A week in security (March 1 – 7)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, our podcast featured Eva Galperin who talked to us about defending online anonymity and speech. We wrote about how Ryuk ransomware has developed a worm-like capability, how Exchange servers are attacked by Hafnium zero-days, 21 million free VPN users’ data was...

Microsoft IOC Detection Tool for Exchange Server Vulnerabilities

Microsoft has released an updated script that scans Exchange log files for indicators of compromise IOCs associated with the vulnerabilities disclosed on March 2, 2021. CISA is aware of widespread domestic and international exploitation of these vulnerabilities and strongly recommends organizatio...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

FortiOS Path Traversal Returning community contributor mekhalleh submitted a module targeting a path traversal vulnerability within the SSL VPN web portal in multiple versions of FortiOS. The flaw is leveraged to read the usernames and passwords of currently logged in users which are stored in...

Google Will Use 'FLoC' for Ad Targeting Once 3rd-Party Cookies Are Dead

Signaling a major shift to its ads-driven business model, Google on Wednesday unequivocally stated it would not build alternate identifiers or tools to track users across multiple websites once it begins phasing out third-party tracking cookies from its Chrome browser by early 2022. "Instead, our...

CVE-2021-27065

Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Recent assessments: wvu-r7 at March 10, 2021 7:13am UTC reported: When used with CVE-2021-26855, an unauthenticated SSRF, CVE-2021-27065 yields unauthed, SYSTEM-level RCE against a vulnerable Exchange Server. On its own, exploiting thi...

Cybercriminal Enterprise 'Ringleaders' Stole $55M Via COVID-19 Fraud, Romance Scams

Click to Register U.S. law enforcement arrested six “ringleaders” of a Ghana-based cybercriminal enterprise, who had allegedly launched a slew of money-stealing scams dating back to 2013 that included romance scams, business email compromise attacks and fraud. Seized in the arrests were a slew of...

A Ban on Ad Targeting: Why Did EU Regulators Call for It?

By Waqas Brands use ad targeting to attract potential customers but is it an ethical approach? Why is the EU asking for a ban on ad targeting? This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: A Ban on Ad Targeting: Why Did EU Regulators Call for It?...

Facebook Ad Services Let Anyone Target US Military Personnel

Researchers warn that an advertising platform with categories like “Army” and “United States Air Force Security Forces” could be abused...

Targeted Phishing Attacks Strike High-Ranking Company Executives

An evolving phishing campaign observed at least since May 2020 has been found to target high-ranking company executives across manufacturing, real estate, finance, government, and technological sectors with the goal of obtaining sensitive information. The campaign hinges on a social engineering...

Cyberattacks on Healthcare Spike 45% Since November

As COVID-19 ravages international healthcare systems, cybercriminals have decided to leverage the increasingly dire circumstances to squeeze a few bucks out of the human suffering. According to new findings from Check Point Software, healthcare organizations have seen a 45-percent increase in...

Ditch Your Data-Hungry Apps for These Privacy-Focused Swaps

From messaging to maps, many popular apps slurp up your data to sell you ads. There’s a better way...

VideoBytes: Is it goodbye forever to Maze ransomware?

Hello Folks! In this Videobyte we’re talking about Maze ransomware and whether or not its shutting down, and what that means for the cybercrime world. The notorious Maze ransomware group, known for its corporate targeting and data leaking extortion schemes is, apparently, shutting down operations...

APT annual review: What the world’s threat actors got up to in 2020

We track the ongoing activities of more than 900 advanced threat actors; you can find our quarterly overviews here, here and here. Here we try to focus on what we consider to be the most interesting trends and developments of the last 12 months. This is based on our visibility in the threat...

Election Cyber Threats in the Asia-Pacific Region

In democratic societies, elections are the mechanism for choosing heads of state and policymakers. There are strong incentives for adversary nations to understand the intentions and preferences of the people and parties that will shape a country's future path and to reduce uncertainty about likel...

Operation North Star: Behind The Scenes | McAfee Blogs

ARCHIVED STORY Operation North Star: Behind The Scenes Christiaan Beek · NOV 05, 2020 Executive Summary It is rare to be provided an inside view on how major cyber espionage campaigns are conducted within the digital realm. The only transparency afforded is a limited view of victims, a malware...

This Week in Security News: Watering Hole Campaign Operation Earth Kitsune Spying on Users’ Systems and Fancy Bear Imposters Are on a Hacking Extortion Spree

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, learn about a watering hole campaign Trend Micro dubbed ‘Operation Earth Kitsune’ that is spying on users’ systems through compromised...

FIN11 Cybercrime Gang Shifts Tactics to Double-Extortion Ransomware

The FIN11 financial crime gang is shifting its tactics from phishing and credential-theft to ransomware, researchers said. According to FireEye Mandiant researchers, FIN11 is notable for its “sheer volume of activity,” known to run up to five disparate wide-scale email phishing campaigns per week...

LatAm Banking Trojans Collaborate in Never-Before-Seen Effort

Virus Bulletin 2020 — A loose affiliation of cybercriminals are working together to author and distribute multiple families of banking trojans in Latin America – a collaborative effort that researchers say is highly unusual. Multiple, distinct malware families have plagued Latin American banking...

Unprecedented Levels of Ransom DDoS Extortion Attacks

The FBI has released a flash warning that thousands of organizations around the world, and across multiple industries, have been threatened with DDoS attacks unless they pay a bitcoin ransom. This ransom DDoS, or RDoS, threat was covered by Akamai's Security Intelligence Response Team SIRT in a...

Japan, France, New Zealand Warn of Sudden Uptick in Emotet Trojan Attacks

Cybersecurity agencies across Asia and Europe have issued multiple security alerts regarding the resurgence of email-based Emotet malware attacks targeting businesses in France, Japan, and New Zealand. "The emails contain malicious attachments or links that the receiver is encouraged to download,...