14.01.2025 - Now that you have made your New Year's resolutions for 2025, we are happy to add a few tips to help you get through the year in good shape from a cybersecurity perspective. In many cases, following a few basic principles will protect you from phishing attempts and other forms of fraud.
10.01.2025 – On Friday morning, January 10, the Federal Administration was affected by a disruption of its’ IT systems for about 45 minutes due to an ongoing DDoS attack. Among other things, telephony, Outlook, various websites and specialized applications of the federal government were affected. The situation was stabilized because of immediate countermeasures.
07.01.2025 - Unfortunately, as the popularity of cryptocurrencies has grown, so has the number of crypto scams. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is particularly insidious. For example, scammers are using AI to create scam websites, social media profiles, and even videos that look deceptively real. In the first weekly review of the year, we look at a case involving a supposed crypto expert who was promoting software on YouTube that promised huge profits through AI-driven trading. Instead of the advertised software, however, victims unknowingly downloaded malware.
31.12.2024 - In our final weekly review of the year, we take a look back on the around 63,000 reports of cyber incidents we received over the past twelve months. Once again, scams involving threatening phone calls purporting to be from the police stood out: this type of scam accounted for more than a third of all reports this year. This and other types of scams are featured in this week’s review. Cybercriminals are working across all channels, calling people on the phone, sending emails, text messages and letters, and even pasting fake QR codes over real ones. We would like to thank all of you for the valuable information and reports you have provided to help us better assess the situation in cyberspace and provide early warning to potential victims.
24.12.2024 - The song "All I want for Christmas is you" is almost impossible to avoid during the festive season. Avoiding phishing and other scams can be just as difficult, as scammers try to trick you in a variety of ways. For them,"All I want for Christmas is your money" is the motto at this time of year.
17.12.2024 - As a business, you send emails to your customers all the time: project enquiries and processing, order placement, payment and delivery terms – a lot of things happen through this communication channel. It takes little effort for scammers to exploit this, but the damage to the victim can be enormous. A very interesting case of this happening was recently reported to us.
10.12.2024 - Over the past week, the NCSC has received numerous reports of attempted CEO fraud phishing scams. Churches, schools, associations and political parties are particularly affected as they often publish a lot of information on their websites that criminals can use to create credible scams. The scammers' aim is to get victims to make payments or buy gift cards online and send them the codes so that the scammers can redeem them.
06.12.2024 - At its meeting on 6 December, the Federal Council approved the report on cybersecurity exercises in the Federal Administration and the Armed Forces in response to the postulate submitted by Marcel Dobler (22.4081). The Federal Council has defined three strategic goals for cybersecurity exercises in the Federal Administration and the Armed Forces: it wants to strengthen internal coordination and cooperation, standardise the preparation and follow-up of cybersecurity exercises, and institutionalise cooperation across the Federal Administration and at international level. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is to play a key coordinating role in this process.
05.12.2024 - For this year's European Cyber Security Month (ECSM), the NCSC focused on raising awareness of social engineering and artificial intelligence (AI). We worked with a range of partners to develop targeted content for young people, professionals and seniors. This review highlights the campaign’s successes and key findings.
03.12.2024 - When the first snow falls and the Christmas holidays are just around the corner, many of us dream of visiting one of Switzerland’s famous holiday destinations. To find the right place to stay, we use a search engine or one of the popular booking sites. But there are scammers out there who want to steal your money and don’t care if they ruin your holiday. In this week’s review, we discuss recent examples of this type of scam.
