Authored by Oliver Devane Technical Support Scams have been targeting computer users for many years. Their goal is to make victims believe they have issues needing to be fixed, and then charge exorbitant fees, which unfortunately some victims pay. This blog post covers a number of example actions, that scammers will go through when they
Month: August 2022
Has your PC been hacked? Whatever happens, don’t panic. Read on for ten signs your PC has been hacked and handy tips on how to fix it. Global cybercriminals make trillions of dollars each year. Much of their success comes from exploiting the mistakes that we make—by clicking on phishing links, forgetting to update critical
The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday placed sanctions against crypto mixing service Tornado Cash, citing its use by the North Korea-backed Lazarus Group in the high-profile hacks of Ethereum bridges to launder and cash out the ill-gotten money. Tornado Cash, which allows users to move cryptocurrency assets between accounts by obfuscating their origin and destination,
A new analysis by Kaspersky unveiled a wave of targeted attacks on military-industrial complex enterprises and public institutions in Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Afghanistan. The cybersecurity company made the announcement in an advisory published on Monday, which claims the attackers were able to penetrate several enterprises and hijack the IT infrastructure of some of them.
by Paul Ducklin Popular collaboration tool Slack (not to be confused with the nickname of the world’s longest-running Linux distro, Slackware) has just owned up to a cybersecurity SNAFU. According to a news bulletin entitled Notice about Slack password resets, the company admitted that it had inadvertently been oversharing personal data “when users created or
Let’s be honest – many of us parents aren’t big fans of gaming. In fact, some of us have probably even been known to roll our eyes or groan when we think about just how long our kids spend playing online games. But if there is one thing I’ve learned after 25 years of parenting,
A new botnet named Orchard has been observed using Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s account transaction information to generate domain names to conceal its command-and-control (C2) infrastructure. “Because of the uncertainty of Bitcoin transactions, this technique is more unpredictable than using the common time-generated [domain generation algorithms], and thus more difficult to defend against,” researchers from
North Korea stole hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto assets in at least one major hack, according to a confidential United Nations (UN) report seen by Reuters on Thursday. The document also reportedly suggests the US previously accused North Korea of carrying out cyber-attacks to fund its nuclear and missile programs. “Other cyber activity
by Paul Ducklin We’ve written about PQC, short for post-quantum cryptography, several times before. In case you’ve missed all the media excitement of the past few years about so-called quantum computing… …it is (if you will pardon what some experts will probably consider a reckless oversimplification) a way of building computing devices that can keep
Private tech companies gather tremendous amounts of user data. These companies can afford to let you use social media platforms free of charge because it’s paid for by your data, attention, and time. Big tech derives most of its profits by selling your attention to advertisers — a well-known business model. Various documentaries (like Netflix’s
A new IoT botnet malware dubbed RapperBot has been observed rapidly evolving its capabilities since it was first discovered in mid-June 2022. “This family borrows heavily from the original Mirai source code, but what separates it from other IoT malware families is its built-in capability to brute force credentials and gain access to SSH servers
ReversingLabs researchers discovered a new ransomware family targeting Linux-based systems in South Korea. Dubbed GwisinLocker, the malware was detected by ReversingLabs on July 19 while undertaking successful campaigns targeting firms in the industrial and pharmaceutical space. “In those incidents, it often launched attacks on public holidays and during the early morning hours (Korean time) – looking to
by Paul Ducklin The word “protocol” crops up all over the place in IT, usually describing the details of how to exchange data between requester and replier. Thus we have HTTP, short for hypertext transfer protocol, which explains how to communicate with a webserver; SMTP, or simple mail transfer protocol, which governs sending and receiving
Your digital footprint grows with every internet account you make. While your old Tumblr account may be fun for reminiscing, dormant accounts are actually one of the most significant sources of user data on the internet. These accounts can be used by data brokers or third parties to access your personal information. To improve your
Learn the basics of zero-trust, and how building a zero-trust environment can protect your organization. This week, ESET’s security evangelist Tony Anscombe participated in a panel on zero-trust architecture during ChannelCon. He explains what zero-trust means, and the basic practises any organisation should implement to protect themselves. Watch the video to learn more.
