A week in security (September 9 – 15)

Last week on the Labs blog, we looked at free VPN offerings, how malware can hinder vital emergency services, and explored how the Heartbleed vulnerability is still causing problems. We also talked about a large FTC settlement involving Google, and how to keep an eye out for leaky AWS buckets...

New Threat Actor Fraudulently Buys Digital Certificates to Spread Malware

Researchers have identified a new threat actor that is using impersonation fraud to purchase digital certificates that are then used for the spread of malware. Security firm ReversingLabs identified a bad actor that deceives certificate authorities into selling them legitimate digital certificate...

Cybercriminals Adding Sophistication to BEC Threats

Cybercriminals are boosting their game and employing new tactics to move up the chain of command with more sophisticated business email compromise BEC threats that pose a greater threat to organizations, according to a new report. Advanced BEC attacks–including impersonation attacks and CEO...

Successful SOC 2 Approaches to Address Fraud Risk

Coalfire has found that many SOC 2 clients struggle with addressing COSO Principle 8 fraud risk considerations because they innately think only about financial fraud risks. Many clients do not understand that fraud risks depend on the nature of the business and the environment in which the busine...

Fabricated Voice Used in Financial Fraud

This seems to be an identity theft first: Criminals used artificial intelligence-based software to impersonate a chief executive's voice and demand a fraudulent transfer of €220,000 $243,000 in March in what cybercrime experts described as an unusual case of artificial intelligence being used in...

Major Groupon, TicketMaster Fraud Scheme Exposed By Insecure Database

UPDATE After discovering a cache of 17 million emails exposed on an unsecured database, researchers with vpnMentor began to hunt for its owner — but to their surprise, they found that the database belonged not to a company, but to a sophisticated criminal network. Cybercriminals had been both...

Feds Indict 281 People for Involvement in Massive Email Fraud Scheme

Federal authorities have arrested 281 people and seized nearly $3.7 million in a coordinated effort between multiple agencies to disrupt a massive email-fraud scheme. Perpetrators of a global business email compromise BEC scheme were the target of a four-month investigation that began in May call...

Hundreds of BEC Scammers Arrested in Nigeria and U.S. — $3.7 Million Recovered

Breaking News — The Nigerian prince and his allies who might have also asked you over an email for your assistance to help save "the first African astronaut lost in space" have finally been arrested by the FBI. Don't take it too seriously, as there's no Nigerian prince or an astronaut seeking you...

ThreatList: Amidst Data Breaches, Account Creation Fraud Soars in 2019

The first half of 2019 saw a 13 percent increase in fraudulent activity compared to the previous six months, with a spike in June representing the highest-volume bot attack that’s been recorded since 2016, according to an analysis from LexisNexis Risk Solutions. The firm’s report, with data glean...

Back-to-School Scams Target Students with Library-Themed Emails

College students settling back into school might want to think twice before clicking on an email prompting them to renew their school library account. Researchers warn that students at hundreds of universities worldwide are being targeted with fake emails this week, which tout attachments or link...

CEO 'Deep Fake' Swindles Company Out of $243K

In the first known case of successful financial scamming via audio deep fakes, cybercrooks were able to create a near-perfect impersonation of a chief executive’s voice – and then used the audio to fool his company into transferring $243,000 to their bank account. A deep fake is a plausible video...

Feds Allege Adconion Employees Hijacked IP Addresses for Spamming

Federal prosecutors in California have filed criminal charges against four employees of Adconion Direct, an email advertising firm, alleging they unlawfully hijacked vast swaths of Internet addresses and used them in large-scale spam campaigns. KrebsOnSecurity has learned that the charges are...

The vulnerability in the web interface for controlling the Cisco IOS XE operating system allows a hacker to perform cross-site fraudulently crafted requests.

The vulnerability in the web interface for controlling the Cisco IOS XE operating system is related to the lack of authentication for the requests being sent. Exploiting this vulnerability allows a malicious actor to perform cross-site fraudulently by using a specially crafted link to send...

Capital One Hacker Also Accused of Hacking 30 More Companies and CryptoJacking

Former Amazon employee Paige Thompson, who was arrested last month in relation to the Capital One data breach, has been accused of hacking not only the U.S. credit card issuer, but also more than 30 other companies. An indictment unsealed on Wednesday revealed that Thompson not just stole data fr...

ThreatList: Half of All Social Media Logins Are Fraud

More than half of logins 53 percent on social-media sites are fraudulent; and 25 percent of all new account applications on social media are fake, according to a recent analysis. Those numbers far outstrip the overall rate of 10 percent of interactions being fraudulent. The Arkose Labs Q3 Fraud a...

Hacker Ordered to Pay Back Nearly £1 Million to Phishing Victims

A prolific hacker who carried out phishing scams against hundreds of companies worldwide has been ordered to pay back more than $1.1 million over £922,000 worth of cryptocurrencies to his victims. Grant West, a 27-year-old resident of Kent, England, targeted several well-known companies around th...

Surveillance as a Condition for Humanitarian Aid

Excellent op-ed on the growing trend to tie humanitarian aid to surveillance. Despite the best intentions, the decision to deploy technology like biometrics is built on a number of unproven assumptions, such as, technology solutions can fix deeply embedded political problems. And that auditing fo...

Clickjacking Evolves to Hook Millions of Top-Site Visitors

Clickjacking, where links on a website redirect unknowing users to spam, advertising or malware, has been around for decades. However, new tactics that defy the best mitigation efforts of browsers has led to it affecting millions of internet users browsing the web’s top sites, researchers found i...

Meet Bluetana, the Scourge of Pump Skimmers

"Bluetana," a new mobile app that looks for Bluetooth-based payment card skimmers hidden inside gas pumps, is helping police and state employees more rapidly and accurately locate compromised fuel stations across the nation, a study released this week suggests. Data collected in the course of the...

Researchers Bypass Apple FaceID Using Biometrics 'Achilles Heel'

LAS VEGAS – Vulnerabilities have been uncovered in the authentication process of biometrics technology that could allow bad actors to bypass various facial recognition applications – including Apple’s FaceID. But there is a catch. Doing so requires the victim to be out cold. Researchers on...