A Brief Weekly Review of Top Stories that Dominated the Cyberworld

The world of cybersecurity saw a number of significant events in the past week. With SAP admitting to export thousands of illegal software exports to Apple facing consistent problems with iOS, macOS zero-day attacks, the outgoing week was replete with many groundbreaking developments. But the headline of the week was a cyberattack that hit the company providing internet services for Belgium’s parliament, government agencies, universities and scientific institutions.

Here’s a brief roundup of the major developments of the past week.

Belgian Government, Parliament, Colleges Struck by Cyberattack

A cyberattack hit the company providing internet services for Belgium’s parliament, government agencies, universities and scientific institutions, with connections to numerous customers disrupted.

The company called Belnet said in a statement the attack “is still in progress and takes place in successive waves. Our teams are working hard to mitigate them.” The company has around 200 customers.

Belgian media reported that online services for coronavirus vaccination centers were partly disrupted and that prosecutors’ offices in Brussels had experienced problems.

Belnet Director Dirk Haex said that the attack of such a scale were not witnessed before, adding that it was premature to say who could be behind it.

SAP admitted to breaching existing sanctions regarding software exports to Iran

SAP conceded to export thousands of illegal software exports to Iran, thus violating sanctions and an embargo placed on the country by the United States.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said that the cloud software vendor breached both the Export Administration Regulations and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations thousands of times over the last six years.

The DoJ claimed: “Beginning in 2011, SAP acquired various CBGs and became aware, through pre-acquisition due diligence as well as post-acquisition export control-specific audits, that these companies lacked adequate export control and sanctions compliance processes.”

Apple continued to confront Problems with iOS, macOS zero-day attacks

Technology titan Apple continued to encounter problems with zero-day attacks with news of another mysterious in-the-wild compromise impacting iPhones, iPads and macOS devices.

Apple’s newest iOS/iPadOS 14.5.1 update highlights vulnerabilities in WebKit (CVE-2021-30665) and WebKit (CVE-2021-30663).

A separate advisory documents the two vulnerabilities on macOS and advises Apple customers to upgrade forthwith to macOS Big Sur 11.3.1.