Over the past year, Microsoft uncovered a Chinese-language cybercriminal ecosystem, an interconnected network of phishing kit operators, developers, and an illicit marketplace selling tools and infrastructure for large-scale phishing, enabling cybercriminal operations worldwide.
Threat actors purchased and used these tools and infrastructure, including phishing kits and access to compromised or fraudulent Microsoft or Google cloud environments and related credentials, to target organizations across the healthcare, financial services, wholesale distribution, and information technology (IT) sectors in Japan, the United States, Australia, and India. In collaboration with law enforcement agencies and other partners worldwide, Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) facilitated a disruption of the ecosystem’s primary developers and infrastructure.
Read more…
Source: Microsoft
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Ransomware attack halts Argentinian border crossing for four hours
September 6, 2020
Argentina’s official immigration agency, Dirección Nacional de Migraciones, suffered a Netwalker ransomware attack that temporarily halted border crossing into and out of the country. While ransomware attacks against cities and local agencies have become all too common, this may be a first known attack against a federal agency that has interrupted a country’s operations. According to a ...
- FBI issues second alert about ProLock ransomware stealing data
September 4, 2020
The FBI issued a second warning this week to alert US companies of ProLock ransomware operators stealing data from compromised networks before encrypting their victims’ systems. The 20200901-001 Private Industry Notification seen by BleepingComputer on September 1st comes after the MI-000125-MW Flash Alert on the same subject issued by the FBI four months ago, on May ...
- Thanos Ransomware: Destructive Variant Targeting State-Run Organizations in the Middle East and North Africa
September 4, 2020
On July 6 and July 9, 2020, we observed files associated with an attack on two state-run organizations in the Middle East and North Africa that ultimately installed and ran a variant of the Thanos ransomware. The Thanos variant created a text file that displayed a ransom message requesting the victim transfer “20,000$” into a ...
- XCSSET Update: Browser Debug Modes, Inactive Ransomware
September 4, 2020
In our first blog post that covered XCSSET, we discussed its relatively unique danger to Xcode developers and the way it took advantage of two macOS vulnerabilities to maximize what it can take from an infected machine. Our research into this incident is still ongoing, and in this blog post, we cover some other aspects of ...
- Digital Education: The cyberrisks of the online classroom
September 4, 2020
This past spring, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, online learning became the new norm as universities and classrooms around the world were forced to close their doors. By April 29, 2020, more than 1.2 billion children across 186 countries were impacted by school closures. Shortly after schools began to transition to emergency remote learning, it ...
- Cybersquatting: Attackers Mimicking Domains of Major Brands Including Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Netflix to Scam Consumers
September 1, 2020
Users on the internet rely on domain names to find brands, services, professionals and personal websites. Cybercriminals take advantage of the essential role that domain names play on the internet by registering names that appear related to existing domains or brands, with the intent of profiting from user mistakes. This is known as cybersquatting. The ...
