The time for Insider Risk Management is now: Code42 2021 Data Exposure Report Reveals a Perfect Storm

We all knew the overnight shift to remote work and cloud-based productivity and collaboration would dramatically change the Insider Risk landscape. But now, with nearly a year of data to look at, the Code42 2021 Data Exposure Report DER shows that the impact is pretty staggering: Employees are 85...

Cyberpunk 2077 Publisher Hit with Hack, Ransomware

UPDATE CD Projekt Red, the videogame-development company behind Cyberpunk 2077 and the wildly popular Witcher series, has suffered a ransomware attack that could soon result in troves of company data being dumped online – including game source code. The Warsaw-based company tweeted out a notice o...

Spotify Suffers Second Credential-Stuffing Cyberattack

Spotify streaming music aficionados are in the crosshairs of yet another credential-stuffing cyberattack, just three months after the last one. The service has forced password resets for impacted users. Cybercriminals carrying out credential-stuffing take advantage of people who reuse the same...

New Malware Hijacks Kubernetes Clusters to Mine Monero

Researchers have discovered never-before-seen malware, dubbed Hildegard, that is being used by the TeamTNT threat group to target Kubernetes clusters. While Hildegard, initially detected in January 2021, is initially being used to launch cryptojacking operations, researchers believe that the...

Biden to Appoint Cybersecurity Advisor to NSC – Report

President-elect Joe Biden has reportedly tapped the National Security Agency’s cybersecurity director to serve in a brand-new cyber-role on his National Security Council. Anne Neuberger, a more than 10-year veteran of the NSA and its cyber-chief since 2019, will become the country’s deputy nation...

New Windows Trojan Steals Browser Credentials, Outlook Files

Researchers have discovered a new information-stealing trojan, which targets Microsoft Windows systems with an onslaught of data-exfiltration capabilities– from collecting browser credentials to targeting Outlook files. The trojan, called PyMicropsia due to it being built with Python has been...

Post-Cyberattack, UVM Health Network Still Picking Up Pieces

More than a month after a cyberattack hit the University of Vermont UVM health network, the organization is still working to recover its systems. The UVM health network is a six-hospital, home-health and hospice system, which encompasses more than 1,000 physicians, 2,000 nurses and other clinicia...

Firing of CISA Chief Christopher Krebs Widely Condemned

Government officials and cybersecurity experts alike condemned President Trump’s firing of Christopher Krebs by tweet Tuesday, as the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA became the latest victim of the president’s housecleaning efforts after his failed bid at a...

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...

Microsoft Teams Phishing Attack Targets Office 365 Users

Researchers are warning of a phishing campaign that pretends to be an automated message from Microsoft Teams. In reality, the attack aims to steal Office 365 recipients’ login credentials. Teams is Microsoft’s popular collaboration tool, which has particularly risen in popularity among remote...

SecOps Teams Wrestle with Manual Processes, HR Gaps

Only about half of enterprises are satisfied with their ability to detect cybersecurity threats, according to a survey from Forrester Consulting – with respondents painting a picture of major resource and technology gaps hamstringing their efforts to block cyberattacks. According to the...

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...

NetWalker Ransomware Rakes in $29M Since March

The NetWalker ransomware has been around for about a year, but it has really made a name for itself in 2020, racking up around $29 million in extortion gains just since March. First detected in August 2019, NetWalker lingered around before surging in use in March through June, according to an...

Twitter Disrupts Wide-Ranging Political Disinformation Campaigns

Twitter has taken down three separate nation-sponsored influence operations, attributed to the People’s Republic of China PRC, Russia and Turkey. Collectively the operations consisted of 32,242 bogus or bot accounts generating the content and various amplifier accounts that retweeted it. “Every...

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...

News Wrap: Fake Minneapolis Police Breach, Zoom End-To-End Encryption Debate

Threatpost editors Lindsey O’Donnell-Welch and Tara Seals discuss the top security news stories of the week, including: Reports emerged earlier this week that the Minneapolis police department had been breached by hacktivist group Anonymous. Security expert Troy Hunt debunked the reports, however...

TrickBot Adds BazarBackdoor to Malware Arsenal

A new module for the infamous trojan known as TrickBot has been deployed: A stealthy backdoor that researchers call “BazarBackdoor.” The binary was first spotted being delivered as part of a phishing campaign that began in March, according to an analysis from Panda Security this week. The campaig...

