- New Jersey hospital paid ransomware gang $670K to prevent data leak
October 3, 2020
University Hospital New Jersey in Newark, New Jersey, paid a $670,000 ransomware demand this month to prevent the publishing of 240 GB of stolen data, including patient info. The attack on the hospital occurred in early September by a ransomware operation known as SunCrypt, who infiltrates a network, steals unencrypted files, and then encrypts all of ...
- Emotet malware takes part in the 2020 U.S. elections
October 2, 2020
Emotet is now taking part in the United States 2020 Presidential election with a new spam campaign pretending to be from the Democratic National Convention’s Team Blue initiative. When the Emotet gang sends out spam, their main goal is to convince recipients to open the attached malicious document. This is usually done through email themes that ...
- Egregor Ransomware Threatens ‘Mass-Media’ Release of Corporate Data
October 2, 2020
A freshly discovered family of ransomware called Egregor has been spotted in the wild, using a tactic of siphoning off corporate information and threatening a “mass-media” release of it before encrypting all files. Egregor is an occult term meant to signify the collective energy or force of a group of individuals, especially when the individuals are ...
- Researchers use ‘fingerprints’ to track Windows exploit developers
October 2, 2020
More to the point, Check Point security researchers Itay Cohen and Eyal Itkin were able to track 16 Windows Kernel Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) exploits to two different exploit developers known as Volodya (or BuggiCorp) and PlayBit (or luxor2008). 15 of the exploits Check Point successfully matched to a known exploit dev were created between 2015 ...
- Microsoft: Some ransomware attacks take less than 45 minutes
September 29, 2020
For many years, the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report has been the gold standard in terms of providing a yearly overview of all the major events and trends in the cyber-security and threat intelligence landscape. While Microsoft unceremoniously retired the old SIR reports back in 2018, the OS maker appears to have realized its mistake, and has ...
- Cross-Platform / Modular Glupteba Malware Uses ManageX
September 29, 2020
We recently encountered a variant of Glupteba (detected by Trend Micro as Trojan.Win32.GLUPTEBA.WLDR). Glupteba is a trojan type that has been involved with Operation Windigo in the past. We also reported its attacks on MikroTik routers and updates on its command and control (C&C) servers. With regard to its behavior, the variant shares many similarities with ...
- REvil ransomware deposits $1 million in hacker recruitment drive
September 28, 2020
The REvil Ransomware (Sodinokibi) operation has deposited $1 million in bitcoins on a Russian-speaking hacker forum to prove to potential affiliates that they mean business. Many ransomware operations are conducted as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), where developers are in charge of developing the ransomware and payment site, and affiliates are recruited to hack businesses and encrypt their ...
- Joker Trojans Flood the Android Ecosystem
September 28, 2020
More variants of the Joker Android malware are cropping up in Google Play as well as third-party app stores, in a trend that researchers say points to a relentless targeting of the Android mobile platform. Researchers at Zscaler have found 17 different samples of Joker being regularly uploaded to Google Play during September. Collectively, these have ...
- New ‘Alien’ malware can steal passwords from 226 Android apps
September 24, 2020
Security researchers have discovered and analyzed a new strain of Android malware that comes with a wide array of features allowing it to steal credentials from 226 applications. Named Alien, this new trojan has been active since the start of the year and has been offered as a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) offering on underground hacking forums. In a ...
- Case Study: Emotet Thread Hijacking, an Email Attack Technique
September 23, 2020
Malicious spam (malspam) pushing Emotet malware is the most common email-based threat, far surpassing other malware families, with only a few other threats coming close. In recent weeks, we have seen significantly more Emotet malspam using a technique called “thread hijacking” that utilizes legitimate messages stolen from infected computers’ email clients. This malspam spoofs a legitimate ...