Latest news with #Eset
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Warning issued to Sainsbury's customers after two years of Nectar points stolen
Experts have issued a fresh warning to Sainsbury's customers after a shopper reported having two years of her Nectar points stolen. This is Money revealed earlier this year that Nectar had introduced a 'lock' feature on its loyalty card scheme, meaning any account can be freezed until the customer decides to spend their reward points. The announcement came after an investigation revealed that 12.5 million Nectar points worth nearly £63,000 had been stolen from our readers over the period of a year. And just last week, another customer reported on social media that 3,000 points had been stolen from her account after they were used in a Twickenham branch. She posted: 'Someone has stolen 3,000 of my Nectar points? 'I have never been to Twickenham in my life and I have been saving these points for two years to help pay for Christmas. Please look into this.' The claims have prompted cybersecurity experts to urge customers to take a fresh look at their accounts in order to prevent potentially criminal activity. 'It's especially important to monitor accounts more often just before Christmas,' Jake Moore, Eset's Global Security Advisor told The Sun. 'This is usually when criminals target accounts with points that have been accumulated over the year.' He added that accounts should be checked 'frequently to detect and report any unauthorised actions promptly'. Only primary users of the account should be able to lock and unlock spending on their Nectar accounts with the new locking feature, while additional collectors will only be able to collect points. It was brought in to allow customers to start saving their points again without fear of them being stolen by fraudsters. Thankfully most of the customers affected in This is Money's investigation were refunded by Sainsbury's, which owns Nectar. A Nectar spokesperson today told MailOnline: 'Nectar is one of the UK's biggest loyalty schemes, with over 23 million members. 'The security of our customer accounts is our highest priority and the proportion of those impacted by fraud each year is very small. 'We have a range of measures which detect, and in many cases prevent fraud, including our Spend Lock feature. 'Our Nectar Helpline team are on hand to support any customer who suspects they may have been a victim of fraud.'
The Sun
a day ago
- Business
- The Sun
How to lock your Sainsbury's Nectar card points as outraged shoppers ‘get TWO YEARS' worth stolen'
SHOPPERS have been issued a reminder to lock their Nectar card after an outraged shopper had two years worth of points stolen. Sainsbury's launched a safety feature in February, which allows you to lock your points after customers complained that their points had been stolen. But experts have issued fresh warnings to customers to make use of the security measure, as shoppers continue to post on social media about their points being swiped. Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at Eset told The Sun, customers should monitor their account activity "frequently to detect and report any unauthorised actions promptly". He said: "It's is especially important to monitor accounts more often just before Christmas as this is usually when criminals target accounts with points that have been accumulated over the year." When an account is locked customers can not use the loyalty rewards to get money off their shop, but can still collect points if they scan their card at the till. Increased security was rolled out earlier this year after an investigation by The Daily Mail, found that over 12million Nectar card points worth nearly £63,000 had been stolen from shoppers. It was reported last October that criminals were using social media channels to sell 1,000 Nectar accounts at a time. But even though new security measures are in place, many shoppers are still claiming their Nectar rewards have been swiped. Since the lock feature was introduced around 14 people have posted on X about the issue, including one who said she had had "£15 stolen". In a recent post she said: Someone has stolen 3000 of my nectar points? "I have never been to Twickenham in my life and I have been saving these points for two years to help pay for Christmas, please look into this." Sainsbury's scraps in-store changing rooms leaving shoppers furious One Nectar point is worth 0.5p, with 100 points worth 50p and 200 points are worth £1. Consumer expert Martyn James told The Sun the majority of customers will be "unaware" their Nectar points have vanished. "That's because we rarely look at the app or check the total on our receipts." He added: "Download the latest version of the app and activate the lock feature. "But Sainsburys need to reassure customers about why this is happening so we can shop with confidence." He also said customers should download the latest version of the app and "activate the lock feature". A Nectar spokesperson told The Sun: 'Nectar is one of the UK's biggest loyalty schemes, with over 23 million members. "The security of our customer accounts is our highest priority and the proportion of those impacted by fraud each year is very small." "We have a range of measures which detect, and in many cases prevent fraud, including our Spend Lock feature. They added: "Our Nectar Helpline team are on hand to support any customer who suspects they may have been a victim of fraud.' HOW TO LOCK YOUR NECTAR CARD POINTS If you are a Sainsbury's customer you can find the feature in the Nectar Card app, which can be downloaded in the Google Play or Apple store. Once that is downloaded, you then need to go into settings and click on the section which reads "Lock or Unlock Spending". There will be an option to click which