‘Dark Herring’ Billing Malware Swims onto 105M Android Devices

Nearly 500 malicious apps lurking on the Google Play Store have successfully installed Dark Herring malware — a cash-stealer intended to add sneaky charges onto mobile carrier bills — on more than 100 million Android devices across the globe. That’s quite a school of fish. Dark Herring malware wa...

CISA Urges Sites to Patch Critical RCE in Discourse

Discourse – the ultra-popular, widely deployed open-source community forum and mailing list management platform – has a critical remote code-execution RCE bug that was fixed in an urgent update on Friday. Tracked as CVE-2021-41163, the flaw is found in Discourse versions 2.7.8 and earlier. It’s...

Critical Cisco Bugs Allow Code Execution on Wireless, SD-WAN

Cisco is warning three critical security vulnerabilities affect its flagship IOS XE software, the operating system for most of its enterprise networking portfolio. The flaws impact Cisco’s wireless controllers, SD-WAN offering and configuration mechanisms in use for scads of products. The...

46% of On-Prem Databases Globally Contain Vulnerabilities: Is Yours Safe?

By Elad Erez, Chief Innovation Officer, Imperva Is there a day that goes by where you don’t read a news headline about a mega-breach impacting millions of people? It’s an unlikely scenario, particularly at a time when the volume of data breaches are rising by an astonishing 30 percent annually...

Feds Warn of Ransomware Attacks Ahead of Labor Day

Though lots of people might be taking some time off over the Labor Day weekend, threat actors likely won’t — which means organizations should remain particularly vigilante about the potential for ransomware attacks, the federal government has warned. Citing historical precedence, the FBI and CISA...

Man Sues Parents of Teens Who Hijacked Nearly $1M in Bitcoin

When Colorado resident Andrew Schober downloaded the Electrum Atom Bitcoin wallet from Reddit, he also picked up a piece of clipboard hijacking malware that eventually redirected his 16.4552 Bitcoin to a wallet controlled by two teenagers living in the U.K. At today’s price, 16.4552 Bitcoin would...

Pegasus Spyware Uses iPhone Zero-Click iMessage Zero-Day

A never-before-seen, zero-click iMessaging exploit has been allegedly used to illegally spy on Bahraini activists with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, according to cybersecurity watchdog Citizen Lab. The digital researchers are calling the new iMessaging exploit FORCEDENTRY. In a report published on...

Friends Reunion Anchors Video Swindle

The second quarter saw a rise in entertainment lures for fraud and phishing, including one campaign capitalizing on the buzz around “Friends: The Reunion.” Researchers at Kaspersky found fake sites supposedly hosting video for the much-anticipated special episode of the popular sitcom, according ...

Baby Clothes Giant Carter’s Leaks 410K Customer Records

Baby clothes retailer Carter’s inadvertently exposed the personal data of hundreds of thousands of its customers, dating back years, according to a new disclosure. The issue started with Linc, which is a vendor the company used to automate purchases online, according to analysts with vpnMentor wh...

Pipeline Update: Biden Executive Order, DarkSide Detailed and Gas Bags

Colonial Pipeline Co. may have turned off the tap following Friday’s ransomware attack, but the news about the devastating assault keeps gushing. In the wake of the DarkSide cyberattack, President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at bolstering the federal government’s cyber defense...

Researchers Flag e-Voting Security Flaws

A group of election security experts said after a deep dive into Australia’s electronic voting systems that they have “serious problems” with the accuracy, integrity and privacy with elections run by the Australian Capital Territory ACT Electoral Commission. The team of four cybersecurity...

iPhone Hack Allegedly Used to Spy on China’s Uyghurs

In 2019, a Chinese security researcher working with the internet security and antivirus company Qihoo 360 unveiled an intricately woven exploit: One that would allegedly let a remote attacker easily jailbreak an iPhone X iOS 12.1. The researcher, Qixun Zhao, dubbed the exploit Chaos, for good...