Twitter on Friday revealed that a now-patched zero-day bug was used to link phone numbers and emails to user accounts on the social media platform. “As a result of the vulnerability, if someone submitted an email address or phone number to Twitter’s systems, Twitter’s systems would tell the person what Twitter account the submitted email
A team of security researchers from CloudSEK has discovered a new phishing tactic used by threat actors (TA) to target Indian banking customers via preview domains from Hosting Provider Hostinger. The new feature enables access to a site before it is accessible globally. In other words, it enables the viewing of website content without a
by Paul Ducklin Click-and-drag on the soundwaves below to skip to any point. You can also listen directly on Soundcloud. With Doug Aamoth and Paul Ducklin. Intro and outro music by Edith Mudge. You can listen to us on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and anywhere that good podcasts are found. Or just
Whether using the internet for play or work, you want to spend your time online enjoying the peace of mind that comes with having a secure network. You don’t want to contend with someone taking your personal data — whether it’s credit card information, passwords, or bank account details — via malware or a data
A threat actor working to further Iranian goals is said to have been behind a set of disruptive cyberattacks against Albanian government services in mid-July 2022. Cybersecurity firm Mandiant said the malicious activity against a NATO state represented a “geographic expansion of Iranian disruptive cyber operations.” The July 17 attacks, according to Albania’s National Agency
Cybersecurity-focussed non-profit CREST has partnered up with the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) to release the OWASP Verification Standard (OVS). The move aims to provide mobile and web app developers with enhanced security assurance and accredited organizations with improved access to the app development industry. “Both CREST and OWASP are non-profit organizations and we
by Paul Ducklin Just over a year ago, we wrote about a “cybersecurity researcher” who posted almost 4000 pointlessly poisoned Python packages to the popular repository PyPI. This person went by the curious nickname of Remind Supply Chain Risks, and the packages had project names that were generally similar to well-known projects, presumably in the
A recent report by Javelin Strategy and Research found that identity theft cost Americans $56 billion in 2020, with imposter scams accounting for 20% of online fraud. While most internet platforms have stringent data security measures in place to curb cyber fraud, they aren’t always fool-proof. Your user information is available online as a result
Are you on Tinder? With 75 million monthly active users, you might be able to find the right one. However there are also traps you need to look out for. Read more about catfishing, sextortion, phishing and other practices used by scammers. “It’s a match” is now a common expression in the dating scene, and
As many as 29 different router models from DrayTek have been identified as affected by a new critical, unauthenticated, remote code execution vulnerability that, if successfully exploited, could lead to full compromise of the device and unauthorized access to the broader network. “The attack can be performed without user interaction if the management interface of
European missile maker MBDA has publicly denied some of the hacking allegations against the company made on a dark web forum in July and posted on Twitter by Today Cyber News on Tuesday. The self-proclaimed hacking group who first made the allegation went under the name “Andrastea,” and claimed to have obtained roughly 60 GB of
by Paul Ducklin Cryptocurrency protocol Nomad (not to be confused with Monad, which is what PowerShell was called when it first came out) describes itself as “an optimistic interoperability protocol that enables secure cross-chain communication,” and promises that it’s a “security-first cross-chain messaging protocol.” In plain English, it’s supposed to let you swap cryptocurrency tokens
If you’re the parent of a tween or teen, chances are they’re not the only ones going back to school. Their smartphones are going back too. Our recent global research showed just how many tweens and teens use a smartphone. Plenty. Depending on the age band, that figure ranges anywhere from 76% to 93%, with
Threat actors are increasingly mimicking legitimate applications like Skype, Adobe Reader, and VLC Player as a means to abuse trust relationships and increase the likelihood of a successful social engineering attack. Other most impersonated legitimate apps by icon include 7-Zip, TeamViewer, CCleaner, Microsoft Edge, Steam, Zoom, and WhatsApp, an analysis from VirusTotal has revealed. “One
Google published its monthly security bulletin for August on Monday, detailing the latest available patches for Android. A total of 37 vulnerabilities have been patched, including a critical security flaw in the System component that could lead to remote code execution via Bluetooth with no additional execution privileges needed. The Bluetooth vulnerability is tracked as