Necurs Rootkit Infections Way Up

Infections from a nasty bit of malware, generally delivered by the Black Hole Exploit Kit, surged in November, hitting more than 83,000 machines. Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center rates the Necurs rootkit threat as severe. Dubbed a rootkit by Kaspersky Lab, Necurs has many dimensions to it...

The Rise of Cross-Platform Malware

For most of the recorded history of malware, viruses, Trojans and other malicious software have been specialists. Each piece of malware typically targeted one platform, be it Windows, OS X or now, one of the mobile platforms. But the last few months have seen the rise of cross-platform malware th...

RuggedCom Devices Have Hard-Coded SSL Keys

Siemens subsidiary RuggedCom’s Rugged Operating System ROS contains a vulnerability that could give an attacker the ability to decrypt SSL traffic between RuggedCom networking equipment and end-users, according to an ICS-CERT alert. Justin W. Clarke, a security researcher at Cylance Inc., disclos...

What Have We Learned: Flame Malware

When the news about the Flame malware first broke several weeks ago, people from all parts of the security community, political world and elsewhere quickly began trying to figure out what the significance of the tool was and whether it represented anything new. That was difficult at the time, giv...

Patch Tuesday Advance Notification: May Edition

Microsoft announced today that they will be shipping three critical and five important bulletins in the May edition of patch Tuesday. All of the ‘critical’ bulletins and two of the ‘important’ bulletins fix vulnerabilities that could otherwise lead to remote code execution. The two remaining...

Adobe Issues Emergency Fix For Flash Player Vulnerabilities

Adobe on Monday issued two emergency fixes for critical security vulnerabilities in its Flash Player product. The vulnerabilities, if left unpatched, could allow an attacker to take control of a system running a vulnerable version of Flash Player. Adobe on Monday issued two emergency fixes for...

Apple Releases New Java Updates, Fix 17 Flaws

Apple pushed out a new batch of Java updates for Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard and 10.7 Lion yesterday, bringing the two operating systems up to date with Oracle’s Java SE 6 Update 29. In its update summary, Apple claims multiple vulnerabilities exist in Java’s previous build 1.6.026, including on...

New Versions of Chrome and Firefox Disable DigiNotar Root

Mozilla has released version 6.01 of its Firefox browser, which now removes the compromised DigiNotar root certificate from the list of trusted roots. The move comes just two days after security researchers discovered that the Dutch company had issued a valid wildcard certificate for Google to an...

New Remotely Exploitable Bug Found in Internet Explorer

Another serious remotely exploitable bug in Internet Explorer has cropped up, this one related to the way that IE handles a specific DLL library on pages that reference CSS files. There also is publicly available exploit code for the new bug. The vulnerability was disclosed initially on the Full...

Adobe Issues Huge Patch for Reader and Acrobat

UPDATE: After announcing that it was accelerating a critical patch of its Reader program last week, Adobe pushed out a large patch on Tuesday, fixing 23 separate vulnerabilities in its Reader and Acrobat applications. The huge quarterly security update included company issued Security Bulletin...

Adobe PDF Reader Gets Another Security Makeover

Adobe has released a mega-update for its Reader and Acrobat software products to fix a total of eight documented security vulnerabilities. The update comes with significant security improvements, including the on-by-default addition “Enhanced Security,” a feature that provides a set of default...

Adobe Patches Critical Illustrator Security Holes

Adobe has released a critical patch to cover two serious security vulnerabilities in the Adobe Illustrator CS3 and CS4 products. The vulnerabilities could lead to arbitrary code execution. Affected software includes Adobe Illustrator CS4 14.0.0 and Adobe Illustrator CS3 13.0.3 and earlier version...

Windows WINS Attacks In The Wild

The “critical” WINS vulnerability that Microsoft issued a patch for last week is now being exploited actively in the wild, according to the SANS Institute sans.org. The Internet Storm Center ISC, which is operated by SANS, is receiving preliminary reports that hackers are targeting Microsoft’s WI...

