ShadowPad, an infamous Windows backdoor that allows attackers to download further malicious modules or steal data, has been put to use by five different Chinese threat clusters since 2017. “The adoption of ShadowPad significantly reduces the costs of development and maintenance for threat actors,” SentinelOne researchers Yi-Jhen Hsieh and Joey Chen said in a detailed
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A former editor of the New York Observer who was pardoned in January for alleged cyber-stalking has been re-charged for a similar, related offense. New Jersey resident Kenneth Kurson, also known as Jayden Wagner and Eddie Train, was charged on October 23, 2020, with cyber-stalking three individuals and harassing two additional people. His alleged victims include his
Mobile phones have gone through an incredible transformation since their inception in the 1970s. Now, the sheer number of applications is dizzying, as are their privacy policies; however, smartphone apps can bring hours of fun and belly laughs, and occasionally, a viral app captures the world’s attention. Don’t let potential risks to your personal information safety ruin all smartphone apps for you. All you need to share and play safely is a
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure – here’s why you should think twice about what you toss in the recycling bin Are you a serial shredder or do you tend not to bother thinking about what personal data is thrown in the waste? Have you ever thought what a cybercriminal could do after simply
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is warning of active exploitation attempts that leverage the latest line of “ProxyShell” Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities that were patched earlier this May, including deploying LockFile ransomware on compromised systems. Tracked as CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, and CVE-2021-31207, the vulnerabilities enable adversaries to bypass ACL controls, elevate privileges on the Exchange
High school students who raised the alarm after discovering a severe data breach involving teachers’ personal information say they were ignored for months. In January, students at Brooklyn Technical High School reportedly stumbled across a Google Drive containing documents uploaded by staff and students at schools across New York City. Among the documents were college recommendation letters,
T-Mobile, the popular US mobile phone service provider, recently confirmed a data breach affecting 7.8 million current customers and 40 million records from past or prospective customers. The stolen data included customer names, dates of birth, social security numbers, and driver’s license information. Fortunately, subscriber credit card information and other financial details were not affected in the breach. Even though financial data was spared in the breach, the types of information stolen,
Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid suspends cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals and moves its assets into cold storage Japanese cryptocurrency exchange platform Liquid has fallen victim to enterprising hackers who compromised its warm wallets and made off with more than US$97 million in various cryptocurrency assets. “At roughly 7:50 AM SGT on August 19th, Liquid’s Operations and
Web infrastructure and website security company Cloudflare on Thursday disclosed that it mitigated the largest ever volumetric distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack recorded to date. The attack, launched via a Mirai botnet, is said to have targeted an unnamed customer in the financial industry last month. “Within seconds, the botnet bombarded the Cloudflare edge
by Paul Ducklin Another week, another cryptocurrency catastrophe. Last week’s story was about Chinese cryptocoin smart contract company Poly Networks, which was robbed of about $600 million’s worth of various cryptocurrencies. That heist has turned into an ongoing saga in which, mirabile dictu, the hacker ultimately seems to have agreed to return as much of
Summary In late May 2021, Secureworks® Counter Threat Unit™ (CTU) researchers investigated the protocol that the Azure Active Directory (AD) Connect Health agent for AD Federation Services (AD FS) uses to send AD FS sign-in events to Azure AD. This research revealed a flaw in the protocol that could be exploited by a threat actor
Global fines for anti-money laundering (AML) and data privacy compliance breaches have fallen by nearly 50% year-on-year in the first half of 2021, but could bounce back quickly as financial crime continues apace, according to Fenergo. The digital transformation company claimed that 85 individual fines were levied on global financial institutions for breaches of AML, Know
An important alert for anyone who uses smart cameras, Wi-Fi baby monitors, and other connected devices that send audio or video over the internet: a recent security advisory indicates millions of these devices may be at risk of remote monitoring or attack. The root of the concern is an apparent vulnerability in the Software Development Kit (“SDK”) used with the ThroughTek Kalay network. Millions of smart devices use Kalay and its protocols
Ransomware payments may have greater implications than you thought – and not just for the company that gave in to the attackers’ demands Firstly, the answer to the question is likely to be ‘yes’. The debate on ransomware payments continues, which, of course, is positive; with discussion and differing viewpoints put forward, an informed conclusion
