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Work from Home is To Blame for Financial Services Cyberattacks

softpedia Jul 21, 2021 Security

With the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, corporate cybersecurity resilience has been challenged. Cybercriminals have targeted the financial sector on numerous occasions, and this pattern is expected to continue. As reported by a recent study, before COVID-19 attackers specifically targeted security show more ...

vulnerabilities in financial services businesses because the majority of staff had to leave work at the end of the day. Financial Security Board (FSB) have revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the importance of enhancing resilience in the face of rapid economic, financial and technological change. While outsourcing to third-party service providers, such as cloud computing, looks to improve the operational resilience of financial institutions, a growing reliance on those services can result in new challenges and weaknesses. It is vital to have effective risk management thro... (read more)

Russian Cybercriminal Levashov Sentenced to Time Already Served

softpedia Jul 21, 2021 Security

A Russian cybercriminal that is known worldwide as the "bot master" has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for federal crimes, according to Security Week. Peter Levashov pleaded guilty three years ago to aggravated identity theft, intentional computer damage, wire fraud, and conspiracy. According to the show more ...

prosecution's written arguments, Levashov spent more than a decade running botnets, including one that had the potential to infect 200,000 machines, collect email addresses, logins, and passwords from infected systems. Prosecutors also stated that Levashov created forums for the purpose of selling and trading stolen identities and credit card numbers. The U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny recommended a sentence of at least 12 years due to the financial harm caused. He went on to say that Levashov was the mastermind behind three of the most prominen... (read more)

New Cybersecurity Requirements for Pipeline Operators

softpedia Jul 21, 2021 Security

The US Transportation Security Administration issued a regulation on Tuesday requiring oil pipeline owners to implement security measures for business and operational technology (OT) networks against ransomware and further cyber threats, according to Dark Reading. The TSA directive ranks second in the last two show more ...

months for oil pipeline operators, signaling growing concern about serious cyber vulnerabilities in U.S. oil and gas infrastructure following the crushing ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline in May. It also appears to be related to growing concerns about threats to critical U.S. infrastructure from Chinese government cyber threat groups. Just last week, China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) was openly

Google Cloud Introduces Security Tools for the Public and Private Sectors

softpedia Jul 21, 2021 Security

Google Cloud announced several new security features designed to assist both private and public enterprises in dealing with the dangers of today, according to Dark Reading. Sunil Potti, vice president and general manager of Google Cloud Security said in a blog post that "most security products seem to focus on show more ...

solving products created by other security products, rather than the root causes of the issues," Consequently, Google's method entails invisible security with technologies built into the platform, and eliminating operations as a siloed center. Recent updates include Cloud IDS, a malware detection IDS, spyware, command and control attacks, and other network threats. Cloud IDS builds on the threat det... (read more)

Serial Swatter Who Caused Death Gets Five Years in Prison

krebsonsecurity Jul 21, 2021 Ne'er-Do-Well News

A 18-year-old Tennessee man who helped set in motion a fraudulent distress call to police that led to the death of a 60-year-old grandfather in 2020 was sentenced to 60 months in prison today. 60-year-old Mark Herring died of a heart attack after police surrounded his home in response to a swatting attack. Shane show more ...

