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A town in Japan built a giant squid statue with its COVID relief grant.

One local told the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper that while the statue may be effective in the long run, the money could have been used for “urgent support,” such as for medical staff and long-term care facilities.

But a spokesperson for the town told Fuji News Network that the statue would be a tourist attraction and part of a long term strategy to help promote Noto’s famous flying squid.

I am impressed by the town’s sense of priorities.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Read my blog posting guidelines here.

A town in Japan built a giant squid statue with its COVID relief grant.

One local told the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper that while the statue may be effective in the long run, the money could have been used for “urgent support,” such as for medical staff and long-term care facilities.

But a spokesperson for the town told Fuji News Network that the statue would be a tourist attraction and part of a long term strategy to help promote Noto’s famous flying squid.

I am impressed by the town’s sense of priorities.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Read my blog posting guidelines here.

A new draft of an Australian educational curriculum proposes teaching children as young as five cybersecurity:

The proposed curriculum aims to teach five-year-old children — an age at which Australian kids first attend school — not to share information such as date of birth or full names with strangers, and that they should consult parents or guardians before entering personal information online.

Six-and-seven-year-olds will be taught how to use usernames and passwords, and the pitfalls of clicking on pop-up links to competitions.

By the time kids are in third and fourth grade, they’ll be taught how to identify the personal data that may be stored by online services, and how that can reveal their location or identity. Teachers will also discuss “the use of nicknames and why these are important when playing online games.”

By late primary school, kids will be taught to be respectful online, including “responding respectfully to other people’s opinions even if they are different from personal opinions.”

I have mixed feeling about this. Norms around these things are changing so fast, and it’s not likely that we in the older generation will get to dictate what the younger generation does. But these sorts of online privacy conversations are worth having around the same time children learn about privacy in other contexts.

A new draft of an Australian educational curriculum proposes teaching children as young as five cybersecurity:

The proposed curriculum aims to teach five-year-old children — an age at which Australian kids first attend school — not to share information such as date of birth or full names with strangers, and that they should consult parents or guardians before entering personal information online.

Six-and-seven-year-olds will be taught how to use usernames and passwords, and the pitfalls of clicking on pop-up links to competitions.

By the time kids are in third and fourth grade, they’ll be taught how to identify the personal data that may be stored by online services, and how that can reveal their location or identity. Teachers will also discuss “the use of nicknames and why these are important when playing online games.”

By late primary school, kids will be taught to be respectful online, including “responding respectfully to other people’s opinions even if they are different from personal opinions.”

I have mixed feeling about this. Norms around these things are changing so fast, and it’s not likely that we in the older generation will get to dictate what the younger generation does. But these sorts of online privacy conversations are worth having around the same time children learn about privacy in other contexts.

This year’s RSA Conference will look a little different. Instead of booking flights and hotel rooms in the busy city of San Francisco, we’ll be powering up computers in our home office with family in the next room. We’ve all had a tumultuous year and with that comes resilience, which is also this year’s conference theme.

Ahead of the RSA virtual conference, I spoke with a few of my colleagues about the major themes we should expect to see at RSA this year.

Q: This year’s RSA Conference theme is resilience. What does ‘resilience’ mean to you when protecting the world from cyberthreats?

Scott Howitt, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer – The COVID lockdown has exposed to enterprises that the ability to recover your business (Business Continuity) is important in the face of disaster, but Business Resilience means that your business will be able to adapt to Black Swan events. I’ve seen technology be the catalyst for resilience for most organizations.

Raj Samani, Chief Scientist and McAfee Fellow – For me, it would be ability to continue operations in light of disruption. Whether that disruption originated from digital factors, or indeed physical but to keep the wheels turning.

John Fokker, Principal Engineer and Head of Cyber Investigations for McAfee ATR – Just like Boxing: Isn’t as much about not being hit, because you are in the ring and punches are thrown, but resilience to me is more about how fast you can get back up on your feet once you do get hit. The same is true with security operations, attackers are going to try to hit you, but how good is your defense so you can minimize the impact of the attack and in the case you do get knocked down what controls do you have in place that you can get back up and resume operations.

Amanda House, Data Scientist – Cybersecurity is a unique industry in that new cyberthreats are always improving to avoid detection. A machine learning model made a month ago could now have weakness an adversary has learned to exploit. Machine learning model practitioners need to be resilient in always innovating and improving on past models to outpace new threats. Resilience is constantly monitoring machine learning models so that when we notice decay we can quickly improve them to stop new cyberthreats.

