A week in security (Sept 13 – Sept 19)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs Why backups aren’t a “silver bullet” against ransomware, with Matt Crape: Lock and Code S02E17 The many tentacles of Magecart Group 8 Apple releases emergency update: Patch, but don’t panic Update now! Google Chrome fixes two in-the-wild zero-days Parts of the Dark...

Microsoft MSHTML Flaw Exploited by Ryuk Ransomware Gang

Criminals behind the Ryuk ransomware were early exploiters of the Windows MSHTML flaw, actively leveraging the bug in campaigns ahead of a patch released by Microsoft this week. Collaborative research by Microsoft and RiskIQ revealed campaigns by Ryuk threat actors early on that exploited the fla...

Airline Credential-Theft Takes Off in Widening Campaign

A two-year-old espionage campaign against the airline industry is ongoing, with AsyncRAT and other commodity remote-access trojans RATs helping those efforts take flight. The campaign can effectively be a bird strike to the business engine, so to speak, resulting in data theft, financial fraud or...

Universal decryptor key for Sodinokibi, REvil ransomware released

By Waqas Bitdefender stated that all victims who got their files/data encrypted by the REvil ransomware might use the decryptor key to restore them. This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Universal decryptor key for Sodinokibi, REvil ransomware released...

The Ransomware Killchain: How It Works, and How to Protect Your Systems

Much ado has been made by this very author on this very blog! about the incentives for attackers and defenders around ransomware. There is also a wealth of information on the internet about how to protect yourself from ransomware. One thing we want to avoid losing sight of, however, is just how w...

Financial Cybercrime: Following Cryptocurrency via Public Ledgers

This is Part II of a two-part series on how cybercrooks embrace and use cryptocurrency. To read Part I, please click here. While Bitcoin transactions are anonymous, it’s possible to follow the money through public ledgers to see what those transactions actually are and how they flow. This allows ...

3 security lessons from an MSP that survived the Kaseya VSA attack

Jay Tipton, chief executive for the Managed Service Provider MSP Technology Specialists, remembers his Fourth of July weekend this year like many MSP employees likely remember theirs: As a bit of a nightmare. “That’s like the worst feeling you’ll ever have,” Tipton said about his initial...

Ransomware scammers target artists with fake Krita revenue deals

The Krita digital painting application is currently being targeted by ransomware authors. Available on Steam and other platforms, it’s a powerful tool with a very cheap purchase price and great reviews. A perfect bit of bait to start reeling in potential victims, in other words. How does the scam...

Windows MSHTML 0-Day Exploited to Deploy Cobalt Strike Beacon in Targeted Attacks

Microsoft on Wednesday disclosed details of a targeted phishing campaign that leveraged a now-patched zero-day flaw in its MSHTML platform using specially-crafted Office documents to deploy Cobalt Strike Beacon on compromised Windows systems. "These attacks used the vulnerability, tracked as...

ACSC Releases Annual Cyber Threat Report

The Australian Cyber Security Centre ACSC has released its annual report on key cyber security threats and trends for the 2020–21 financial year. The report lists the exploitation of the pandemic environment, the disruption of essential services and critical infrastructure, ransomware, the rapid...

Analyzing attacks that exploit the CVE-2021-40444 MSHTML vulnerability

In August, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC identified a small number of attacks less than 10 that attempted to exploit a remote code execution vulnerability in MSHTML using specially crafted Microsoft Office documents. These attacks used the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-40444, as...

Customer Care Giant TTEC Hit By Ransomware

TTEC, NASDAQ: TTEC, a company used by some of the worlds largest brands to help manage customer support and sales online and over the phone, is dealing with disruptions from a network security incident resulting from a ransomware attack, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. While many companies have been...

Microsoft Patches Actively Exploited Windows Zero-Day

In September’s Patch Tuesday crop of security fixes, Microsoft released patches for 66 CVEs, three of which are rated critical, and one of which – the Windows MSHTML zero-day – has been under active attack for nearly two weeks. One other bug is listed as publicly known but isn’t yet being...

Parts of the Dark Web “awash” with school children’s personal data

NBC News has collected and analyzed a trove of childrens personal information it discovered on the Dark Web. Even though this information may not be as useful to cybercriminals as credit card details or login credentials, the information is still out there, where we don’t want it. So what is it,...

ZLoader’s Back, Abusing Google AdWords, Disabling Windows Defender

A targeted campaign delivering the ZLoader banking trojan is spreading via Google AdWords, and is using a mechanism to disable all Windows Defender modules on victim machines, researchers have found. That’s according to SentinelLabs, which said that to lower the rates of detection, the infection...

BlackMatter Ransomware Hits Japanese Tech Giant Olympus

Japanese technology giant Olympus is currently investigating a cyber incident on its EMEA IT systems that happened earlier this month that sources said is the result of a BlackMatter ransomware attack. The company detected “suspicious activity” on Sept. 8 and “immediately mobilized a specialized...

CERT NZ Releases Ransomware Protection Guide for Businesses

The New Zealand Computer Emergency Response Team CERT NZ has released a guide on ransomware protection for businesses. The guide includes a pair of helpful diagrams that outline different ransomware attack pathways and illustrate where relevant security controls can work to protect or stop an...

REvil’s Back; Coder Fat-Fingered Away Its Decryptor Key?

UPDATE The REvil ransomware gang’s tentacles shot out yet again last week, with the ransomware gang’s servers back online, a fresh victim listed on its site, ransomware payments back up and flowing, and an explanation of why it took a two-month hiatus. A purported REvil representative also...

Honing Cybersecurity Strategy When Everyone’s a Target for Ransomware

These days, ransomware is seemingly ubiquitous. No longer just a discussion topic for cybersecurity professionals and researchers, these days it seems like rarely a week goes by when it’s not in the mainstream media. It’s rapidly become a commonplace word, and in some respects, this increased...

Why backups aren’t a “silver bullet” against ransomware, with Matt Crape: Lock and Code S02E17

A recent spate of ransomware attacks in the US and abroad have derailed major corporations, spurring a fuel shortage on the US East Coast, shuttering grocery stores in Sweden, and sending students home from grade schools. The solution, so many cybersecurity experts say, is to implement backups,...