Get your pumpkins ready, and prep the ghouls! It's finally Sophia's favourite time of the year, spooky season and Halloween... Fear not, Sarah - there's only 11 weeks left until Christmas!

Although it's been a little quieter for the Queens as we eye up the festive season, Sophia recently attended the Empowering Women to Lead Cyber Security programme by Empowering You; a course designed to inspire and empower women to become leaders in the cyber security space. The course is run over three months, with two lots of workshops, 1-2-1 coaching and even a graduation at the end! 

Both Sarah and Sophia hosted another wonderful event with the Ladies of Cheltenham Hacking Society last month. We don't have many events left planned for the year, but be sure to sign-up to the Meetup to keep updated! 

Moving onto industry news, at the start of September the hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan hacked X to put pressure on Elon Musk over Starlink. X, formerly known as Twitter, was taken offline for more than a dozen countries to pressure Elon Musk to launch his Starlink service in Sudan. X was down for more than 2 hours with thousands of users affected. 

Microsoft SQL (MSSQL) servers have always been a favourite target for many attackers across the globe. In a recent attack campaign, DB#JAMMER hackers compromised MSSQL servers to deploy FreeWorld ransomware. The hackers used brute-force attacks to compromise the MSSQL servers to deploy Cobalt Strike and a variant of the Mimic ransomware called FreeWorld.

More ransomware news this month as Lockbit allegedly leaks MoD data after an attack on a supplier. The LockBit ransomware gang had leaked data from the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) after an attack on a company called Zaun, a West Midlands-based supplier of metal fencing products that has supplied some of the UK’s key installations.

One of the major events to happen this month, casino giants Caesers Entertainment and MGM Resorts were compromised via social engineering attacks.  Originally reported on September 11th, MGM Resorts customers reported a number of issues linked to the cyber attack including lot machines and online booking systems. Many guests also experienced issues with making payments to book rooms, or requests to change bookings. It was reported that the ransomware gang ALPHV may have been behind the hack, claiming that they were able to compromise MGM Resorts through a "10 minute call to HelpDesk". 

Another campaign against the police has led to Greater Manchester Police officers' details leaked in a cyber attack. The officers' details were put at risk after a supplier company was targeted in a cyber attack. The firm in Stockport, which makes ID cards, holds information on various UK organisations including some of the staff employed by Greater Manchester Police. The hack means thousands of police officers' names are at risk of being placed in the public domain.

An interesting use of artificial intelligence, a hacker has recently "deepfaked" an employee's voice in a phone call to breach an IT company. The breach, which ensnared 27 cloud customers, occurred last month at Retool, a company that helps clients build business software.

As always you can find our most recent posts below...

Lots of love,

The Security Queens xxx