Sherin Mathews, Senior Research Scientist – To me, cyber-resilience implies being able to protect critical assets, maintain operations, and, most importantly, embrace new technologies in the face of evolving threats. The cybersecurity field is an arms race scenario with the threat landscape changing so much. In case of threats like deepfakes, some deepfakes will reach ultra-realism in the coming few years, many will still be more amateurish, and we need to keep advancing towards the best detection methods with newer forms of threats. I feel resiliency doesn’t mean you can survive or defend against all attacks, but it means that if you are compromised, you have a plan that lets us recover quickly after a breach and continue to function. Deepfakes and other offshoots of AI will require businesses to create a transparent, agile, and holistic detection approach to protect endpoints, data, apps, and cloud services.

Q: What topic(s) do you think will play an important role at this year’s RSAC? 

Samani – I anticipate Zero Trust will play a prominent role, considering the year of remote working, and a myriad of significant threats being realised. 

Fokker – Definitely Zero-Trust but also combatting threats that come with working from home, and threat intelligence so organization can better understand the actions of their adversaries even before they step into the ring.

Q: What are you hoping to get out of RSAC this year and what do you want your attendees to take away from your session?

Howitt – I am hoping to see how others have adapted to life with COVID and now that it is receding, what do they think life with look like after.  As for my session, I want to highlight the importance of adaptability and stress that this paradigm shift means we will never go back to normal.

Q: What led you to pursue a career in cybersecurity, and what makes you stay in the industry?

House – Cybersecurity is not a career path I ever imagined for myself. As a student I always enjoyed math and computer science and I naturally gravitated toward those topics. My love of both subjects led me to pursue data science and machine learning. My first job out of college was in the cybersecurity industry and that was my first introduction to this career. Since then, I have loved how cybersecurity requires constant innovation and creative ways of using AI to stop new threats.

Mathews – My background and Ph.D. focused on developing novel dictionary learning and deep learning algorithms for classification tasks related to remote health monitoring systems (e.g., activity recognition for wearable sensors and heartbeat classification). With a background in machine learning, deep learning with applications to computer vision areas, I  entered the field of cybersecurity during my work at Intel Security/Mcafee in 2016.  I contributed towards increasing the effectiveness of cybersecurity products by creating novel machine learning/deep learning models to detect advanced threats(e.g., ransomware & steganography). In my industry work experience, I also had a chance to develop leading-edge research such as eXplainable A.I. (XAI) and deepfakes.   Overall, the advent of artificial intelligence can be considered a significant milestone as A.I. is steadily flooding several industries. However, A.I. platforms can also be misused if in the wrong hands, and as research professionals, we need to step up to detect attacks or mishaps before they happen. I feel deeply passionate about XAI, ethical A.I., the opportunity to combat deepfakes and digital misinformation, and topics related to ML and DL with cybersecurity applications. Overall, it is an excellent feeling as a researcher to use your knowledge to combat threats that affect humanity and safeguard humans.  Also, I believe that newer A.I. research topics such as GANs, Reinforcement learning, and few-shot learning have a lot to offer to combat advanced cybersecurity threats.

Q: Follow-up: What can women bring to the cybersecurity table?

House – I am fortunate to work with a lot of great women in technology at McAfee. Not only are these women on the cutting edge of innovation but they are also great mentors and leaders. We need more smart people pursuing jobs in this industry and in order to recruit new talent, especially young graduates, we need to mentor and encourage them to pursue this career. Every woman I have met in this industry wants to see new talent succeed and will go the extra mile to provide mentorship. I have also noticed women tend to have unique backgrounds in this industry. For example, some of the women I look up to have degrees in biomedical engineering or physics. These unique backgrounds allow these women to bring innovative ideas from outside cybersecurity to solve some of the toughest problems in the cybersecurity industry. We need more talent from diverse backgrounds to bring in fresh ideas.

McAfee is a proud platinum with keynote level sponsor of RSA Conference 2021. Take in the McAfee virtual booth and sessions presented by McAfee industry leaders Here are some of the best ways to catch McAfee at RSA. Can’t wait to see you there!

