- Newly discovered cyber-espionage malware abuses Windows BITS service
September 9, 2019
Security researchers have found another instance of a malware strain abusing the Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS). The malware appears to be the work of a state-sponsored cyber-espionage group that researchers have been tracking for years under the name of Stealth Falcon. The first and only report on this hacking group has been published in 2016 by ...
- Thousands of servers infected with new Lilocked (Lilu) ransomware
September 6, 2019
Thousands of web servers have been infected and had their files encrypted by a new strain of ransomware named Lilocked (or Lilu). Infections have been happening since mid-July, and have intensified in the past two weeks, ZDNet has learned. Based on current evidence, the Lilocked ransomware appears to target Linux-based systems only. First reports date to mid-July, after ...
- Malware Classification with ‘Graph Hash,’ Applied to the Orca Cyberespionage Campaign
September 6, 2019
In malware research, threat hunting and sharing of threat intelligence, such as exchanging indicators of compromise (IoCs) in the form of hashes (e.g., MD5s, SHA256s), are common industry practices and helpful for information security professionals. Researchers, for instance, would typically search for malware samples on VirusTotal using hashes. However, hashes have some characteristics that could ...
- New Bedford Hit With $5.3m Ransomware Demand
September 5, 2019
A Massachusetts city has revealed that cyber-criminals tried to hold its data ransom to the tune of more than $5m over the summer, in a sign of the growing risk to organizations from online extortionists. The city of New Bedford was hit with the popular Ryuk strain of ransomware in early July, encrypting data on over 150 ...
- BRATA Android RAT Steals Banking Info in Real Time
September 4, 2019
The RAT targets users via fake WhatsApp updates in Google Play. A powerful Android remote access tool (RAT) family dubbed BRATA is proliferating, with at least 20 different variants cropping up since it was first spotted in January. The majority of the binaries have been found in the official Google Play store, masquerading as updates for ...
- Android Zero-Day Bug Opens Door to Privilege Escalation Attack, Researchers Warn
September 4, 2019
Researchers are warning of a high-severity zero-day vulnerability in Google’s Android operating system, which if exploited could give a local attacker escalated privileges on a target’s device. The specific flaw exists within the v4l2 (Video4Linux 2) driver, which is the Android media driver. When exploited, a component within the v4l2 “does not validate the existence of ...
- Russian police take down malware gang that infected 800,000+ Android smartphones
August 29, 2019
Russian authorities have arrested members of the TipTop cybercrime group, believed to have infected more than 800,000 Android smartphones with malware since 2015. The group operated by renting Android banking trojans from underground hacking forums, which they later hid inside Android apps distributed via search engine ads and third-party app stores. TipTop has been active since 2015, ...
- FIN6 Switches Up PoS Tactics to Target E-Commerce
August 29, 2019
The group is using the More_eggs JScript backdoor to anchor its attack. The financial cybergang known as the FIN6 group, known for going after brick-and-mortar point-of-sale (PoS) data in the U.S. and Europe, has changed up its tactics to target e-commerce sites. According to researchers at IBM X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services (IRIS), FIN6 (a.k.a. ITG08) ...
- Exploitation of Windows CVE-2019-0708 (BlueKeep): Three Ways to Write Data into the Kernel with RDP PDU
August 29, 2019
In May 2019, Microsoft released an out-of-band patch update for remote code execution vulnerability CVE-2019-0708, which is also known as “BlueKeep” and resides in code to Remote Desktop Services (RDS). This vulnerability is pre-authentication and requires no user interaction, making it particularly dangerous as it has the unsettling potential to be weaponized into a destructive exploit. ...
- ‘Heatstroke’ Campaign Uses Multistage Phishing Attack to Steal PayPal and Credit Card Information
August 29, 2019
Despite having an apparent lull in the first half of 2019, phishing will remain a staple in a cybercriminal’s arsenal, and they’re not going to stop using it. The latest example is a phishing campaign dubbed Heatstroke, based on a variable found in their phishing kit code. Heatstroke demonstrates how far phishing techniques have evolved — from merely mimicking ...