Chinese Hackers Selling Intimate Stolen Camera Footage

Stolen videos captured by tens of thousands of security cameras at private properties throughout China are now for sale across social media, marketed as sex tapes. That’s according to the South China Morning Post, which reported that the cost of each “tape” varies, depending on how salacious the...

SolarWinds Attackers Accessed DHS Emails, Report

The SolarWinds cyberattackers compromised the head of the Department of Homeland Security DHS under former president Trump and other top-ranking members of the department’s cybersecurity staff, according to a report. In the campaign, adversaries were able to use SolarWinds’ Orion network manageme...

Manufacturing's Cloud Migration Opens Door to Major Cyber-Risk

Web-facing applications continue to be one of the highest security risks present for organizations, with more than 40 percent of them actively leaking data in a way that can have a ripple affect across businesses and their partners, research has found. Moreover, manufacturing is particularly...

Mobile Adware Booms, Online Banks Become Prime Target for Attacks

Hackers painted a bullseye on the backs of online financial institutions in 2020 as the pandemic shuttered local branch offices and forced customers online. Over the past 12 months, incidents of adware nearly tripled. And, overall in 2020 researchers saw a slight drop in the number of mobile...

How to Increase Your Security Posture with Fewer Resources

With the number of COVID-19 cases increasing, another round of attacks is looming over schools and universities as they move into holiday break and prepare for the spring semester. According to a recent article the Wall Street Journal, there have been “nearly three dozen ransomware attacks agains...

Federated Learning: A Therapeutic for what Ails Digital Health

For researchers and physicians the mountains of data hospitals and healthcare systems hold could be a goldmine for artificial intelligence and machine learning, but data privacy concerns and regulations have kept scientists from being able to harness that information to improve outcomes. Now...

Cyberattack on UVM Health Network Impedes Chemotherapy Appointments

The University of Vermont UVM health network is scrambling to recover its systems after a cyberattack led to widespread delays in patient appointments – including chemotherapy appointments, as well as mammograms and biopsies. The UVM Health Network is a six-hospital, home-health and hospice syste...

Gamer Credentials Now a Booming, Juicy Target for Hackers

Credential theft targeting hardcore gamers has hit an all-time high as scams, illicit markets and account takeovers have become a booming business. The driving force behind the uptick in gaming-related crime is a sudden spike in usage of online games, spurred by the coronavirus pandemic and...

Hackers Continue Cyberattacks Against Vatican, Catholic Orgs

A state-sponsored threat group linked to China has been engaged in a five-month long cyberattack against the Vatican and other Catholic Church-related organizations. Attacks have come in the form of spear phishing emails laced with the PlugX remote access tool RAT as the payload. Researchers with...

How Zero Trust and SASE Can Redefine Network Defenses for Remote Workforces

Zero Trust has been touted for years as the future of network security. But, only recently has it started to gain traction as a practical enterprise security framework. The implementation of digital transformation initiatives has thrust Zero Trust into the spotlight as network applications and...

Charming Kitten Returns with WhatsApp, LinkedIn Effort

The Iran-affiliated APT known as Charming Kitten is back with a new approach, impersonating Persian-speaking journalists via WhatsApp and LinkedIn, in order to con victims into opening malicious links. The targets are Israeli scholars from Haifa and Tel Aviv universities, and U.S. government...

Researchers Sound Alarm Over Malicious AWS Community AMIs

Researchers are sounding the alarm over what they say is a growing threat vector tied to Amazon Web Services and its marketplace of pre-configured virtual servers. The danger, according to researchers with Mitiga, is that threat actors can easily build malware-laced Community Amazon Machine Image...

Transparent Tribe Mounts Ongoing Spy Campaign on Military, Government

The APT group Transparent Tribe is mounting an ongoing cyberespionage campaign, researchers said, which is aimed at military and diplomatic targets around the world. The effort features a worm that can propagate from machine to machine while stealing files from USB removable drives. Transparent...

