• Hackers shut down system for booking COVID-19 shots in Italy’s Lazio region

Hackers have attacked and shut down the IT systems of the company that manages COVID-19 vaccination appointments for the Lazio region surrounding Rome, the regional government said on Sunday, August 1.

• Kaseya ransomware attack sets off race to hack service providers – researchers

A ransomware attack in July that paralyzed as many as 1,500 organizations by compromising tech-management software from a company called Kaseya has set off a race among criminals looking for similar vulnerabilities, cyber security experts said.

• Education sector one of those hardest hit by ransomware – Sophos

Ransomware is a type of malware which prevents users from accessing their system, usually through the locking of a computer’s files or of the system itself, until a ransom is paid to unlock the affected systems.

• COVID-19 vaccination registration site hit by cyberattack – Manila gov’t

Automated bots are said to have attacked Manila’s COVID-19 vaccination website on Wednesday night, August 4, the Manila city government revealed on Friday.

• China clamps down on webcam voyeurism

China’s cyberspace watchdog said on Monday, August 9, that authorities have arrested 59 people and seized 25,000 illegally controlled webcams in a crackdown on illegal camera voyeurism.

• Afghans scramble to delete digital history, evade biometrics

Thousands of Afghans struggling to ensure the physical safety of their families after the Taliban took control of the country have an additional worry: that biometric databases and their own digital history can be used to track and target them.

• ‘Billions of requests, thousands of dollars’: Inside a massive cyberattack on a PH human rights group

On July 29, the site belonging to Karapatan, a human rights organization in the Philippines, was targeted by a sophisticated, well-resourced dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attack. Traffic flooded in from botnets spread across the world, from Ukraine to Indonesia — all aimed at a single folder on Karapatan’s site, which hosts the group’s reports detailing extrajudicial killings in the Southeast Asian country.

• Critics say new Cuba cybersecurity law limits freedom

Cuba published on Tuesday its first cybersecurity law, a move critics dismissed as a tool to limit political and civic freedoms on the Caribbean island.

• Global cybersecurity company underlines mobile threat is now a concern for enterprises and employees alike amidst the continuing remote work

As the pandemic continues to grip countries in Southeast Asia (SEA), more workers are expected to set-up their remote office environment, if not continue to work virtually. This trend keeps the population safer physically, but also open vulnerabilities against enterprises.