A Nigerian threat actor has been observed attempting to recruit employees by offering them to pay $1 million in bitcoins to deploy Black Kingdom ransomware on companies’ networks as part of an insider threat scheme. “The sender tells the employee that if they’re able to deploy ransomware on a company computer or Windows server, then
by Paul Ducklin [02’45”] Copyright infringement scams that beg you to call. [09’32”] An IoT bug that could be exploited for video snooping and more. [17’13”] A hacker steals $600m and then makes a song and dance out of giving it back. [26’18”] Oh! No! How Doug’s PS5 issues could have been solved back in
The US Census Bureau has been heavily criticized by a government inspector after a 2020 breach which could have been prevented by prompt patching. Although the attacker was not able to access servers used for the 2020 census, they could modify user account data to prepare for remote code execution, according to the US Office of Inspector General (OIG) report. Fortunately,
Fraudsters impersonate vaccine manufacturers and authorities overseeing vaccine distribution efforts, INTERPOL warns INTERPOL has issued a global warning about organized crime groups targeting governments with bogus offers peddling COVID-19 vaccines. The warning was issued to all of INTERPOL’s 194 member countries after the international law enforcement agency registered roughly 60 cases from 40 countries. The scammers focused
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details about an early development version of a nascent ransomware strain called Diavol that has been linked to threat actors behind the infamous TrickBot syndicate. The latest findings from IBM X-Force show that the ransomware sample shares similarities to other malware that has been attributed to the cybercrime gang, thus establishing
The average cost of phishing for large US organizations has soared by 289% over the past six years, with firms now losing nearly $15m annually, according to Proofpoint. The security vendor commissioned the Ponemon Institute to poll nearly 600 IT and IT security practitioners to compile its latest Cost of Phishing study. It revealed that
Smart speakers. Banking online. Location tracking. If you are a senior adult, there’s no doubt, the digital leaps and bounds you’re asked to consider each day can be daunting. If you are the child of a senior adult trying to make digital life more accessible, helping your parent consistently stay safe online can also be a challenge. According to the most
The secret list was exposed online for three weeks, allowing anyone to access it without any kind of authentication A terrorist watchlist containing almost 2 million records sat exposed and unsecured on the internet for a period of three weeks between July 19th and August 9th. The watchlist is said to come from the Terrorist
IT and communication companies in Israel were at the center of a supply chain attack campaign spearheaded by an Iranian threat actor that involved impersonating the firms and their HR personnel to target victims with fake job offers in an attempt to penetrate their computers and gain access to the company’s clients. The attacks, which
by Paul Ducklin Researchers at security company Mandiant have written up a report about a device-hijack bug in a video sharing and surveillance network called Kalay. Operated by Chinese smart device company ThroughTek, Kalay (which apparently means “handshake” in the Dawu language) is pitched as a cloud-based solution for vendors of home automation devices, including
As the new school year gets underway, many students will be returning to the classroom in-person, while others will opt to continue hybrid or remote learning indefinitely. Unfortunately, for families choosing the latter, remote learning could come at the expense of their online privacy. According to the RAND Corporation’s 2020 research report, one in five U.S. school
The Incident Response (IR) services market is in accelerated growth due to the rise in cyberattacks that result in breaches. More and more organizations, across all sizes and verticals, choose to outsource IR to 3rd party service providers over handling security incidents in-house. Cynet is now launching a first-of-its-kind offering, enabling any Managed Security Provider
The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) is calling on startups to help the military reduce its cyber-attack surface by designing a new generation of more secure hardware and software. The MoD’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) issued the call-to-arms on Monday, claiming it is prepared to fund proposals up to £300,000 for a nine-month contract. “The Defence Science and
by Paul Ducklin Copyright scams aren’t new – we’ve written about them many times in recent years. These scammers often target your Facebook or Instagram account, fraudulently claiming that someone has registered a complaint about content that you’ve posted, such as a photo, and telling you that you need to resolve the issue in order
For some, vanquishing aliens, building virtual amusement parks, and online battles royale are an excellent stress reliever. As we all know, over the past year there’s been plenty of stress to relieve and more spare time on our hands in which to revel in our hobbies. There was a 30% jump in online gaming traffic from the first to the second quarter of 2020. Hackers are
Over the past few years, food delivery apps have made it easy for people to get their favorite cuisines brought to their doorsteps. In 2020, consumers grew more accustomed to the convenience of ordering take-out when dining in at restaurants was no longer an option. But as we look ahead into 2022, this trend is here to stay. According to a new report by ResearchAndMarkets, the global online