Messaging Apps Tapped as Platform for Cybercriminal Activity

Cybercriminals are tapping the built-in services of popular messaging apps like Telegram and Discord as ready-made platforms to help them perform their nefarious activity in persistent campaigns that threaten users, researchers have found. Threat actors are tapping the multi-feature nature of...

Hamas-linked Hackers Targeting High-Ranking Israelis Using 'Catfish' Lures

A threat actor with affiliations to the cyber warfare division of Hamas has been linked to an "elaborate campaign" targeting high-profile Israeli individuals employed in sensitive defense, law enforcement, and emergency services organizations. "The campaign operators use sophisticated social...

Experts Shed Light on BlackGuard Infostealer Malware Sold on Russian Hacking Forums

A previously undocumented "sophisticated" information-stealing malware named BlackGuard is being advertised for sale on Russian underground forums for a monthly subscription of $200. "BlackGuard has the capability to steal all types of information related to Crypto wallets, VPN, Messengers, FTP...

URI spoofing flaw could phish WhatsApp, Signal, Instagram, and iMessage users

Update: We were informed by Sick Codes that, although Signal already has a fix for this URI flaw here, it hasnt been pushed out to market yet. Well further update this post once there is new development. Theres a flaw in the way many of the worlds most popular messaging and email platforms—such a...

Forcing WhatsApp and iMessage to Work Together Is Doomed to Fail

Europe’s Digital Markets Act requires interoperability between popular messaging apps. But experts warn encryption could be compromised...

Law Enforcement Access to Chat Data and Metadata

A January 2021 FBI document outlines what types of data and metadata can be lawfully obtained by the FBI from messaging apps. Rolling Stone broke the story and its been written about elsewhere. I dont see a lot of surprises in the document. Lots of apps leak all sorts of metadata: iMessage and...

Here’s what data the FBI can get from WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, Telegram, and more

Not every secure messaging app is as safe as it would like us to think. And some are safer than others. A recently disclosed FBI training document shows how much access to the content of encrypted messages from secure messaging services US law enforcement can gain and what they can learn about yo...

Phorpiex morphs: How a longstanding botnet persists and thrives in the current threat environment

Phorpiex, an enduring botnet known for extortion campaigns and for using old-fashioned worms that spread via removable USB drives and instant messaging apps, began diversifying its infrastructure in recent years to become more resilient and to deliver more dangerous payloads. Today, the Phorphiex...

Beware — A New Wormable Android Malware Spreading Through WhatsApp

A newly discovered Android malware has been found to propagate itself through WhatsApp messages to other contacts in order to expand what appears to be an adware campaign. "This malware spreads via victim's WhatsApp by automatically replying to any received WhatsApp message notification with a li...

Experts Warn of Privacy Risks Caused by Link Previews in Messaging Apps

Cybersecurity researchers over the weekend disclosed new security risks associated with link previews in popular messaging apps that cause the services to leak IP addresses, expose links sent via end-to-end encrypted chats, and even unnecessarily download gigabytes of data stealthily in the...

The wolf is back...

By Warren Mercer, Paul Rascagneres and Vitor Ventura. News summaryThai Android devices and users are being targeted by a modified version of DenDroid we are calling "WolfRAT," now targeting messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Line.We assess with high confidence that this modified...

WolfRAT Android Malware Targets WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger

UPDATE A new Android malware family has been discovered, which targets popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to gather intelligence on Android victims. The malware, dubbed WolfRAT, is under active development, and was recently identified in campaigns targeting Thai users...

But We Have an Email Gateway...

In my previous phishing blogs, I wrote about the evolution of phishing and the industrialization of phishing that's being driven by the availability and low cost of toolkits. In this blog post, I'm going to provide more information about emerging phishing attack vectors and how cybercriminals are...

Brazilian Cell Phone Hack

I know there's a lot of politics associated with this story, but concentrate on the cybersecurity aspect for a moment. The cell phones of a thousand Brazilians, including senior government officials, were hacked -- seemingly by actors much less sophisticated than rival governments. Brazil's...

Hackers Can Manipulate Media Files You Receive Via WhatsApp and Telegram

If you think that the media files you receive on your end-to-end encrypted secure messaging apps can not be tampered with, you need to think again. Security researchers at Symantec yesterday demonstrated multiple interesting attack scenarios against WhatsApp and Telegram Android apps, which could...

How to securely send your personal information

This story originally ran on The Parallax and was updated on July 3, 2019. A few months ago, my parents asked a great security question: How could they securely send their passport numbers to a travel agent? They knew email wasn’t safe on its own. Standard email indeed isn’t safe for sending...

Rietspoof malware distributes ransomware via messaging apps

By Waqas A malware strain dubbed as Rietspoof has been under the radar of researchers at Avast since last August. Reportedly, researchers suspect that the malware is on the rise and it is being distributed via Skype, Facebook Messenger, and other messaging apps. Researchers maintain that the...

Prices for Zero-Day Exploits Are Rising

Companies are willing to pay ever-increasing amounts for good zero-day exploits against hard-to-break computers and applications: On Monday, market-leading exploit broker Zerodium said it would pay up to $2 million for zero-click jailbreaks of Apple's iOS, $1.5 million for one-click iOS jailbreak...

Zerodium Offers to Buy Zero-Day Exploits at Higher Prices Than Ever

Well, there's some good news for hackers and vulnerability hunters, though terrible news for tech manufacturers! Exploit vendor Zerodium is now willing to offer significantly higher payouts for full, working zero-day exploits that allow stealing of data from WhatsApp, iMessage and other online ch...

Zerodium Offers to Buy Zero-Day Exploits at Higher Prices Than Ever

Well, there's some good news for hackers and vulnerability hunters, though terrible news for tech manufacturers! Exploit vendor Zerodium is now willing to offer significantly higher payouts for full, working zero-day exploits that allow stealing of data from WhatsApp, iMessage and other online ch...