- UK names Russia as source of NotPetya, USA follows suit
February 15, 2018
The United Kingdon’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has formally “attributed the NotPetya cyber-attack to the Russian Government”, specifically the nation’s military. “The decision to publicly attribute this incident underlines the fact that the UK and its allies will not tolerate malicious cyber activity,” said a February-15th-dated statement from Foreign Office Minister for Cyber Security Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of ...
- Researchers Find New Twists In ‘Olympic Destroyer’ Malware
February 14, 2018
Researchers have uncovered new wrinkles in the “Olympic Destroyer” malware attack that targeted the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Cisco Talos researchers now believe the malware also wipes files on shared network drives. Originally researchers believed the malware only targeted single endpoints. Researchers also now believe the credentials-stealing component of the malware is more dynamic than originally ...
- Unicode Technique Used to Deliver Cryptomining Malware Through Telegram
February 13, 2018
Attackers are using the time-tested right-to-left override technique to deliver cryptomining malware through the popular Telegram messaging application, say researchers. The right-to-left (RLO) technique uses Unicode to hide malicious file names and trick users into executing what appear to be benign files. It is a tactic that enables malware authors to hide the real name of ...
- PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony Disrupted by Malware Attack
February 12, 2018
The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics taking place in South Korea was disrupted over the weekend following a malware attack before and during the opening ceremony on Friday. The cyber attack coincided with 12 hours of downtime on the official website for the Winter Games, the collapse of Wi-Fi in the Pyeongchang Olympic stadium and the failure of ...
- UK Government website offline after hack infects thousands more worldwide
February 11, 2018
More than 5,000 websites have been hacked to force visitors’ computers to run software that mines a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin. Users loading the websites of the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Student Loans Company, as well as the council websites for Manchester City, Camden, and Croydon – and even the homepage of the United States Courts ...
- Cyber Espionage Group Targets Asian Countries With Bitcoin Mining Malware
February 7, 2018
Security researchers have discovered a custom-built piece of malware that’s wreaking havoc in Asia for past several months and is capable of performing nasty tasks, like password stealing, bitcoin mining, and providing hackers complete remote access to compromised systems. Dubbed Operation PZChao, the attack campaign discovered by the security researchers at Bitdefender have been targeting organizations in the government, ...
- Meltdown-Spectre: Malware is already being tested by attackers
February 1, 2018
German antivirus testing firm AV-Test has identified 139 samples of malware that seem to be early attempts at exploiting the Meltdown and Spectre CPU bugs. “So far, the AV-Test Institute discovered 139 samples that appear to be related to recently reported CPU vulnerabilities. CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5754,” the company wrote on Twitter. The company has posted SHA-256 hashes of several ...
- Cryptocurrency Mining Malware Infected Over Half-Million PCs Using NSA Exploit
January 31, 2018
2017 was the year of high profile data breaches and ransomware attacks, but from the beginning of this year, we are noticing a faster-paced shift in the cyber threat landscape, as cryptocurrency-related malware is becoming a popular and profitable choice of cyber criminals. Several cybersecurity firms are reporting of new cryptocurrency mining viruses that are being ...
- Digital Extortion: A Forward-looking View
January 30, 2018
In 2017, we saw digital extortion increasingly become cybercriminals’ first and foremost money-making modus operandi. It’s mostly due to ransomware — cybercriminals’ currently most popular weapon of choice, helping them in extorting cash from users all over the world and in hitting big businesses and organizations. By infecting business-critical systems through their shotgun-style ransomware attacks and ...
- Ploutus.D Malware Variant Used in U.S.-based ATM Jackpotting Attacks
January 29, 2018
The United States Secret Service issued a warning on Friday to financial institutions citing “credible information” about “planned” attacks against U.S. cash machines using malware that can quickly drain ATM machines dry of cash. The warning came a day after ATM maker Diebold Nixdorf also warned its customers of “potential” ATM Jackpotting attacks moving from Mexico to the U.S. But journalist Brian ...