option you would prefer. You can change whether you want to lock or unlock your points any time you like by using the app. Shoppers can continue to earn points as they shop and get money off when it is locked. But it means customers will not be able to use any of their points to get money off their shopping or any other deals until the cardholder unlocks the points in the app. When you choose to unlock your points it is usually instant but may take longer in busy stores or during busy times. If you want to use the points you have locked it may be best to unlock them before you shop. Scammers tried to steal £250 worth of Nectar points from me By Emily Mee Carrie-Ann Skinner, 41, from Crayford in South East London, had spent a year building up points by regularly shopping at Sainsbury's. She had two-factor authentication enabled on her account, it meant that when she attempted to log in to Nectar she was sent an email with a verification code. Without this function, she may not have been alerted when hackers tried to access her account. In July last year she received a verification code email, despite not requesting one. Carrie-Ann told The Sun she thought it was 'a bit strange' when she got the notification but after checking her Nectar app, everything seemed fine so she 'thought nothing else of it'. But later in the day, she had an email saying the address on the account had been changed, to what she says was a completely different address to her own. It's not clear how the address was changed, as Sainsbury's says the hackers weren't granted access to the account. She quickly changed her password and contacted Nectar, which fixed her address. Carrie-Ann then changed her password three times. However, days later she had another email saying her address had been changed again to the same new address. Nectar then put a permanent block on her card and transferred £250 worth of points to a new card. Carrie-Ann was left 'very angry' and confused by the situation. 'They said everything would be fine, but to be honest, I didn't believe them because I changed the password three times,' Carrie-Ann said. 'So if the password had been leaked, they shouldn't have been able to get in the second and third time.' As a former technology journalist, she says she is hot on spotting phishing scams, using complex passwords and not posting too much information online. A spokesperson from Nectar said it had seen evidence of fraudulent attempts to gain access to her account, but denied hackers that had ever accessed it. It says it blocked Carrie-Ann's original Nectar account to keep her balance safe and transferred the points to a new account, showing their security measures worked. Carrie-Ann said she no longer keeps too many Nectar points on her card - no more than £20 at a time - in case she is targeted again. The 41-year-old has also changed her passwords and her email on her Sainsbury's shopping account. A Sainsbury's spokesperson said: 'The security of our customer accounts is of the utmost importance and we have a range of measures in place to help us detect, and in cases such as these, prevent fraud."
Western Telegraph
02-05-2025
- Business
- Western Telegraph
Hackers may ‘try their luck' with other retailers after M&S breach, experts say
The luxury London department store said it had restricted internet access across its sites on Thursday as a precautionary measure following an attempt to gain unauthorised access to its systems. It follows a serious ransomware attack on Marks & Spencer that has forced the company to suspend online orders and halt all recruitment, and the Co-op has also confirmed it was the target of an attempted breach, and it too has shut down some of its IT systems as a precaution. It's typical for similar companies in the same sector to become secondary targets after a huge cyber attack Jake Moore, Eset Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser at Eset, said other retailers being targeted in the wake of the M&S breach was 'typical', as hacking groups are often inspired to 'try their luck' by using the same type of ransomware elsewhere. 'It's typical for similar companies in the same sector to become secondary targets after a huge cyber attack,' he said. 'As the strain of ransomware called DragonForce can simply be purchased on the dark web in a model called 'ransomware-as-a-service', other hacking groups are also able to attempt their luck on similar businesses and start demanding ransoms where possible. 'It is often a precautionary measure to shut down parts of a system after a major cyber attack to mitigate any threats and prevent similar breaches. 'However, attacks involving the DragonForce ransomware most commonly start by targeting known vulnerabilities such as attacking systems that have not been kept up to date with the latest security patches, so businesses need to be extra vigilant and improve how quickly they update their networks.' Cybersecurity expert Cody Barrow, chief executive of EclecticIQ, said the flurry of attacks showed cybercriminals are becoming bolder. What's deeply concerning is generative AI is accelerating the threat landscape Cody Barrow, EclecticIQ 'Coming on the heels of recent breaches at Co-op and M&S, it highlights an alarming trend: attackers are becoming increasingly opportunistic, exploiting weaknesses across complex, highly interconnected supply chains,' he said, warning that artificial intelligence was also making it easier for lower-skilled hackers to put together sophisticated attacks. 'What's deeply concerning is generative AI is accelerating the threat landscape. 'Sophisticated phishing campaigns, deepfake social engineering, and adaptive malware are now within reach of even low-skilled attackers. 