H
recent
H
HOYONEWS
HomeBusinessTechnologySportPolitics
Others
  • Food
  • Culture
  • Society
Contact
Home
Business
Technology
Sport
Politics

Food

Culture

Society

Contact
Facebook page
H
HOYONEWS

Company

business
technology
sport
politics
food
culture
society

CONTACT

EMAILmukum.sherma@gmail.com
© 2025 Hoyonews™. All Rights Reserved.
Facebook page

Scattered Spider hackers in UK are ‘facilitating’ cyber-attacks, says Google

about 18 hours ago
A picture


UK-based members of the Scattered Spider hacking community are actively “facilitating” cyber-attacks, according to Google, as disruption to British retailers spreads to the US.A group of hackers labelled “Scattered Spider” have been linked with attacks on UK retailers Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Harrods, with Google cybersecurity experts warning this week that unnamed retailers across the Atlantic are being targeted as well.Charles Carmakal, the chief technology officer at Google’s Mandiant cybersecurity unit, said that the threat had moved to the US in a pattern typical of Scattered Spider assailants.“They tend to focus on a particular industry sector and geography for a few weeks and then they move on to something else,” he said.“And right now they’re focused on retail organisations.

They start in the UK, and now they’ve shifted to US organisations.”Asked if UK members of Scattered Spider were involved in hacking M&S, he said: “Without specifically naming who the victims are I will say broadly Scattered Spider members in the UK are facilitating and contributing to intrusions.”On Friday it emerged that M&S had warned its staff that some of their personal data may have been stolen in the cyber-attack last month.Sources told the Daily Telegraph that workers were told email addresses and full names were believed to have been taken as part of the hack.Earlier this week M&S revealed that some personal information relating to thousands of customers was taken by the hackers.

The targeting of retailers in the UK, and the techniques associated with Scattered Spider, has prompted the country’s cybersecurity agency to warn companies to look out for specific tactics.In an advisory note, the National Cyber Security Centre told businesses to look at how their IT help desks help staff members reset passwords.One gambit associated with Scattered Spider – a name coined for a set of hacking tactics rather than an homogenous group – is to ring up IT help desks and pretend to be employees or contractors in order to gain access to company systems.“What we’re seeing is they’re making telephone calls, calling up help desks, pretending to be employees and convincing helpdesks to reset passwords,” said Carmakal.Carmakal added that the task of ringing up helpdesks was sometimes carried out by younger members of the Scattered Spider network.

“It’s not always the [threat] actors themselves … that are actually making the phone calls.They outsource some of that work to other members of the broader community, generally younger individuals that aggregate on Telegram and Discord and want to make a few hundred bucks.”Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionScattered Spider is unusual among hacking groups deploying ransomware because it is composed of native English speakers from countries such as the UK, US and Canada.Carmakal said he had listened to “countless calls” that Scattered Spider hackers have made to company employees, “whether they were extorting them, or trying to convince somebody to provide credentials or harassing somebody”.Ransomware gangs infect their targets’ computer systems with malicious software that effectively locks up their internal files, which the criminals then offer to release in exchange for a payment.

Typically, these gangs are from Russia or former Soviet states.Carmakal’s comments came as French luxury brand Dior said this week an “unauthorised external party” had accessed some customer data.The scale of the breach and the identity of the attacker remains unclear, although Paris-based Dior said no payment information had been taken.This week Google’s cybersecurity specialists said Scattered Spider was targeting US retailers.“The US retail sector is currently being targeted in ransomware and extortion operations that we suspect are linked to … Scattered Spider,” said John Hultquist, the chief analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group.

“The actor, which has reportedly targeted retail in the UK following a long hiatus, has a history of focusing their efforts on a single sector at a time, and we anticipate they will continue to target the sector in the near term.US retailers should take note.”
businessSee all
A picture

She earned $20 doing laundry for a friend. Now this entrepreneur washes 7,000lb a month

The first time Hyacinth Tucker did someone else’s laundry, she earned $20. “I didn’t think of it as a business. This was just another side hustle,” she said. It was 2022 and the Maryland-based army veteran needed money.She was going through a divorce, and Covid had staunched the flow of income from the event facilities she owned, so she had taken to driving for Uber and pet-sitting

about 17 hours ago
A picture

King Charles’s wealth swells to match Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty on UK rich list

