A week in security (February 4 – 8)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we took a closer look at the technical and reputational challenges for Facebook as it tries to integrate secure messaging across Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. We explored Google’s latest attempts to change how the public sees—literally—web browser URLs, gave...

More Alleged SIM Swappers Face Justice

Prosecutors in Northern California have charged two men with using unauthorized SIM swaps to steal and extort money from victims. One of the individuals charged allegedly used a hacker nickname belonging to a key figure in the underground who's built a solid reputation hijacking mobile phone...

Collection 1 data breach: what you need to know

Yesterday, news broke that the largest data dump in history had been discovered, with more than 770 million people's Personally Identifiable Information PII decrypted, catalogued, and up for grabs on the Internet. The files, which are being dubbed Collection 1, were originally found on cloud...

Malvertising Campaign Delivers Double Whammy of Ransomware and Info-Stealing

A multi-payload and ongoing malvertising campaign is distributing a newly discovered info-stealer as well as the GandCrab ransomware. The info-stealer is named Vidar, after the Norse god Víðarr, who was the son of Odin in mythology. According to researcher Fumik0, who discovered it in December,...

New email extortion scam warns “Pay $4,000 or a hitman is coming for you”

By Carolina In a new extortion scam, a cybercriminal is sending threatening emails to unsuspecting users asking them to pay a whopping $4,000 in Bitcoin or wait to be executed by a hitman. The email extortion scam surfaced on the Internet a few days ago and is currently arriving in victim's inbox...

Bitcoin Bomb Scare Associated with Sextortion Scammers

This blog was written by Jaeson Schultz. Organizations across the country are on edge today after a flurry of phony bomb threats hit several public entities Thursday, such as universities, schools and news outlets, among others. The attackers distributed malicious emails claiming to have placed...

Spammed Bomb Threat Hoax Demands Bitcoin

A new email extortion scam is making the rounds, threatening that someone has planted bombs within the recipient's building that will be detonated unless a hefty bitcoin ransom is paid by the end of the business day. Sources at multiple U.S. based financial institutions reported receiving the...

U.S. Military Members Catfished and Hooked for Thousands of Dollars

A sextortion ring that aimed “catfish” efforts at U.S. military service members has been uncovered. The scam bilked 442 service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps out of more than $560,000. An 11-month investigation, dubbed “Operation Surprise Party” and carried out by the...

Feds charge 2 Iranian hackers behind SamSam ransomware attacks

By Waqas The United States Department of Justice has charged two Iranian nationals with allegedly developing and using SamSam ransomware against their targets in the United States and Canada to carry out computer hacking and extortion scheme from Iran. Both Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri, 27 and...

U.S Charges Two Iranian Hackers for SamSam Ransomware Attacks

The Department of Justice announced Wednesday charges against two Iranian nationals for their involvement in creating and deploying the notorious SamSam ransomware. The alleged hackers, Faramarz Shahi Savandi, 34, and Mohammad Mehdi Shah, 27, have been charged on several counts of computer hackin...

Adult Website Hack Exposes 1.2M ‘Wife Lover’ Fans

The database underlying an erotica site known as Wife Lovers has been hacked, making off with user information protected only by a simple-to-crack, outdated hashing technique known as the DEScrypt algorithm. Over the weekend, it came to light that Wife Lovers and seven sister sites, all similarly...

19-Year-Old Hacker Arrested Over Making Hoax School and Flight Bomb Threats

British police have arrested a 19-year-old teen who is an alleged member of Apophis Squad cybercriminal group responsible for making hoax bomb threats to thousands of schools and airlines; and DDoSing ProtonMail and Tutanota secure email services. George Duke-Cohan was arrested in his bedroom at...

This Week in Security News: Facebook and Faxploits

Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. This week, Facebook removed 652 fake accounts originating from Russia and Iran. Also, Microsoft identified and removed fake internet domains that...

How Digital Extortion Impacts Today’s Enterprises

By now, many enterprise decision-makers are familiar with the concept of digital extortion, particularly in the form of ransomware. These encryption-based attacks lock users out of their sensitive and valuable data, applications and operating systems. Attackers demand a ransom in the form of...

The Year Targeted Phishing Went Mainstream

A story published here on July 12 about a new sextortion-based phishing scheme that invokes a real password used by each recipient has become the most-read piece on KrebsOnSecurity since this site launched in 2009. And with good reason -- sex sells the second most-read piece here was my 2015 scoo...

SamSam Ransomware Attacks Extorted Nearly $6 Million

Ransomware has become a multimillion-dollar black market business for cybercriminals, and SamSam being a great example. New research revealed that the SamSam ransomware had extorted nearly $6 million from its victims since December 2015, when the cyber gang behind the ransomware started...

CoinVault Ransomware Authors Sentenced to 240 Hours of Community Service

Almost three years after the arrest of two young Dutch brothers, who pleaded guilty to their involvement in creating and distributing CoinVault ransomware malware, a district court in Rotterdam today sentenced them to 240 hours of community service. In 2015, the two suspects — Melvin 25-year-old...

Reasonably Clever Extortion E-mail Based on Password Theft

Imagine you've gotten your hands on a file of e-mail addresses and passwords. You want to monetize it, but the site it's for isn't very valuable. How do you use it? You convince the owners of the password to send you money. I recently saw a spam e-mail that ties the password to a porn site. The...

Coinvault, the court case

Today, after almost 3 years of waiting, it was finally the day of the trial. In the Netherlands, where the whole case took place, the hearings are open to the public. Meaning anyone who is interested can visit. And it was quite busy. Because besides the suspects, their lawyers, the judges and the...

WannaCry Extortion Fraud Reemerges

Extortion emails that threaten recipients with a WannaCry infection if they don’t pay up are making the rounds in the UK and elsewhere. The activity prompted an alert Friday from the City of London’s Action Fraud unit, which said at the time that police had already received almost 300 reports in...