Podcast: Why Identity Access Management is the New Perimeter

With the proliferation of cloud in enterprise environments, the concept of “identity” today is very different than how it used to be. Threatpost host Cody Hackett talks to Brian Johnson, CEO and co-founder of DivvyCloud by Rapid7, about how identity access management IAM is rapidly changing – and...

Steganography Anchors Pinpoint Attacks on Industrial Targets

A targeted series of attacks on suppliers of equipment and software for industrial enterprises is playing out globally, researchers said, hinging on phishing and a steganography tactic to hide malware on public, legitimate image resources. According to Kaspersky ICS CERT, the attacks seem bent on...

ThreatList: People Know Reusing Passwords Is Dumb, But Still Do It

More than half of people haven’t changed their password in the last year – even after they’ve heard about a data breach in the news. That’s according to a recent survey, “Psychology of Passwords: The Online Behavior That’s Putting You At Risk,” that examined the online security and password...

New Android Malware Targets PayPal, CapitalOne App Users

An Android mobile malware has been uncovered that steals payment data from users of popular financial apps like PayPal, Barclays, CapitalOne and more. The infostealer, called EventBot, has targeted users of more than 200 different banking, money-transfer services and general cryptocurrency wallet...

Maze Ransomware Attack Hits Cognizant

IT services giant Cognizant said that it has been hit by the Maze ransomware group in a cyberattack that has caused service disruptions. Cognizant, a Fortune 500 company that employs close to 300,000 people, said that it is providing customers with indicators of compromise IoCs and other technica...

'Unbreakable' Smart Lock Draws FTC Ire for Deceptive Security Claims

The Federal Trade Commission has slapped Tapplock, the maker of smart padlocks that it bills as “unbreakable,” with an official complaint that could lead to fines down the road. The agency alleges that the company engaged in false and deceptive claims about its security practices, after the lock...

Watering-Holes Target Asian Ethnic Victims with Flash Update Decoy

An extensive campaign has surfaced that targets Windows users belonging to a specific Asian religious and ethnic group. The attack making use of a series of watering-hole websites and a drive-by download gambit relying on fake Flash updates. According to analysis from Kaspersky, released on...

Phishing Attack Skirts Detection With YouTube

Researchers are warning of an increase in phishing emails that use YouTube redirect links, which help attackers skirt traditional defense measures. If certain malicious URLs are blocked by web browser phishing filters, attackers commonly use a redirector URL to bypass these filters and redirect t...

Firefox Bug Opens iPhone AirPods to Third-Party Snooping

Five high-severity bugs were fixed in the Firefox web browser with the release of version 74 by the Mozilla Foundation on Tuesday. In addition, Mozilla reported a quirky moderate-severity flaw that allows hackers to target iPhone users and collect data tied to connected AirPods, if in use. In...

Facebook to Pay $550M to Settle Class Action Case Over Facial Recognition

Facebook has agreed to pay $550 million to Illinois users to settle a class action lawsuit filed over the use of its face-tagging technology to collect facial-recognition data on its social media platform. The company unveiled the settlement on a quarterly financial call Wednesday, in which it...

Google to Nix Chrome Support for Third-Party Cookies by 2022

Google has set an aggressive two-year deadline for dropping support for third-party tracking cookies in its Chrome web browser. Tracking cookies, which allow advertisers to virtually follow people around the web, are used for ad targeting. The move follows a number of privacy hardening steps by...

4 Ring Employees Fired For Spying on Customers

Smart doorbell company Ring said that it has fired four employees over the past four years for inappropriately accessing customer video footage. The disclosure comes in a recent letter to senators in response to a November inquiry into the company’s data policies from Amazon-owned Ring as it...

FBI Taps Apple to Unlock Pensacola Shooter's iPhone

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is once again asking Apple to help unlock the iPhone of a potential terrorist. The FBI is looking to crack two iPhones that they believe were owned by Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, the Saudi-born suspect in the shooting attack that killed three people in December ...

The Scammer Force is Strong with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Whenever the internet lights up in anticipation of anything, there are fraudsters and scammers waiting in the wings to take advantage of it. This week’s premiere of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is no exception, with cybercriminals eyeing one of the world’s most beloved franchises as rich fodd...

Epilepsy Foundation Bombarded with Seizure-Triggering Twitter Posts

The Epilepsy Foundation on Monday filed a criminal complaint against a number of undisclosed Twitter users after they bombarded its Twitter feed in November with a barrage of posts of flashing or strobing lights — exposing its thousands of followers to potential seizure-triggering images. The...