King Charles’s personal fortune increased to £640m in the past year, making him as wealthy as the former prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, according to the Sunday Times rich list.The 76-year-old monarch, who acceded to the throne in 2022, recorded a £30m increase in wealth and ranks joint 238th on the list of the UK’s wealthiest people and families.The estimate of the king’s wealth is based on personal assets, including the investment portfolio he inherited from his late mother and private estates at Sandringham and Balmoral, and does not include the crown estate.Charles is now estimated to be worth considerably more than the late Queen Elizabeth II, whose wealth was put at £370m in 2022.However, an investigation by the Guardian in 2023 estimated that King Charles’s fortune could be almost £2bn

about 23 hours ago
A picture

Foreign states should not be co-owners of UK newspapers | Nils Pratley

‘We are fully upholding the need to safeguard our news media from foreign state control while recognising that news organisations must be able to raise vital funding,” said Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, alighting on 15% as the limit for foreign state ownership of a UK newspaper company.She is obviously right that it is harder for companies to raise money if a pool of potential capital – state-controlled sovereign wealth funds and their like – are off-limits. No wonder some media owners lobbied for a percentage higher than the 5% that was being considered by the previous government as a tweak to last year’s legislation that set the cap at zero.But she is naive if she thinks 15% will ensure “minimal risk” of foreign state influence. That is not how the world works: 15% is a hefty foot in the door

1 day ago
A picture

Wealthy Britons avoiding more tax than previously thought, spending watchdog says

Wealthy individuals in Britain could be avoiding more tax than had been thought, the government’s spending watchdog has said, after a dramatic fall in the number of penalties being issued to the super-rich.In a report urging ministers to redouble their efforts to secure more of the money owed by wealthy people to the exchequer, the National Audit Office (NAO) said billions of pounds was going unpaid each year.It said that HMRC had greatly increased the additional tax revenue it was collecting from wealthy individuals by tackling non-compliance, but that additional steps were required to ensure rich people paid their fair share.It comes as Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, faces renewed pressure to find extra money for public services and defence, amid warnings that she could be forced to raise taxes in the autumn budget.Nick Williams, an ex-No 10 senior economic adviser, who left his post last month, said on Thursday Reeves’s spending plans were “not credible” and needed to be reassessed

1 day ago
A picture

Ministers to block Thames Water paying bosses bonuses out of emergency loan

Ministers plan to use new powers to block bosses from Thames Water taking bonuses worth hundreds of thousands of pounds as the company fights for survival, the Guardian can reveal.Britain’s biggest water company admitted this week that senior managers are in line for “substantial” bonuses linked to an emergency £3bn loan.Thames claimed the payouts were vital to retain staff and prevent rival companies from “picking off” its best employees. But the disclosure provoked fury as the company has said its finances are “hair raising” and that it had come “very close to running out of money entirely” last year.Thames is in a desperate race to raise funds and persuade the water regulator to let it off hundreds of millions of pounds of fines or risk being renationalised

1 day ago
A picture

Is Burberry’s job-slashing shake-up enough to save the troubled brand?

This week’s news that Burberry is cutting 1,700 jobs after a 117% fall in profits is, of course, terrible for affected employees around the world – including 170 at its West Yorkshire trenchcoat factory – but did not come as a surprise within the fashion world.Although a slowdown across luxury goods is partly to blame, some of this is Burberry specific – the buzz around the brand has been waning, and disquiet has led to this action plan. Those watching the company clearly approve – its shares rose 17% after the news on Wednesday.However, many may be confused as to why one particular job is safe in the shake-up – that of Daniel Lee, the brand’s chief creative officer. “Daniel and I are committed together to moving Burberry forward,” the chief executive, Joshua Schulman, told Women’s Wear Daily

1 day ago
recentSee all
A picture

Families of victims appalled as Boeing seems likely to avoid prosecution over 737 Max crashes

about 15 hours ago
A picture

US consumer sentiment falls as tariffs drive up inflation fears; Number of UK billionaires drops – as it happened

about 15 hours ago
A picture

Scattered Spider hackers in UK are ‘facilitating’ cyber-attacks, says Google

about 18 hours ago
A picture

Elon Musk’s AI firm blames unauthorised change for chatbot’s rant about ‘white genocide’

about 21 hours ago
A picture

Rampant Knicks blow out Celtics to advance to first East finals since 2000

about 4 hours ago
A picture

US PGA Championship 2025: second round – as it happened

about 7 hours ago