The post RSA Conference 2021: The Best Place to Strengthen Your Resilience appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

This year’s RSA Conference will look a little different. Instead of booking flights and hotel rooms in the busy city of San Francisco, we’ll be powering up computers in our home office with family in the next room. We’ve all had a tumultuous year and with that comes resilience, which is also this year’s conference theme.

Ahead of the RSA virtual conference, I spoke with a few of my colleagues about the major themes we should expect to see at RSA this year.

Q: This year’s RSA Conference theme is resilience. What does ‘resilience’ mean to you when protecting the world from cyberthreats?

Scott Howitt, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer – The COVID lockdown has exposed to enterprises that the ability to recover your business (Business Continuity) is important in the face of disaster, but Business Resilience means that your business will be able to adapt to Black Swan events. I’ve seen technology be the catalyst for resilience for most organizations.

Raj Samani, Chief Scientist and McAfee Fellow – For me, it would be ability to continue operations in light of disruption. Whether that disruption originated from digital factors, or indeed physical but to keep the wheels turning.

John Fokker, Principal Engineer and Head of Cyber Investigations for McAfee ATR – Just like Boxing: Isn’t as much about not being hit, because you are in the ring and punches are thrown, but resilience to me is more about how fast you can get back up on your feet once you do get hit. The same is true with security operations, attackers are going to try to hit you, but how good is your defense so you can minimize the impact of the attack and in the case you do get knocked down what controls do you have in place that you can get back up and resume operations.

Amanda House, Data Scientist – Cybersecurity is a unique industry in that new cyberthreats are always improving to avoid detection. A machine learning model made a month ago could now have weakness an adversary has learned to exploit. Machine learning model practitioners need to be resilient in always innovating and improving on past models to outpace new threats. Resilience is constantly monitoring machine learning models so that when we notice decay we can quickly improve them to stop new cyberthreats.

Sherin Mathews, Senior Research Scientist – To me, cyber-resilience implies being able to protect critical assets, maintain operations, and, most importantly, embrace new technologies in the face of evolving threats. The cybersecurity field is an arms race scenario with the threat landscape changing so much. In case of threats like deepfakes, some deepfakes will reach ultra-realism in the coming few years, many will still be more amateurish, and we need to keep advancing towards the best detection methods with newer forms of threats. I feel resiliency doesn’t mean you can survive or defend against all attacks, but it means that if you are compromised, you have a plan that lets us recover quickly after a breach and continue to function. Deepfakes and other offshoots of AI will require businesses to create a transparent, agile, and holistic detection approach to protect endpoints, data, apps, and cloud services.

Q: What topic(s) do you think will play an important role at this year’s RSAC? 

Samani – I anticipate Zero Trust will play a prominent role, considering the year of remote working, and a myriad of significant threats being realised. 

Fokker – Definitely Zero-Trust but also combatting threats that come with working from home, and threat intelligence so organization can better understand the actions of their adversaries even before they step into the ring.

Q: What are you hoping to get out of RSAC this year and what do you want your attendees to take away from your session?

Howitt – I am hoping to see how others have adapted to life with COVID and now that it is receding, what do they think life with look like after.  As for my session, I want to highlight the importance of adaptability and stress that this paradigm shift means we will never go back to normal.

Q: What led you to pursue a career in cybersecurity, and what makes you stay in the industry?

House – Cybersecurity is not a career path I ever imagined for myself. As a student I always enjoyed math and computer science and I naturally gravitated toward those topics. My love of both subjects led me to pursue data science and machine learning. My first job out of college was in the cybersecurity industry and that was my first introduction to this career. Since then, I have loved how cybersecurity requires constant innovation and creative ways of using AI to stop new threats.

Mathews – My background and Ph.D. focused on developing novel dictionary learning and deep learning algorithms for classification tasks related to remote health monitoring systems (e.g., activity recognition for wearable sensors and heartbeat classification). With a background in machine learning, deep learning with applications to computer vision areas, I  entered the field of cybersecurity during my work at Intel Security/Mcafee in 2016.  I contributed towards increasing the effectiveness of cybersecurity products by creating novel machine learning/deep learning models to detect advanced threats(e.g., ransomware & steganography). In my industry work experience, I also had a chance to develop leading-edge research such as eXplainable A.I. (XAI) and deepfakes.   Overall, the advent of artificial intelligence can be considered a significant milestone as A.I. is steadily flooding several industries. However, A.I. platforms can also be misused if in the wrong hands, and as research professionals, we need to step up to detect attacks or mishaps before they happen. I feel deeply passionate about XAI, ethical A.I., the opportunity to combat deepfakes and digital misinformation, and topics related to ML and DL with cybersecurity applications. Overall, it is an excellent feeling as a researcher to use your knowledge to combat threats that affect humanity and safeguard humans.  Also, I believe that newer A.I. research topics such as GANs, Reinforcement learning, and few-shot learning have a lot to offer to combat advanced cybersecurity threats.

