- Your Word is Your Bond: Trust and Ethics in Underground Forums
January 7, 2019
Although the general public thinks of underground forums as a place where scams and suspicious dealings are rampant, the opposite is usually true: the threat actors who inhabit these sites often consider their reputation a major asset. Many of the individuals and groups in underground forums go to great lengths to ensure that transactions go through ...
- Angela Merkel’s personal details leaked on Twitter
January 4, 2019
An unknown hacker has released confidential data linked to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and hundreds of the country’s other politicians. The stolen details were released on Twitter over the past few weeks in a sort of Advent Calendar and included bills and credit card information, phone numbers, email addresses, photo identification and personal chat histories. The Twitter ...
- Phishing template uses fake fonts to decode content and evade detection
January 3, 2019
Proofpoint researchers recently observed a phishing kit with peculiar encoding utilized in a credential harvesting scheme impersonating a major retail bank. While encoded source code and various obfuscation mechanisms have been well documented in phishing kits, this technique appears to be unique for the time being in its use of web fonts to implement the encoding. When the ...
- Newsmaker Interview: Bruce Schneier on Physical Cyber Threats
January 2, 2019
Bruce Schneier discusses the clash between critical infrastructure and cyber threats. Attacks on physical devices and infrastructure offer a new target for cyber crime, a new opportunity for espionage and even a few front in cyber war. Rather than exploit computers and their applications, the Internet of Things allows malicious actors to go after a whole new ...
- Cyber-attack disrupts printing of major US newspapers
December 30, 2018
A cyber-attack has caused printing and delivery disruptions to major US newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun. The attack on Saturday appeared to originate outside the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported. It led to distribution delays in the Saturday edition of the Times, the Tribune, the Sun and other ...
- Stolen UK identities selling for as little as £10 on the dark web
December 26, 2018
Stolen personal data of UK citizens is selling for as little as £10 on the dark web, offering hackers all the information needed to carry out online fraud and identity theft, The Independent has discovered. So-called fullz – hacker slang meaning a “full ID” package – of UK citizens are being listed on several popular online black markets. A full ID ...
- URSNIF, EMOTET, DRIDEX and BitPaymer Gangs Linked by a Similar Loader
December 18, 2018
As ransomware and banking trojans captured the interest – and profits – of the world with their destructive routines, cybersecurity practitioners have repeatedly published online and offline how cybercriminals have compartmentalized their schemes through exchange of information and banded professional organizations. As a more concrete proof of the way these symbiotic relationships and work flows intersect, we discovered a connection between EMOTET, URSNIF, DRIDEX and BitPaymer from open source information and ...
- Fileless GandCrab As Seen by SandBlast Agent
December 17, 2018
January 2018 saw the debut of the GandCrab ransomware, a well-known malware that is distributed on the Dark Web which targets mainly Scandinavian and English-speaking countries. In addition, the GandCrab Affiliate Program offers low skilled threat actors the opportunity to run their own ransomware campaigns. Delivered mainly through email spam engines, affiliates are also provided with advice and ...
- Shamoon: Destructive Threat Re-Emerges with New Sting in its Tail
December 14, 2018
Organizations in Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been hit in latest attacks that involve new wiper malware. After a two-year absence, the destructive malware Shamoon (W32.Disttrack.B) re-emerged on December 10 in a new wave of attacks against targets in the Middle East. These latest Shamoon attacks are doubly destructive, since they involve a new wiper (Trojan.Filerase) ...
- Cybercriminals Use Malicious Memes that Communicate with Malware
December 14, 2018
Steganography, or the method used to conceal a malicious payload inside an image to evade security solutions, has long been used by cybercriminals to spread malware and perform other malicious operations. We recently discovered malicious actors using this technique on memes. The malware authors have posted two tweets featuring malicious memes on October 25 and 26 ...

