that Facebook has known Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability about this vulnerability since April is doubly damming . Not only could this be seen by many as supporting on-going government data collection interventions , it means their talk of encryption and privacy has been nothing more than lip service . The company needs to actively address its security measures ” . ® In a follow-up statement , WhatsApp denied Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability accusations that it had inserted Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability what amounted to a backdoor in its messaging code : The Guardian posted Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a story this morning claiming Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that an intentional design decision in WhatsApp that prevents people from losing millions of messages is a “ backdoor ” allowing governments to force WhatsApp to decrypt message streams . WhatsApp does not give governments a “ backdoor ” into its systems and would fight any government request to create a backdoor . The design decision referenced in the Guardian story prevents millions of messages from being lost , and WhatsApp offers people security notifications to alert them to potential security risks . WhatsApp published a technical white paper on its encryption design , and has been transparent about the government requests it receives , publishing data about those requests in the Facebook Government Requests Report .

A popular horse racing website ( Racingpulse.in ) that operates out of Bangalore , India was reportedly hacked on Tuesday . The hackers posted Attack.Ransom a statement on the home page informing that the entire data on the website has been encrypted . As is the norm , they also informed about what they expected as ransom Attack.Ransom . The ransom note suggested that they were expecting Attack.Ransom ransom amount Attack.Ransom in Bitcoins while the amount to be paid was not disclosed clearly . The message also included an email address for further communication , which was registered at india.com . The hackers offered Racingpulse.in an unimaginable favor by providing decryption key of a maximum of three files which should not be more than 10mb in size for free . This was probably done to prove that they did hack all the files on the site . The note read : “ All your files have been encrypted : All your files have been encrypted due to a security problem with your PC . If you want to restore them , write us to the e-mail mkgoro @ india.com , You have to pay Attack.Ransom for decryption in Bitcoins . After payment , we will send you the decryption tool that will decrypt all your files . “ Free decryption as a guarantee : Before paying you can send to us up to 3 files for free decryption . The message contained a link to the beginners ’ guide to Bitcoins too . “ How to obtain Bitcoins : The easiest way to buy bitcoins is LocalBitcoins site . You have to register , click ‘ Buy bitcoins ’ , and select the seller by payment method and price . The ransomware used in this attack Attack.Ransom is a new version of Dharma Ransomware Trojan . In the ransom note , hackers have provided the email address mkgoro @ india.com , which is a contact email for the victims to facilitate communication with them . According to security researchers , this new version of Dharma works just like the older version using unsolicited emails . These emails contain social network logos , bank information , payment portals and an option to download and open a file . The previous two attacks were countered by using backup files , said Kumar . “ We have now decided to move to another server in the hope of better security , it may take a day for the site to be up and running , ” revealed Kumar .

Last week , we reported about a cryptographer who found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a supposed vulnerability in WhatsApp and later gave an interview to The Guardian explaining the matter . The cryptographer later posted Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability videos on YouTube explaining Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability his findings , and WhatsApp ’ s response to his claims Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability came in a timely manner . Cryptographer Tobias Boelter claimed that Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability Facebook and WhatsApp could potentially intercept and read encrypted messages sent within the app . WhatsApp issued a statement saying Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that the alleged “ backdoor ” was actually an intentional design decision so that millions of messages could be delivered to their intended recipients . The developer of WhatsApp ’ s encryption protocol , Open Whisper Systems , also issued a statement backing up WhatsApp ’ s claims . Now it seems that security researchers from around the world have come together to defend WhatsApp and urge The Guardian to retract its story .

Recently a hacker identified Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the existence of two high-risk bugs and revealed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability this information on Reddit ’ s forum posts . The hacker , who uses the alias Cipher0007 , managed to steal Attack.Databreach 200,000 private messages . These messages were exchanged between users/buyers and sellers . ZDNet reports that Cipher0007 disclosed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the vulnerabilities earlier this week and revealed on Reddit that these flaws could be used to steal private messages on AlphaBay . The messages weren ’ t protected by PGP keys , which made it easier for Cipher0007 to steal Attack.Databreach them in such large proportion . Must Read : AlphaBay posted Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability an official statement on Pastebin in which they admitted Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the presence of these bugs and also confirmed that Cipher0007 has hacked Attack.Databreach around 218,000 messages . It must be noted that the hacked messages weren ’ t older than 30 days since the site ’ s system automatically purges messages that are more than 30 days old . To prove that he has managed to infiltrate AlphaBay and stole Attack.Databreach private messages , Cipher0007 posted numerous screenshots too . AlphaBay rewarded Cipher0007 for not selling the flaws or exposing Attack.Databreach the stolen data to the public . Cipher0007 then disclosed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the methods he used to exploit AlphaBay to the company and finally the developers at the trading platform managed to fix Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability the flaws . Cellular ” Customers This is not the first time when a Dark Web domain has been hacked