Black Hat USA 2020 Preview: Election Security, COVID Disinformation and More

Despite COVID-19 pushing the Black Hat USA 2020 conference to go virtual for the first time, you can expect a steady stream of new security research, threat intel and an impressive lineup of high-profile speakers. This year’s conference kicks off with Matt Blaze, McDevitt Chair in Computer Scienc...

Podcast: Security Lessons Learned In Times of Uncertainty

Derek Manky With the coronavirus pandemic breaking out, and corporate workforces going remote, “uncertainty is a key word” for 2020, Derek Manky, Chief, Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances at Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs, said. The uncertain times led to an outpouring of cybercriminal...

Sodinokibi Ransomware Now Scans Networks For PoS Systems

Cybercriminals behind recent Sodinokibi ransomware attacks are now upping their ante and scanning their victims’ networks for credit card or point of sale PoS software. Researchers believe this is a new tactic designed to allow attackers to get the biggest bang for their buck – ransom payments an...

Thanos Ransomware First to Weaponize RIPlace Tactic

Researchers have uncovered a new ransomware-as-a-service RaaS tool, called Thanos, which they say is increasing in popularity in multiple underground forums. Thanos is the first ransomware family observed that advertises the use of the RIPlace tactic. RIPlace is a Windows file system technique...

Enterprise Mobile Phishing Attacks Skyrocket Amidst Pandemic

The rate of mobile phishing rose sharply between the last quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020, a boost most likely due to the increased number of people working from home due to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, new research has found. In fact, encounter rates for enterprise mobile phishing...

Sophisticated Android Spyware Attack Spreads via Google Play

A sophisticated, ongoing espionage campaign aimed at Android users in Asia is likely the work of the OceanLotus advanced persistent threat APT actor, researchers said this week. Dubbed PhantomLance by Kaspersky, the campaign is centered around a complex spyware that’s distributed via dozens of ap...

'ICEBUCKET" Streaming TV Fraudsters Steal Millions of Ad Dollars in 'ICEBUCKET' Attack

A massive television ad fraud campaign that abuses the programmatic advertising ecosystem for connected TV CTV has successfully impersonated more than 2 million people in over 30 countries so far during its run, defrauding more than 300 different brands out of their ad dollars. The recently...

Coronavirus ‘Financial Relief’ Phishing Attacks Spike

Researchers are warning of an upward surge in social-engineering lures in malicious emails that promise victims financial relief during the coronavirus pandemic. The slew of campaigns piggy-back on news of governments mulling financial relief packages, in response to the economic stall brought on...

The Coronavirus is Already Taking Effect on Cyber Security– This is How CISOs Should Prepare

The Coronavirus is hitting hard on the world’s economy, creating a high volume of uncertainty within organizations. Cynet has revealed new data, showing that the Coronavirus now has a significant impact on information security and that the crisis is actively exploited by threat actors. In light o...

RSAC 2020: Ransomware a 'National Crisis,' CISA Says, Ramps ICS Focus

Industrial control systems ICS and critical infrastructure will be a main focus for the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA this year – especially as ransomware looms as a main threat to the sector going forward. That’s according to Christopher...

Shlayer, No. 1 Threat for Mac, Targets YouTube, Wikipedia

The malvertising-focused trojan known as Shlayer has burbled to the top of the malware heap when it comes to targeting Mac users. It made up 29 percent of all attacks on macOS devices in Kaspersky’s telemetry for 2019, making it the No. 1 Mac malware threat for the year. To spread, it has been...

N.J.'s Largest Hospital System Pays Up in Ransomware Attack

New Jersey’s largest hospital system said that it has paid hackers a ransom after a ransomware attack disrupted its services earlier this month. Hackensack Meridian Health, a $6 billion non-profit health provider system based in Edison, N.J., operates 17 hospitals, nursing homes and outpatient...

Download: The 2020 Cybersecurity Salary Survey Results

The 2020 Cybersecurity Salary Survey was an online survey published to gain insight into the details related to cybersecurity compensation. It was completed by over 1,500 security professional respondents. Today you can access the aggregated and analyzed 2020 Cybersecurity Salary Survey Results a...

