Month: February 2021

Sequoia Capital, one of the most prominent venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, told investors on February 19, 2021 that it was hacked.

Some personal and financial information may have been accessed by a third party, after one of its employees fell victim to a successful
phishing attack.

Sequoia’s portfolio includes Airbnb, DoorDash, 23andMe, and Robinhood. It also invested in major cybersecurity firms like FireEye and Carbon Black.

Read more about it here.

In an effort to better understand why some users are more heavily targeted by phishing emails and malware than others, search giant Google teamed up with researchers at Stanford University. The study examined over a period of 5 months 1.2 billion malicious emails and their intended targets against Gmail users, to determine which factors influence the risk of attack.

The researchers discovered that each phishing and malware campaign lasted one to three days on average. In a week, such campaigns accounted for 100 million phishing and malware emails targeting Gmail users worldwide.

The researchers found that users in the US were the most popular targets (42% of all attacks), followed by the Untied Kingdom (10%) and Japan (5%).

In addition, age played a role: Users between the ages of 55 and 64 were 1.64 times more likely to be targeted when compared to 18 to 24 year-olds.

Read more about it here.

U.S. Cellular, the fourth largest wireless carrier in America, with 4.9 million customers, has suffered a data breach. A few retail store employees were scammed into downloading a software onto their computer. The software allowed the attacker to access their computers remotely. Once the employees logged into the customer relationship management (CRM) system, the hackers gained access to these records.

While on the CRM system, the attackers were able to view customers’ account, including their name, address, PIN, cell phone numbers, service plan, and billing/usage statements.

USCellular believes the attack occurred on January 4, 2021.

Read more about it here.