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...

Elder Scrolls Online Targeted by Cybercrooks Hunting In-Game Loot

Phishers are out in force to scam aficionados of the Elder Scrolls Online video game into giving up their account details. The crooks are posing as developers for the game under the moniker “ElderScrollDevs,” and targeting those with PlayStation consoles and possibly others, according to a Reddit...

Magecart Group Switches Up Tactics with MiTM, Phishing

A fresh splinter group under the Magecart umbrella has been discovered ramping up activity starting in August-September of 2019. It’s using a unique codebase and different tactics to carry out its attacks, according to researchers. Magecart is an umbrella term encompassing several different threa...

ThreatList: Admin Rights for Third Parties is the Norm

Organizations are continuing to fall down on the job when it comes to addressing cybersecurity risk around third parties; in fact, 61 percent of respondents in a recent survey said they’re unsure if partners, contractors, suppliers and others are accessing or attempting to access unauthorized dat...

‘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...

Emotet Returns from Summer Vacation, Ramps Up Stolen Email Tactic

Emotet, the banking trojan that has evolved into so much more, is back after a summer hiatus, dropping other banking trojans, information stealers, email harvesters, self-propagation mechanisms and ransomware. According to researchers at Cisco Talos, Emotet took a breather at the beginning of Jun...

Apple Updates Privacy Policies After Siri Audio Recording Backlash

Apple is taking steps to improve the privacy of audio collected by its Siri voice assistant, on the heels of backlash around a program that let contractors listen into Siri conversations. On Wednesday, the phone giant apologized for violating users’ privacy through the program, which was...

Nation-State APTs Target U.S. Utilities With Dangerous Malware

Researchers believe that nation-state actors are behind several spearphishing campaigns targeting U.S. utility companies with a newly-identified malware, which has the capabilities to view system data and reboot machines. Lure emails were sent to three U.S. utilities companies between July 19 and...

Apple Suspends Siri Program After Privacy Backlash

Apple is suspending a program that lets contractors listen in on Siri voice recordings after facing a rain of backlash regarding the privacy implications of the program. The suspension comes after a report in The Guardian last week outlining how contractors regularly listen to intimate voice...

Avengers: Endgame Sites Promise Digital Downloads, Deliver Info-Harvesting

Marvel Studio’s long-awaited superhero juggernaut Avengers: Endgame, represents the second-largest worldwide box-office haul for any film, ever – raking in $2.2 billion in its first two weekends. With demand like that, perhaps it’s not surprising that enterprising scammers are already luring in...

Tor Security Add-On Abruptly Killed by Mozilla Bug

Thanks to Mozilla letting an intermediate signing certificate expire, the Tor community was thrown into disarray over the weekend when the NoScript security add-on was suddenly killed for both Firefox and the Tor browser. A fix is available for Firefox, but the Tor issue continues. NoScript is a...

ThreatList: Tax Scammers Launch a Raft of Fake Mobile Apps

Tax Day in the U.S. is looming on Monday, and as people rush to do their last-minute filing, scammers are out in full force, targeting consumers and businesses alike. According to RiskIQ numbers, the internet is awash in crafty schemes and dangerous threat campaigns that exploit the convenience o...

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...

2019 and Beyond: The (Expanded) RSAC Advisory Board Weighs in on What’s Next: Pt. 2

Our first 2019 predictions post from the RSA Conference Advisory Board was not all sunshine and roses — cautious optimism was tabled by the acknowledged distance we must still travel as an industry — and our second set of predictions does not belie that theme. This trepidation does not mean we’re...

Google Fined $57M in Largest GDPR Slap Yet

France’s National Data Protection Commission CNIL has fined Google $57 million €50 million for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation GDPR – the largest fine yet issued under the EU’s new data privacy law. In investigating group complaints from privacy advocacy groups None Of Your...

Adobe Patches Important Bugs in Connect and Digital Edition

Adobe released patches for two bugs rated “important” in its Adobe Digital Edition and Adobe Connect products. The two important vulnerabilities, patched Tuesday, include an information disclosure bug in Adobe’s ebook reader software program, Digital Edition; as well as a session token exposure b...

Microsoft IE Zero Day Gets Emergency Patch

Microsoft patched a zero-day vulnerability in its Internet Explorer browser that is actively being exploited by attackers. The bug, reported by Google, is a remote code execution vulnerability that allowed attackers to infiltrate vulnerable systems via a booby trapped website that could have...