CYBERSECURITY

Swinging for defenses

Defense on the field, defense off the field.

The Boston Red Sox might be expected to finish in last place this baseball season, but the team isn’t going to allow that to affect how they protect themselves in the cyber world.

To that end, the franchise has hired intelligence firm Centripetal, which has an office in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, just 60 miles up the road from Fenway Park. Centripetal COO Jonathan Rogers told IT Brew that a company sales executive connected with the team and set the partnership in motion.

“They’re facing the same security onslaught as much of the large business market,” Rogers said. “But being high profile, they’re a particular target for all the usual suspects, the ransomware exploits, etc.”

Play catch. It’s not the first time IT Brew has heard about the threat posed to sporting events by malicious cyber actors. At RSA 2023 in San Francisco, NHL CISO Dave Munroe told a panel audience that the number of “high-profile individuals” in an arena for a game means an expanded threat surface.

Read more here.—EH

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected].

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Take a walk on the serverless side

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Ready to feel that sweet serverless freedom? Register for the webinar.

GAMING

Hacks, lies, and video games

On Feb. 27, threat actors known as Mogilevich claimed on the dark web they had quietly launched an attack on Epic Games’s systems, Bleeping Computer reported.

Though malicious groups in the past have had success targeting gamers and game companies, this particular breach, it turns out, was part of a scam allegedly worth thousands of dollars.

“Yes, the claim was false,” one of the scammers, who goes by the name Pongo, told IT Brew in an email. “Many journalists [and] reporters are saying we used this to scam Epic Games and others by faking the ransom. That’s not true; we used this to gain views quickly and to scam potential buyers and new people that wanted to work with our tools.”

Poker face. The group used the initial ransom note and buzz online to bring more attention to their site and (fake) ransomware services. By targeting Epic Games and one other company, they gained new victims to scam, claiming to have earned around $119,000 in this scheme. The group did not provide proof of its earnings.

Read more here.—AF

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected].

IT STRATEGY

Chip-mate

TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor company with fabrication facilities in Taiwan, the US, and China has already seen an increase in revenue this year, announcing that their revenue in January and February has risen by 9.4%, according to company reports.

TSMC reported a net revenue of $12.7 billion so far this year, earning approximately $6.9 billion and $5.8 billion in January and February, respectively. In 2023, the company made $6.4 billion in net revenue in January, and $5.2 billion in February.

The semiconductor firm has had a busy year so far, announcing in February that it planned to open up a second chip plant in Japan by the end of 2027, according to Reuters, while also on track to receive $5 billion in federal grants to support an incoming chip factory in Arizona, Bloomberg also reported.

Keep reading here.—AF

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected].

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