USB-based Wormable Malware Targets Windows Installer

Credit: Red Canary Wormable malware dubbed Raspberry Robin has been active since last September and is wriggling its way through USB drives onto Windows machines to use Microsoft Standard Installer and other legitimate processes to install malicious files, researchers have found. Researchers at...

North Korean APTs Stole ~$400M in Crypto in 2021

Vast amounts of cash sloshing around in cryptocurrency markets are proving irresistible for cybercriminals and scammers of all kinds. From basic financial pump-and-dump schemes to straight-up nation-state cybertheft, nascent crypto markets, and their investors – often with dubious understanding o...

FBI: FatPipe VPN Zero-Day Exploited by APT for 6 Months

A threat actor has been exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in FatPipe’s virtual private network VPN devices as a way to breach companies and gain access to their internal networks, since at least May, the FBI has warned. “As of November 2021, FBI forensic analysis indicated exploitation of a 0-d...

Cyber-Mercenary Group Void Balaur Attacks High-Profile Targets for Cash

Russian-language group Void Balaur, also tracked under the name Rockethack, has been identified as a prolific cyber-mercenary group, available for hire to break into the email and social-media accounts of high-profile, high-stakes targets around the world. After monitoring Void Balaur for more th...

Payment API Bungling Exposes Millions of Users’ Payment Data

App developers have once again been accused of having butterfingers when it comes to API keys, leaving millions of mobile app users at risk of exposing their personal and payment data. CloudSEK, maker of artificial intelligence- AI- enabled digital threat protection, reported last week that the...

Bring Your APIs Out of the Shadows to Protect Your Business

Pankaj Gupta, Senior Director, Citrix APIs are immensely more complex to secure. What was previously one request to one server has become dozens or hundreds of requests to dozens or hundreds of entities. In the past, you defended one large application with a single front door. Now you must defend...

LockBit Jumps Its Own Countdown, Publishes Bangkok Air Files

After Bangkok Airways disclosed that it had been clobbered by a cyberattack last week, the LockBit 2.0 ransomware gang tossed its own countdown clock in the trash and went ahead and published what it claims are the airline’s encrypted files on its leak site. BleepingComputer posted an image shown...

What’s Next for T-Mobile and Its Customers? – Podcast

What’s the opposite of a resilient operation? It’s when your wireless carrier gets breached for the sixth time in a few years, you try to change your PIN online, and the site tells you “No can do.” As of Wednesday, T-Mobile had confirmed its sixth breach over the last three years. The purported...

Malicious PDFs Flood the Web, Lead to Password-Snarfing

The pushers behind the SolarMarker backdoor malware are flooding the web with PDFs stuffed with keywords and links that redirect to the password-stealing, credential-snarfing malware. Microsoft Security Intelligence said in a Tweet on Friday that the SolarMarker also known as Jupyter makers are...

Banking Attacks Surge Along with Post-COVID Economy

For many, COVID-19 has been a crushing catastrophe. But for bank scammers, it’s shaped up to be a nice little money-making opportunity. As the post-pandemic economy roars back to life, cybercriminals are using a new whirlwind of transactions as cover to launch an extraordinary number of bank frau...

Cyberattack Forces Meat Producer to Shut Down Operations in U.S., Australia

The world’s largest meat distributor shut down some operations in both the United States and Australia over the Memorial Day weekend after a cyberattack on its IT systems that could have a significant effect on the food supply chain if not resolved quickly. Attackers targeted several servers...

American Express Fined Over Millions of Spam Messages

American Express Services Europe has been fined £90,000 $127,377 by a U.K. regulator, which found the company illegally blasted out 4 million marketing emails to customers who had opted out of receiving them. Critics said the fine, which is nominal for the multi-national financial brand, isn’t...