‘Wildly Different’ Privacy Regulations Causing Compliance Chaos

From the General Data Protection Regulations GDPR to the California Consumer Privacy Act CCPA, the security landscape is becoming increasingly fraught with regulatory efforts. While privacy regulation has positive implications for data security, companies are finding themselves struggling to stay...

IoT Security Woes Plague Healthcare Industry

LAS VEGAS – More hospitals are adopting internet of things IoT devices, from wearables to smart insulin pens. But neither hospitals nor the device manufacturers themselves are ready to address the onslaught of security and privacy challenges that come with medical connected devices. At least 82...

Preparing the Internet for the Next Mega DDoS Attack

When you think of a distributed denial-of-service DDoS attack at this point in the age of the internet, you might be thinking they’re old news. But when a multi-million-dollar business can be easily taken offline by an unskilled adversary and a $5 rent-a-DDoS service, I would argue that the issue...

Facebook Exposed Dataset Debacle: Who's Really To Blame?

UPDATE The discovery of millions of Facebook records leaked from publicly-exposed AWS storage buckets has left researchers wondering where the responsibility lies. The two separate datasets, disclosed Wednesday by researchers at Upguard, were held by two app developers, Cultura Colectiva and At t...

RSA Conference 2019: Emotet Takes Aim at Latin America

SAN FRANCISCO – Remote access trojans RATs can be a scourge for corporate systems, giving backdoor access to cybercriminals that are looking to carry out espionage activities, do recon for future phishing efforts, or lift data to sell on the underground. They often serve as a key pivot point to...

Apple Blasts Facebook Over Data-Sucking 'Research' App

Apple has revoked Facebook’s enterprise iOS developer certificate on the heels of a “Facebook Research” VPN app that was being distributed to consumers; the app paid teens and Millennial users in exchange for being able to track their phone and web activity, and has been available since 2016. App...

Feds Dismantle Dark Web Credentials Market

Law-enforcement agencies across the world have taken aim at Dark Web denizens this week, with the takedown of a credentials marketplace as well as continued action against former users of the Webstresser.org DDoS-for-hire site. An international law-enforcement operation has dismantled the xDedic...

Researchers Allege 'Systemic' Privacy, Security Flaws in Popular IoT Devices

Researchers are highlighting the insecure nature of Internet of Things devices in a report released Tuesday alleging a bevy of popular consumer connected devices sold at major retailers such as Walmart and Best Buy are riddled with security holes and privacy issues. In analyzing 12 different IoT...

Adobe December 2018 Security Update Fixes Reader, Acrobat

Adobe has patched 87 vulnerabilities for Acrobat and Reader in its December Patch Tuesday update, including a slew of critical flaws that would allow arbitrary code-execution. The scheduled update comes less than a week after Adobe released several out-of-band fixes for Flash Player, including a...

Podcast: Why Bitcoin Miners Target Critical Infrastructure Networks

On this week’s Threatpost Podcast show, we sit down with Ronen Rabinovich from Cyberbit to discuss bitcoin mining on operational technology and critical infrastructure networks. Rabinovich talks about why the massive amount of computing power and lack of security and monitoring tools make...

Operation Prowli Profits On Weak IoT Devices, Servers

A malicious campaign has compromised more than 40,000 machines globally, carrying out traffic-hijacking and cryptomining. Researchers at Guardicore Labs, who called the campaign Operation Prowli, said it targets a variety of platforms – including Drupal CMS websites, WordPress sites, backup serve...

Google’s April Android Security Bulletin Warns of 9 Critical Bugs

Nine vulnerabilities rated critical were patched as part of Google’s Android Security Bulletin for April. Critical vulnerabilities ranged from two remote code execution vulnerabilities tied to the Android media framework, to a Qualcomm Wi-Fi component flaw that allowed a nearby attacker to use “a...