Q: Follow-up: What can women bring to the cybersecurity table?

House – I am fortunate to work with a lot of great women in technology at McAfee. Not only are these women on the cutting edge of innovation but they are also great mentors and leaders. We need more smart people pursuing jobs in this industry and in order to recruit new talent, especially young graduates, we need to mentor and encourage them to pursue this career. Every woman I have met in this industry wants to see new talent succeed and will go the extra mile to provide mentorship. I have also noticed women tend to have unique backgrounds in this industry. For example, some of the women I look up to have degrees in biomedical engineering or physics. These unique backgrounds allow these women to bring innovative ideas from outside cybersecurity to solve some of the toughest problems in the cybersecurity industry. We need more talent from diverse backgrounds to bring in fresh ideas.

McAfee is a proud platinum with keynote level sponsor of RSA Conference 2021. Take in the McAfee virtual booth and sessions presented by McAfee industry leaders Here are some of the best ways to catch McAfee at RSA. Can’t wait to see you there!

The post RSA Conference 2021: The Best Place to Strengthen Your Resilience appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

When gyms were forced to close last year, you likely looked for other ways to get some exercise and stay active during quarantine. From investing in a few pairs of dumbbells or perhaps downloading an app or two to help you track your workouts, you found alternatives to help you break a sweat. As an accessible, easy way to release endorphins, running quickly grew in popularity along with the platforms that help runners stay accountable. According to Runner’s World, there was a 34% uptick in outdoor miles logged by common fitness apps between March and September 2020 compared to the same stretch in 2019. But are these tools potentially endangering your privacy?  

According to TechCrunch, running apps could potentially threaten your security if the data they collect ends up in the wrong hands. Let’s explore the functionalities of these apps and how they could pose a threat to your online safety.  

Running Apps Do Not Have  a Secure Track Record 

Running apps are solid companions for advanced and amateur runners alike, allowing you to track the length of your run and set a pace for yourself. These apps learn a lot about you the more you use them by gathering health data like your height and weight and even your location. But similar to the threats that exist when you overshare on other online platforms, this data could pose a serious threat to your privacy. For example, location data could identify where you live or where you work – information that you definitely wouldn’t want in the hands of a stranger. If a cybercriminal is able to hack into your account, they could exploit this information to commit identity theft or craft a phishing email disguised as your employer.  

Additionally, many of these apps lack basic security measures to prevent hackers from breaking into accounts or from health and fitness data from spilling out. For example, many popular running apps allow the most basic passwords like “qwerty” and “password.” Oftentimes, hackers automate their attacks by targeting accounts with easy-to-crack passwords like the ones mentioned. This allows them to exploit the most accounts with as little effort as possible. Furthermore, these apps do not have the option to set up two-factor authentication, which creates an additional barrier to prevent hackers from exploiting reused passwords.  

How Can You Hit Your Security Stride?  

No matter where you are in your fitness journey, it is essential to take the necessary precautions to minimize the risks of the platforms you use to hold yourself accountable – running apps included. If you are looking to hit your stride while keeping security and privacy top of mind, follow these tips:  

1. Use a strong, unique password  

Your password is your first line of defense, so it is important that you use one that is strong and unique to your other account credentials. If a hacker does manage to guess your password for one of your online accounts, it is likely they will check for repeat credentials across multiple sites. By using different passwords or passphrases, you can feel slightly more at ease knowing that the majority of your data is secure if one of your accounts becomes vulnerable.  

You can also use a password manager to help you create strong passwords, remove the hassle of remembering numerous passwords, and log  on to websites automatically. 

2. Update your app’s privacy settings  

Some running apps are configured to publicly share user data by default. After you download an app, spend some time researching how to change these settings so your data is not shared with strangers without your permission. 

3. Turn on automatic software updates 

If your running app of choice does undergo any security updates, make sure that they are installed as soon as possible. Developers actively work to identify and address security issues. Frequently update your operating systems and apps so that they have the latest fixes and security protections. The easiest way to do this is to enable automatic software updates on your mobile device. 