In March 2014 , Boston Children ’ s Hospital learned the worst possible security news—from a third-party vendor with no formal relationship to the facility . That vendor told the pediatric facility that it had seen online documents threatening the hospital , as well as posted Attack.Databreach documents with information on physicians such as cell phone numbers , addresses and work locations . And the information also included details of Boston Children ’ s infrastructure , such as the main IP address of its organizational web site . Any kid could find this stuff easily online , but it was clear someone was trying to damage the reputation of Boston Children ’ s , said Daniel Nigrin , MD , senior vice president and CIO in the division of endocrinology , during the Cybersecurity Forum at HIMSS17 . Then came a video from the activist hacking organization Anonymous , accusing the hospital of having tortured a child . “ I ’ ve been a CISO for 16 years ; this was a new one me , ” Nigrin recalled . In particular , the charge from Anonymous centered on a teenage girl that the hospital determined was suffering from malnutrition . The case went to court , where a judge ’ s ruling removed the child from parental custody . The family fought the decision , and the controversy found its way to Anonymous , which decided that Boston Children ’ s needed to be taught a lesson . “ We wondered if it was the real Anonymous ; thankfully , the decision was to take the threat seriously , ” Nigrin said . The hospital convened an incident response team and starting forming contingency plans for an expected attack , which included “ going dark ” and cutting itself off from the Internet while assessing the systems and processes still necessary to keep the facility running . In the meantime , Boston Children ’ s contacted local police and the FBI , who were reluctant to step in proactively , and told hospital executives to get back to them if anything happened . Three weeks went by without incident , and the facility was hit with low-value distributed denial of service attacks that were handled . But then , tactics started to change as attacks increased in volume . One week later on a Saturday night , the cat-and-mouse game ended with a dramatic uptick in attacks and a third party was engaged to help the hospital defend itself . The concerted Anonymous cyber attack started April 14 and ended on April 27 . At its peak , the hackers were sending 30-day levels of malicious traffic in very short periods of time .

Warning Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the device is susceptible to denial of service attacks , Cisco Systems on Wednesday released Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a patch for its NetFlow Generation Appliance . The flaw traces back to the hardware ’ s Stream Control Transmission Protocol ( SCTP ) used by the appliance , according to a Cisco Security Advisory posted Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability Wednesday . Cisco warns Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the vulnerability , “ could allow an unauthenticated , remote attacker to cause the device to hang or unexpectedly reload , causing a denial of service ( DoS ) condition ” . The bug ( CVE-2017-3826 ) is due to incomplete validation of SCTP packets being monitored on the NGA data ports , Cisco wrote . It impacts Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability Cisco NetFlow Generation Appliances NGA 3140 , NGA 3240 and NGA 3340 . NetFlow Generation Appliances are located within enterprise data centers and designed to monitor Gigabit Ethernet high-throughput networks . An attacker exploiting the vulnerability , “ could exploit this vulnerability by sending malformed SCTP packets on a network that is monitored by an NGA data port . SCTP packets addressed to the IP address of the NGA itself will not trigger this vulnerability . An exploit could allow the attacker to cause the appliance to become unresponsive or reload , causing a DoS condition , ” Cisco said . While there are no workarounds to fix Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability the vulnerability , Cisco is urging users to apply an update that fixes Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability the bug , Cisco NetFlow Generation Appliance Software release Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability 1.1 ( 1a ) . The company added that the fix does not apply Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability to NGA 3140 because that platform was sunsetted January 11 , 2014 . Last month , Cisco patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability an authentication bypass vulnerability in its Cisco Prime Home hardware . In January , Cisco patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a flaw rated critical found in Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability is WebEx Chrome Plugin , used by tens of millions for web conferencing in business environments , that exposed computers to remote code execution . Cisco Systems released Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a patch Monday to fix Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a critical security vulnerability , with a CVSS rating of 10 , in its Secure Sockets Layer VPN solution called Adaptive Security Appliance