'This widespread access to advanced attack tools is driving up attack volume, speed, and complexity.' According to reports, a hacking group known as Scattered Spider is said to be behind the M&S attack, although this has not been confirmed. It also remains unclear if the three attacks are linked. It's a lesson again in the growing difficulty large organisations have in securing against threats in their supply chain, particularly as those threats grow in volume and sophistication Toby Lewis, Darktrace Toby Lewis, head of threat analysis at cybersecurity firm Darktrace, said the attacks could be linked by a common piece of technology used by all three firms that has a vulnerability, or that Co-op and Harrods had stepped up their own security response in the wake of the M&S breach. 'Details of the cyber attack at Harrods are still low and we shouldn't rule out that the three incidents impacting M&S, Co-operative and Harrods are coincidence,' he said. 'However, with the information publicly available we can see two other likely scenarios: either a common supplier or technology used by all three retailers has been breached and used as an entry point to big-name retailers, or the scale of the M&S incident has prompted security teams to relook at their logs and act on activity they wouldn't have previously judged a risk. 'It's a lesson again in the growing difficulty large organisations have in securing against threats in their supply chain, particularly as those threats grow in volume and sophistication.'
The Independent
11-03-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Pointing finger at Ukraine after X outage is ‘dangerous', cyber expert says
It would be 'dangerous to point the finger' at Ukraine after Elon Musk said X's outage had links to the country, a cybersecurity expert said. Mr Musk said the social media platform was being targeted in a 'massive cyberattack', telling Fox Business Network that the attackers had 'IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area'. Complaints about outages spiked around 11am UK time on Monday, and again four hours later, with more than 40,000 users reporting no access to the platform, according to tracking website Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser at software security firm Eset, told the PA news agency that he is 'confident' it was a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which involves multiple IP addresses flooding a server or website with internet traffic. He went on: 'Unfortunately, X remains one of the most talked about platforms making it a typical target for hackers marking their own territory. 'All that can be done to future proof their networks is to continue to expect the unexpected and build even more robust DDoS protection layers. 'IP addresses can also be directed via software to be seen to have originated anywhere in the world. 'Therefore, even if their analysis suggests Ukraine, it would be dangerous to point the finger so early on.' Mr Moore added that 'simple analysis' of the IP addresses would point towards their location, but that this can be 'tampered with' to make it seem that the origin is in a different country. He said: 'Without seeing the report of the investigation it would be difficult to agree with this accusation either way.' Mr Musk, who is acting as an adviser on federal spending to Donald Trump, previously said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is running a 'fraud machine feeding off the dead bodies of soldiers', suggesting limited appetite for continued American support for Ukraine. The Tesla CEO bought the site, formerly Twitter, in 2022.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pointing finger at Ukraine after X outage is ‘dangerous', cyber expert says
It would be 'dangerous to point the finger' at Ukraine after Elon Musk said X's outage had links to the country, a cybersecurity expert said. Mr Musk said the social media platform was being targeted in a 'massive cyberattack', telling Fox Business Network that the attackers had 'IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area'. Complaints about outages spiked around 11am UK time on Monday, and again four hours later, with more than 40,000 users reporting no access to the platform, according to tracking website There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against 𝕏. We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved. Tracing … — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2025 Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser at software security firm Eset, told the PA news agency that he is 'confident' it was a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which involves multiple IP addresses flooding a server or website with internet traffic. He went on: 'Unfortunately, X remains one of the most talked about platforms making it a typical target for hackers marking their own territory. 'All that can be done to future proof their networks is to continue to expect the unexpected and build even more robust DDoS protection layers. 'IP addresses can also be directed via software to be seen to have originated anywhere in the world. 'Therefore, even if their analysis suggests Ukraine, it would be dangerous to point the finger so early on.' Mr Moore added that 'simple analysis' of the IP addresses would point towards their location, but that this can be 'tampered with' to make it seem that the origin is in a different country. He said: 'Without seeing the report of the investigation it would be difficult to agree with this accusation either way.' Mr Musk, who is acting as an adviser on federal spending to Donald Trump, previously said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is running a 'fraud machine feeding off the dead bodies of soldiers', suggesting limited appetite for continued American support for Ukraine. The Tesla CEO bought the site, formerly Twitter, in 2022.