4. Disable unnecessary features  

Next time you go for a run with your location services on, think again about what risks this poses to your virtual security and your physical safety. Enhance your security by only enabling the features that are necessary to optimize your fitness performance. This will help prevent hackers from using your location as a vehicle to invade your privacy.  

Reduce the Risk of Running Apps to Stay Secure 

Since the data collected on running apps involves sensitive health and location information, it is worth reviewing the privacy policies for all of the fitness platforms you regularly use to see how your data might be affected. To ensure that you can keep moving toward your fitness goals while protecting your online safety, stay educated on the tools you use to track your progress and implement the necessary security measure to do so with security in mind.  

Stay Updated  

To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.  

The post How to Remain Secure While Using Running Apps appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

When gyms were forced to close last year, you likely looked for other ways to get some exercise and stay active during quarantine. From investing in a few pairs of dumbbells or perhaps downloading an app or two to help you track your workouts, you found alternatives to help you break a sweat. As an accessible, easy way to release endorphins, running quickly grew in popularity along with the platforms that help runners stay accountable. According to Runner’s World, there was a 34% uptick in outdoor miles logged by common fitness apps between March and September 2020 compared to the same stretch in 2019. But are these tools potentially endangering your privacy?  

According to TechCrunch, running apps could potentially threaten your security if the data they collect ends up in the wrong hands. Let’s explore the functionalities of these apps and how they could pose a threat to your online safety.  

Running Apps Do Not Have  a Secure Track Record 

Running apps are solid companions for advanced and amateur runners alike, allowing you to track the length of your run and set a pace for yourself. These apps learn a lot about you the more you use them by gathering health data like your height and weight and even your location. But similar to the threats that exist when you overshare on other online platforms, this data could pose a serious threat to your privacy. For example, location data could identify where you live or where you work – information that you definitely wouldn’t want in the hands of a stranger. If a cybercriminal is able to hack into your account, they could exploit this information to commit identity theft or craft a phishing email disguised as your employer.  

Additionally, many of these apps lack basic security measures to prevent hackers from breaking into accounts or from health and fitness data from spilling out. For example, many popular running apps allow the most basic passwords like “qwerty” and “password.” Oftentimes, hackers automate their attacks by targeting accounts with easy-to-crack passwords like the ones mentioned. This allows them to exploit the most accounts with as little effort as possible. Furthermore, these apps do not have the option to set up two-factor authentication, which creates an additional barrier to prevent hackers from exploiting reused passwords.  

How Can You Hit Your Security Stride?  

No matter where you are in your fitness journey, it is essential to take the necessary precautions to minimize the risks of the platforms you use to hold yourself accountable – running apps included. If you are looking to hit your stride while keeping security and privacy top of mind, follow these tips:  

1. Use a strong, unique password  

Your password is your first line of defense, so it is important that you use one that is strong and unique to your other account credentials. If a hacker does manage to guess your password for one of your online accounts, it is likely they will check for repeat credentials across multiple sites. By using different passwords or passphrases, you can feel slightly more at ease knowing that the majority of your data is secure if one of your accounts becomes vulnerable.  

You can also use a password manager to help you create strong passwords, remove the hassle of remembering numerous passwords, and log  on to websites automatically. 

2. Update your app’s privacy settings  

Some running apps are configured to publicly share user data by default. After you download an app, spend some time researching how to change these settings so your data is not shared with strangers without your permission. 

3. Turn on automatic software updates 

If your running app of choice does undergo any security updates, make sure that they are installed as soon as possible. Developers actively work to identify and address security issues. Frequently update your operating systems and apps so that they have the latest fixes and security protections. The easiest way to do this is to enable automatic software updates on your mobile device. 

4. Disable unnecessary features  

Next time you go for a run with your location services on, think again about what risks this poses to your virtual security and your physical safety. Enhance your security by only enabling the features that are necessary to optimize your fitness performance. This will help prevent hackers from using your location as a vehicle to invade your privacy.  

Reduce the Risk of Running Apps to Stay Secure 

Since the data collected on running apps involves sensitive health and location information, it is worth reviewing the privacy policies for all of the fitness platforms you regularly use to see how your data might be affected. To ensure that you can keep moving toward your fitness goals while protecting your online safety, stay educated on the tools you use to track your progress and implement the necessary security measure to do so with security in mind.  