Sonderman, of Lauderdale County, Tenn. admitted to conspiring with a group of criminals that’s been “swatting” and harassing people for months in a bid to coerce targets into giving up their valuable Twitter and Instagram usernames. At Sonderman’s sentencing hearing today, prosecutors told the court the defendant and his co-conspirators would text and call targets and their families, posting their personal information online and sending them pizzas and other deliveries of food as a harassment technique. Other victims of the group told prosecutors their tormentors further harassed them by making false reports of child abuse to social services local to the target’s area, and false reports in the target’s name to local suicide prevention hotlines. Eventually, when subjects of their harassment refused to sell or give up their Twitter and Instagram usernames, Sonderman and others would swat their targets — or make a false report to authorities in the target’s name with the intention of sending a heavily armed police response to that person’s address. For weeks throughout March and April 2020, 60-year-old Mark Herring of Bethpage, Tenn. was inundated with text messages asking him to give up his @Tennessee Twitter handle. When he ignored the requests, Sonderman and his buddies began having food delivered to Herring’s home via cash on delivery. At one point, Sonderman posted Herring’s home address in a Discord chat room used by the group, and a minor in the United Kingdom quickly followed up by directing a swatting attack on Herring’s home. Ann Billings was dating Mr. Herring and was present when the police surrounded his home. She recalled for the Tennessee court today how her friend died shortly thereafter of a heart attack. Billings said she first learned of the swatting when a neighbor called and asked why the street was lined with police cars. When Mr. Herring stepped out on the back porch to investigate, police told him to put his hands up and to come to the street. Unable to disengage a lock on his back fence, Herring was instructed to somehow climb over the fence with his hands up. “He was starting to get more upset,” Billings recalled. “He said, ‘I’m a 60-year-old fat man and I can’t do that.'” Billings said Mr. Herring then offered to crawl under a gap in the fence, but when he did so and stood up, he collapsed of a heart attack. Herring died at a nearby hospital soon after. Mary Frances Herring, who was married to Mr. Herring for 28 years, said her late husband was something of a computer whiz in his early years who secured the @Tennessee Twitter handle shortly after Twitter came online. Internet archivist Jason Scott says Herring was the creator of the successful software products Sparkware and QWIKMail; Scott has 2 hours worth of interviews with Herring from 20 years ago here. Perhaps the most poignant testimony today came when Ms. Herring said her husband — who was killed by people who wanted to steal his account — had a habit of registering new Instagram usernames as presents for friends and family members who’d just had children. “If someone was having a baby, he would ask them, ‘What are your naming the baby?’,” Ms. Herring said. “And he would get them that Instagram name and give it to them as a gift.” Valerie Dozono also was an early adopter of Instagram, securing the two-letter username “VD” for her initials. When Dozono ignored multiple unsolicited offers to buy the account, she and many family and friends started getting unrequested pizza deliveries at all hours. When Dozono continued to ignore her tormentors, Sonderman and others targeted her with a “SIM-swapping attack,” a scheme in which fraudsters trick or bribe employees at wireless phone companies into redirecting the target’s text messages and phone calls to a device they control. From there, the attackers can reset the password for any online account that allows password resets via SMS. But it wasn’t the subsequent bomb threat that Sonderman and friends called in to her home that bothered Dozono most. It was the home invasion that was ordered at her address using strangers on social media. Dozono said Sonderman created an account on Grindr — the location-based social networking and dating app for gay, bi, trans and queer people — and set up a rendezvous at her address with an unsuspecting Grindr user who was instructed to waltz into her home as if he was invited. “This gentleman was sent to my home thinking someone was there, and he was given instructions to walk into my home,” Dozono said. The court heard from multiple other victims targeted by Sonderman and friends over a two-year period. Including Shane Glass, who started getting harassed in 2019 over his @Shane Instagram handle. Glass told the court that endless pizza deliveries, as well as SIM swapping and swatting attacks left him paranoid for months that his assailant could be someone stalking him nearby. Judge Mark Norris said Sonderman’s agreement to plead to one count of extortion by threat of serious injury or damage carries with it a recommended sentence of 27 to 33 months in prison. However, the judge said other actions by the defendant warranted up to 60 months (5 years) in prison. Sonderman might have been eligible to knock a few months off his sentence had he cooperated with investigators and refrained from committing further crimes while out on bond. But prosecutors said that shortly after his release, Sonderman went right back to doing what he was doing when he got caught. Investigators who subpoenaed his online communications found he’d logged into the Instagram account “FreeTheSoldiers,” which was known to have been used by the group to harass people for their social media handles. Sonderman was promptly re-arrested for violating the terms of his release, and prosecutors played for the court today a recording of a phone call Sonderman made from jail in which he brags to a female acquaintance that he wiped his mobile phone two days before investigators served another search warrant on his home. Sonderman himself read a lengthy statement in which he apologized for his actions, blaming his “addiction” on several psychiatric conditions — including bipolar disorder. While his recitation was initially monotone and practically devoid of emotion, Sonderman eventually broke down in tears that made the rest of his statement difficult to hear over the phone-based conference system the court made available to reporters. The bipolar diagnoses was confirmed by his mother, who sobbed as she simultaneously begged the court for mercy while saying her son didn’t deserve any. Judge Norris said he was giving Sonderman the maximum sentenced allowed by law under the statute — 60 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, but implied that his sentence would be far harsher if the law permitted. “Although it may seem inadequate, the law is the law,” Norris said. “The harm it caused, the death and destruction….it’s almost unspeakable. This is not like cases we frequently have that involve guns and carjacking and drugs. This is a whole different level of insidious criminal behavior here.” Sonderman’s sentence pales in comparison to the 20-year prison time handed down in 2019 to serial swatter Tyler Barriss, a California man who admitted making a phony emergency call to police in late 2017 that led to the shooting death of an innocent Kansas resident.

