In the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threat actors, the lines between ideologically driven hacktivism and financially motivated cybercriminals have become increasingly blurred.
Originally fueled by political, social, or ethical causes, hacktivist groups have historically engaged in digital protest through website defacements, data leaks, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. However, in recent years, a noticeable trend has emerged. Some hacktivist groups are evolving into ransomware operations and even becoming ransomware affiliates. This transformation is driven by a mix of ideological fatigue, opportunity for financial gain, access to sophisticated tools, and the growing profitability of extortion-based attacks.
Read more…
Source: Rapid7
Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.
Related:
- A Dozen Flaws in Popular Mac Clean-Up Software Allow Local Root Access
January 3, 2019
A passel of privilege-escalation vulnerabilities in MacPaw’s CleanMyMac X software would allow a local attacker to gain root access to an Apple machine in various ways. CleanMyMac X is a cleanup application for MacOS that optimizes the drives and frees up space by scanning for unused, redundant or unnecessary files and deleting them. No fewer than ...
- Adobe Issues Emergency Patches for Two Critical Flaws in Acrobat and Reader
January 3, 2019
Adobe has issued an out-of-band security update to patch two critical vulnerabilities in the company’s Acrobat and Reader for both the Windows and macOS operating systems. Though the San Jose, California-based software company did not give details about the vulnerabilities, it did classify the security flaws as critical since they allow privilege escalation and arbitrary code execution in ...
- 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 ...
- First-Ever UEFI Rootkit Tied to Sednit APT
December 28, 2018
Researchers hunting cyber-espionage group Sednit (an APT also known as Sofacy, Fancy Bear and APT28) say they have discovered the first-ever instance of a rootkit targeting the Windows Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) in successful attacks. The discussion of Sednit was part of the 35C3 conference, and a session given by Frédéric Vachon, a malware researcher at ESET who published a technical ...
- Hijacking Online Accounts Via Hacked Voicemail Systems
December 28, 2018
Proof-of-concept hack of a voicemail systems shows how it can lead to account takeovers multiple online services. Voicemail systems are vulnerable to compromise via brute-force attacks against the four-digit personal identification numbers (PINs) that protect them. Researchers say a malicious user can thus access the voicemail system to then take over online accounts for services like ...