Reservation System Fixes Easy-to-Exploit XSS Bug

An easy-to-exploit bug impacting the WordPress plugin ReDi Restaurant Reservation allows unauthenticated attackers to pilfer reservation data and customer personal identifiable information by simply submitting a malicious snippet of JavaScript code into the reservation comment field. The bug...

Ransomware Going for $4K on the Cyber-Underground

In the cybercriminal underground, ransomware samples and builders are going for anywhere between $300 to $4,000, with ransomware-as-a-service rentals costing $120 to $1,900 per year. That’s according to an analysis by Kaspersky of the three main underground forums where ransomware is circulated...

Purple Fox Malware Targets Windows Machines With New Worm Capabilities

A malware that has historically targeted exposed Windows machines through phishing and exploit kits has been retooled to add new “worm” capabilities. Purple Fox, which first appeared in 2018, is an active malware campaign that until recently required user interaction or some kind of third-party...

Health Website Leaks 8 Million COVID-19 Test Results

Yet another human-related error — this time a flaw in a health department website in the state of Bengal, India — has exposed the confidential results of COVID-19 tests as well as personally identifying information PII for an entire geographic region’s population. Test results related to more tha...

Google Play Boots Barcode Scanner App After Ad Explosion

A barcode scanner app, with over 10 million downloads, was booted from the Google Play marketplace after users began to complain of mobile-ad overload. The makers of the app, called Barcode Scanner, intentionally altered the code of the app via an update turning it from a benign app to adware,...

ADT Tech Hacks Home-Security Cameras to Spy on Women

Former ADT employee Telesforo Aviles took note when there were attractive women at a home he serviced in the Dallas area. Then he would add his personal email address to their accounts so he could have around-the-clock access to their most private moments, according to the U.S. Attorneys’ Office...

Investment Scammers Prey on Dating App Users, Interpol Warns

Cybercriminals are taking advantage of a surge in dating app users with a sophisticated fraud scheme, which convinces victims to join in on an investment opportunity – and ultimately drains their wallets. The social isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic is driving many to online interactions – notab...

Ryuk Rakes in $150M in Ransom Payments

The Ryuk ransomware has earned its operators an estimated $150 million, according to an examination of the malware’s money-laundering operations. Joint research released this week from Brian Carter, principal researcher at HYAS, and Vitali Kremez, CEO at Advanced Intelligence, took a the look und...

Nuclear Weapons Agency Hacked in Widening Cyberattack

The Energy Department and its National Nuclear Security Administration NNSA, which is the agency that maintains the U.S. nuclear stockpile, have been compromised as part of the widespread cyberattack uncovered this week stemming from the massive SolarWinds hack. An exclusive report by Politico...

Tis' the Season for Online Holiday Shopping; and Phishing

While online holiday shopping is nothing new, more of us will be avoiding the malls and brick-and-mortar stores this year — which opens up big opportunities for cybercriminals. This, along with COVID-19, is expected to anchor most of the scam and phishing lures in circulation this season. Since...

Widespread Scans Underway for RCE Bugs in WordPress Websites

Millions of malicious scans are rolling across the internet, looking for known vulnerabilities in the Epsilon Framework for building WordPress themes, according to researchers. According to the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team, more than 7.5 million probes targeting these vulnerabilities have...

Minecraft Apps on Google Play Fleece Players Out of Big Money

Fans of the popular Minecraft video game are in the crosshairs of cybercriminals, who have loaded up Google Play with scam apps bent on fleecing players out of cash. According to researchers, the mobile apps for Android fool users into spending hundreds of dollars per month, by offering skins,...

Scalper-Bots Shake Down Desperate PS5, Xbox Series X Shoppers

It’s a big week for gamers across the globe, with imminent, dueling releases of Xbox Series X and PlayStation PS5. However, an army of retail bots threaten to drive prices up as much as three times the retail price, putting the coveted holiday gifts well out of reach of everyday fans. Retailers...