Stay Updated  

To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.  

The post How to Remain Secure While Using Running Apps appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

John Bernard, a pseudonym used by a convicted thief and con artist named John Clifton Davies who’s fleeced dozens of technology startups out of an estimated $30 million, appears to have reinvented himself again after being exposed in a recent investigative series published here. Sources tell KrebsOnSecurity that Davies/Bernard is now posing as John Cavendish and head of a new “private office” called Hempton Business Management LLP.

John Davies is a U.K. man who absconded from justice before being convicted on multiple counts of fraud in 2015. Prior to his conviction, Davies served 16 months in jail before being cleared of murdering his wife on their honeymoon in India.

Davies’ fraud convictions stemmed from a series of U.K. companies he set up supposedly to help troubled companies reorganize their debt and turn things around. Davies ended up looting what little money his clients had left and spending it on lavish cars, home furnishings, vacations and luxury watches.

In a three-part series published last year, KrebsOnSecurity exposed how Davies — wanted by authorities in the U.K. — had fled the country, taken on the surname Bernard, remarried, and moved to his new (and fourth) wife’s hometown in Ukraine.

The scam artist John Bernard (left) in a recent Zoom call, and a photo of John Clifton Davies from 2015.

After eluding justice in the U.K., Davies reinvented himself as The Private Office of John Bernard, pretending to be a billionaire Swiss investor who made his fortunes in the dot-com boom 20 years ago and who was seeking private equity investment opportunities.

In case after case, Bernard would promise to invest millions in hi-tech startups, only to insist that companies pay tens of thousands of dollars worth of due diligence fees up front. However, the due diligence company he insisted on using — another Swiss firm called Inside Knowledge — also was secretly owned by Bernard, who would invariably pull out of the deal after receiving the due diligence money.

Bernard found a constant stream of new marks by offering extraordinarily generous finders fees to investment brokers who could introduce him to companies seeking an infusion of cash. Inside Knowledge and The Private Office both closed up shop not long after their exploits were detailed here late last year.

But it appears Davies has just assumed a new name. KrebsOnSecurity recently heard from an investment broker who previously represented multiple clients that got fleeced by Mr. Bernard/Davies over the years. That broker said he was blown away to hear Davies’ unique British accent on a recent call with a client that had been in investment talks with a Northern Ireland firm called Hempton Business Management.

This time, the source said, Davies was introduced by handlers on the call as John Cavendish.

“I just sat in on a call and John’s voice is unmistakable,” said the broker, who asked to remain anonymous. “He stumbled on the beginning of the call trying to remember which last name he was supposed to use. Immediately they go back to the standard script about the types of deals they are looking for. They want to be minority investors in private transactions and they are industry agnostic.  Their deal sizes are investments in the $5-20 million range, they prefer to not use big 4 firms for due diligence, and they have some smaller firms they use which are better suited for smaller investment deals.”

The source forwarded me some correspondence from Hempton Business Management, and I noticed it was sent from a Mariya Kulykova. This is interesting because Mr. Bernard’s personal assistant in Ukraine was a Mariya Kulikova (Ms. Kulikova deleted Bernard’s former companies from her LinkedIn profile shortly after last year’s series).

The company’s website says Hempton has been around since 2017, but the domain name was only registered in late November 2020. There is no information about who runs or owns the company on its site.

Hemptonllp[.]com was registered via Gandi, the same French registrar John Bernard/Davies has used over the years with his dozens of phantom companies.

Hempton Business Management’s only presence on LinkedIn appears to be a help wanted ad from a few weeks ago, for a marketing position at an office in Kyiv, Ukraine.

In response to an emailed request for comment on the apparent connections, Mr. Cavendish forwarded the message to a James Donohoe, who replied that he was the owner of Hempton. Donohoe said the domain was new because the company recently re-branded, although he declined to discuss the matter further.

“This sounds like an accusation of a big fraud?,” Donohoe wrote. “I have never had any dealings with a John Clifton Davies or John Bernard. You really are a cheeky little bugger aren’t you!”

Mr. Donohoe did not respond to further requests for comment.

Hempton appears to be part of a network of corporate facades designed to lead any investigators into a labyrinth of entities that exist only on paper. Hempton is what’s known as a “shelf corporation,” an aged or seasoned company that was formed but never used as a business. Shelf corporations are registered solely for the purposes of being resold to others at a later date. Simply put, their resale allows new enterprises to appear older, more established, and trusted.

