International Cybersecurity Month was by no means without incident. In October, the national authentication service once again experienced disruptions. On two occasions, there were also disruptions to the services of the Information Technology and Development Centre of the Ministry of the Interior (SMIT). On 21 October, a disruption in the List of Trusted Lists managed by the European Commission caused problems with, among other things, digital signing and the operation of the health information system.
Last month, RIA was notified of several data breaches. Personal data and booking records of approximately 9,000 customers leaked from the systems of a company providing booking solutions to accommodation establishments. In addition, a data breach occurred in an advertising portal, where due to a vulnerability of third-party software, the personal data of up to 5,000 users was exposed.
In October, critical security vulnerabilities were also disclosed in the widely used PHP and GitLab software. ‘Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could enable attackers to execute a malicious code on servers and access sensitive data. We recommend installing the relevant security updates as soon as possible,’ explained Dorel Kiik, Analyst at the Analysis and Prevention Department of RIA.
Cybersecurity Month kicked off with a prevention campaign by RIA, focusing on a call to report fraudulent websites to [email protected] so that they can be removed from the Internet. During the campaign, RIA has already received hundreds of reports of suspicious emails and fraudulent websites. Thanks to reports from observant members of the public, potential new fraud victims were likely spared. Elisa, Enefit, the Police and Border Guard Board, Omniva, and SEB are taking part in the campaign, which runs until 8 November.
RIA is also warning against fake job advertisements circulating on LinkedIn, which criminals use to try to infect people’s computers with malware. ‘We have been informed of several incidents where people have been tricked into running a malicious code on their computers via what appeared to be a legitimate job offer. Software developers are the primary targets of these attacks,’ Kiik warned. You can read more about the scam on the RIA blog.