APT Groups Finding Success with Mix of Old and New Tools

Advanced persistent threat APT groups continue to use the fog of intense geopolitics to supercharge their campaigns, but beyond these themes, actors are developing individual signature tactics for success. That’s according to Kaspersky’s most recent APT trends report for Q3 2020, which found that...

Holiday Shopping Craze, COVID-19 Spur Retail Security Storm

As online retailers prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping season, security researchers are warning that cybercriminals will be on the prowl this year, with the added factor of the coronavirus pandemic pushing many Black Friday shoppers online. Chris Eng, chief research officer with Veracode,...

Malware Families Turn to Legit Pastebin-Like Service

Cybercriminals are increasingly turning to a legitimate, Pastebin-like web service for downloading malware — such as AgentTesla and LimeRAT — in spear-phishing attacks. Pastebin, a code-hosting service that enables users to share plain text through public posts called “pastes,” currently has 17...

Account Takeover Fraud Losses Total Billions Across Online Retailers

Account takeover ATO attacks are on the rise, and in fact have become a go-to attack of choice cybercriminals of all stripes. In fact, in 2019 alone, ATO attacks cost consumers and e-commerce retailers a whopping $16.9 billion in losses. To be clear, ATO fraud isn’t new, it’s been a concern for...

APT28 Mounts Rapid, Large-Scale Theft of Office 365 Logins

The Russia-linked threat group known as APT28 has changed up its tactics to include Office 365 password-cracking and credential-harvesting. Microsoft researchers have tied APT28 a.k.a. Strontium, Sofacy or Fancy Bear to this newly uncovered pattern of O365 activity, which began in April and is...

Microsoft Revamps Windows Insider Preview Bug Bounty Program

Microsoft has revamped its Windows Insider Preview bug bounty program with higher rewards and an improved portal for bounty hunters to report flaws, in an effort to help sniff out more vulnerabilities on its platform. The Microsoft Windows Insider Preview bounty program is part of the Microsoft...

DJI Drone App Riddled With Privacy Issues, Researchers Allege

Leading commercial drone maker DJI is hitting back against researcher allegations that its Android mobile application is riddled with privacy holes. One includes that the app continues to run in the background even after it’s been closed and collects sensitive data from users without consent. The...

OilRig APT Drills into Malware Innovation with Unique Backdoor

A series of cyberattacks on a telecom company in the Middle East has signaled the return of the OilRig APT. The attacks also revealed a revised backdoor tool in the group’s arsenal, called RDAT. The attacks were observed in April by Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42. Researchers there said that the...

Secret Service Creates Cyber Fraud Task Forces

The U.S. Secret Service has created the Cyber Fraud Task Forces CFTFs, aimed at preventing, detecting and mitigating complex cyber-enabled financial crime – including making arrests and convictions. The CFTF is the result of a formal merging of two of the Secret Service’s existing units into a...

Report: ‘BlueLeaks’ Exposes Sensitive Data From Police Departments

Thousands of sensitive police department files – including police and FBI reports – were published on Friday by DDoSecrets Distributed Denial of Secrets, a self-proclaimed “transparency collective” that publishes covert data. The almost 270 gigabytes of data, dubbed “BlueLeaks,” is reportedly fro...

New iOS Jailbreak Tool Works on iPhone Models iOS 11 to iOS 13.5

A hacker team has released a new method to jailbreak iPhones that they claim uses a zero-day exploit that allows them to jailbreak iPhones running iOS 11 through Apple’s most recent version of its mobile operating system – iOS 13.5. Calling it a “big milestone for jailbreaking,” one of its...

EasyJet Hackers Take Off with Travel Details for 9M Customers

European budget airline EasyJet has been hacked, with attackers making off with personal details for 9 million customers. It was, the airline said, a “highly sophisticated attack” that exposed the email addresses and travel itineraries of the victims, along with payment-card information for 2,208...