“Perhaps the leading reason for acquiring an aged entity in general is credibility,” explains TBA & Associates, a company co-registered in the UK and New Zealand that has created hundreds of shelf companies for sale (PDF), including Hempton Business Management LLP in 2017.

“Business relationships are frequently influenced by the length of time a company has been in existence,” TBA continues. “This is often true when establishing financial and client/vendor relationships.”

Some of the shelf companies created and sold by TBA & Associates.

Documents from the UK business record index Companies House show two entities as officers in Hempton: ABA Group & Associates LTD, and Harper & Partners Ltd. Both of these are shelf companies in Hong Kong that are listed for sale in the same TBA PDF advertisement linked for Hempton.

Searching Companies House for information on ABA Group and Harper & Partners leads to a dizzying number of other shelf companies in Hong Kong, Belize and the U.K. — all of which also were recently listed for sale by TBA.

The only person’s name attached to each of these companies is a Joaquim Magro de Almeida, a rather mysterious 72 year-old Portuguese business consultant. OpenCorporates says this same guy is an officer in 313 active companies. The U.K.’s Companies House lists Mr. Almeida as one of three officers in Euro Forex Investments Ltd., which Reuters says was a sprawling pyramid scheme that stole $1 billion from at least 3,700 victims in China, the United States and elsewhere.

This 2017 story from New Zealand financial news site interest.co.nz follows a trail of various other investment scams leading back to TBA shell companies, and to Mr. Almeida, too.

In my first report on John Davies, I noted that before becoming John Bernard he previously used the pseudonym “Jonathan Bibi” with an address in the offshore company haven of Seychelles. That identity was tied to a number of fraudulent cryptocurrency and binary options investment schemes.

Fraudsters are drawn to complexity, and they typically incorporate their shell or shelf companies in countries with little to no oversight or background checks tied to the creation and maintenance of corporate entities. As we’ve seen here, the U.K. is a favorite of fraudsters and money launderers worldwide. In a scathing 2017 report titled Hiding in Plain Sight (PDF), Transparency International found some 766 UK corporate vehicles were alleged to have been used in 52 large-scale corruption and money laundering cases approaching £80 billion.

John Bernard, a pseudonym used by a convicted thief and con artist named John Clifton Davies who’s fleeced dozens of technology startups out of an estimated $30 million, appears to have reinvented himself again after being exposed in a recent investigative series published here. Sources tell KrebsOnSecurity that Davies/Bernard is now posing as John Cavendish and head of a new “private office” called Hempton Business Management LLP.

John Davies is a U.K. man who absconded from justice before being convicted on multiple counts of fraud in 2015. Prior to his conviction, Davies served 16 months in jail before being cleared of murdering his wife on their honeymoon in India.

Davies’ fraud convictions stemmed from a series of U.K. companies he set up supposedly to help troubled companies reorganize their debt and turn things around. Davies ended up looting what little money his clients had left and spending it on lavish cars, home furnishings, vacations and luxury watches.

In a three-part series published last year, KrebsOnSecurity exposed how Davies — wanted by authorities in the U.K. — had fled the country, taken on the surname Bernard, remarried, and moved to his new (and fourth) wife’s hometown in Ukraine.

The scam artist John Bernard (left) in a recent Zoom call, and a photo of John Clifton Davies from 2015.

After eluding justice in the U.K., Davies reinvented himself as The Private Office of John Bernard, pretending to be a billionaire Swiss investor who made his fortunes in the dot-com boom 20 years ago and who was seeking private equity investment opportunities.

In case after case, Bernard would promise to invest millions in hi-tech startups, only to insist that companies pay tens of thousands of dollars worth of due diligence fees up front. However, the due diligence company he insisted on using — another Swiss firm called Inside Knowledge — also was secretly owned by Bernard, who would invariably pull out of the deal after receiving the due diligence money.

Bernard found a constant stream of new marks by offering extraordinarily generous finders fees to investment brokers who could introduce him to companies seeking an infusion of cash. Inside Knowledge and The Private Office both closed up shop not long after their exploits were detailed here late last year.

But it appears Davies has just assumed a new name. KrebsOnSecurity recently heard from an investment broker who previously represented multiple clients that got fleeced by Mr. Bernard/Davies over the years. That broker said he was blown away to hear Davies’ unique British accent on a recent call with a client that had been in investment talks with a Northern Ireland firm called Hempton Business Management.

This time, the source said, Davies was introduced by handlers on the call as John Cavendish.

“I just sat in on a call and John’s voice is unmistakable,” said the broker, who asked to remain anonymous. “He stumbled on the beginning of the call trying to remember which last name he was supposed to use. Immediately they go back to the standard script about the types of deals they are looking for. They want to be minority investors in private transactions and they are industry agnostic.  Their deal sizes are investments in the $5-20 million range, they prefer to not use big 4 firms for due diligence, and they have some smaller firms they use which are better suited for smaller investment deals.”

The source forwarded me some correspondence from Hempton Business Management, and I noticed it was sent from a Mariya Kulykova. This is interesting because Mr. Bernard’s personal assistant in Ukraine was a Mariya Kulikova (Ms. Kulikova deleted Bernard’s former companies from her LinkedIn profile shortly after last year’s series).

The company’s website says Hempton has been around since 2017, but the domain name was only registered in late November 2020. There is no information about who runs or owns the company on its site.

Hemptonllp[.]com was registered via Gandi, the same French registrar John Bernard/Davies has used over the years with his dozens of phantom companies.

Hempton Business Management’s only presence on LinkedIn appears to be a help wanted ad from a few weeks ago, for a marketing position at an office in Kyiv, Ukraine.

In response to an emailed request for comment on the apparent connections, Mr. Cavendish forwarded the message to a James Donohoe, who replied that he was the owner of Hempton. Donohoe said the domain was new because the company recently re-branded, although he declined to discuss the matter further.

“This sounds like an accusation of a big fraud?,” Donohoe wrote. “I have never had any dealings with a John Clifton Davies or John Bernard. You really are a cheeky little bugger aren’t you!”

Mr. Donohoe did not respond to further requests for comment.

Hempton appears to be part of a network of corporate facades designed to lead any investigators into a labyrinth of entities that exist only on paper. Hempton is what’s known as a “shelf corporation,” an aged or seasoned company that was formed but never used as a business. Shelf corporations are registered solely for the purposes of being resold to others at a later date. Simply put, their resale allows new enterprises to appear older, more established, and trusted.

“Perhaps the leading reason for acquiring an aged entity in general is credibility,” explains TBA & Associates, a company co-registered in the UK and New Zealand that has created hundreds of shelf companies for sale (PDF), including Hempton Business Management LLP in 2017.

“Business relationships are frequently influenced by the length of time a company has been in existence,” TBA continues. “This is often true when establishing financial and client/vendor relationships.”

Some of the shelf companies created and sold by TBA & Associates.

Documents from the UK business record index Companies House show two entities as officers in Hempton: ABA Group & Associates LTD, and Harper & Partners Ltd. Both of these are shelf companies in Hong Kong that are listed for sale in the same TBA PDF advertisement linked for Hempton.

Searching Companies House for information on ABA Group and Harper & Partners leads to a dizzying number of other shelf companies in Hong Kong, Belize and the U.K. — all of which also were recently listed for sale by TBA.

The only person’s name attached to each of these companies is a Joaquim Magro de Almeida, a rather mysterious 72 year-old Portuguese business consultant. OpenCorporates says this same guy is an officer in 313 active companies. The U.K.’s Companies House lists Mr. Almeida as one of three officers in Euro Forex Investments Ltd., which Reuters says was a sprawling pyramid scheme that stole $1 billion from at least 3,700 victims in China, the United States and elsewhere.

This 2017 story from New Zealand financial news site interest.co.nz follows a trail of various other investment scams leading back to TBA shell companies, and to Mr. Almeida, too.

In my first report on John Davies, I noted that before becoming John Bernard he previously used the pseudonym “Jonathan Bibi” with an address in the offshore company haven of Seychelles. That identity was tied to a number of fraudulent cryptocurrency and binary options investment schemes.

Fraudsters are drawn to complexity, and they typically incorporate their shell or shelf companies in countries with little to no oversight or background checks tied to the creation and maintenance of corporate entities. As we’ve seen here, the U.K. is a favorite of fraudsters and money launderers worldwide. In a scathing 2017 report titled Hiding in Plain Sight (PDF), Transparency International found some 766 UK corporate vehicles were alleged to have been used in 52 large-scale corruption and money laundering cases approaching £80 billion.