French President Emmanuel Macron among 14 heads of states on potential spyware list

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Trends, Reports, Analysis

French President Emmanuel Macron leads a list of 14 current or former heads of state who may have been targeted for hacking by clients of the notorious Israeli spyware firm NSO Group.

Beware, crypto-scammer seeks foreigner with blockchain account

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Identity Theft, Fraud, Scams

Researchers at Malwarebytes observed a 419-style scam (also known as an advance fee scam) which claims to deliver on the promise of cryptocurrency riches over a WhatsApp conversation.

Cybersecurity: DHS escalates mandates for key US pipelines in wake of ransomware attack

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Laws, Policy, Regulations

The Department of Homeland Security mandated additional cybersecurity measures this week for critical US pipelines, a move meant to protect against ransomware and other known threats.

U.S. Reveals China Breached Dozens of Pipeline Companies in Past Decade

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Threat Intel & Info Sharing

Overall, the U.S. government agencies identified and tracked 23 U.S. natural gas pipeline operators targeted from 2011 to 2013 in this spearphishing and intrusion campaign.

Vulnerability Exposes MicroLogix PLCs to Remote DoS Attacks

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

A high-severity vulnerability affecting Rockwell Automation’s MicroLogix 1100 programmable logic controllers (PLCs) can be exploited to cause a device to enter a persistent fault condition.

capa 2.0: Better, Faster, Stronger

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Security Products & Services

The open-source tool called capa automatically identifies capabilities in programs using an extensible rule set. The tool supports both malware triage and deep dive reverse engineering.

Researchers Found Flaws in Telegram's Cryptographic Protocol

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

These flaws could have enabled attackers to alter the sequences of the messages sent, identify encrypted messages of a client or a server, recover some plaintext from encrypted messages, and wage man-in-the-middle attacks.

Google, Bloomberg and Facebook pledge support for second year of Security Training Scholarship Program for women

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Security Culture

The program, run by Women in Cybersecurity (WiCys) and the SANS Institute, is designed to help women advance their careers in cybersecurity by learning fundamental cybersecurity concepts and skills.

Shlayer Malware: Continued Use of Flash Updates

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Recent Shlayer malvertising campaigns have gone back to using fake Flash updates and social engineering tactics to trick victims into manually installing the malware and compromising their systems.

Can the US Curb China's Cyber Ambitions?

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Expert Blogs and Opinion

Many security experts and analysts are applauding the U.S. for calling out China's cyber behavior, especially after the White House had focused so much attention on Russia's cyber activities.

Rail ticket machines in northern England hit by ransomware attack

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Breaches and Incidents

Ticket machines operated by the British government-run Northern Trains have been put out of action by a suspected cyber-attack intended to extort money, the company said on Monday.

Fortinet fixes bug letting unauthenticated hackers run code as root

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Fortinet released updates for FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer network management solutions to fix a serious vulnerability that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the highest privileges.

Linux Systemd Security Hole Can Enable Unprivileged Users to Cause Denial of Service

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Successful exploitation of this newest vulnerability enables any unprivileged user to cause a denial of service via a kernel panic. Systemd is used in almost all modern Linux distributions.

Safe Security raises $33M to manage and mitigate cyber risk

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Companies to Watch

Safe Security, which provides a platform to measure cyber risk, today announced that it raised $33 million in a strategic investment from BT Group, the U.K.-based telecom provider.

Sensitive Information From Over 80 US Municipalities Left Vulnerable in Massive Data Breach at PeopleGIS

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Breaches and Incidents

WizCase’s team of ethical hackers, led by Ata Hakç?l, has found a major breach exposing a number of US cities, all of them using the same web service provider aimed at municipalities.

Biden official: ‘We don’t know exactly why’ ransomware gang vanished from the web

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Threat Actors

The Biden administration does not know exactly why the ransomware gang REvil, thought to be based in Russia, has vanished from the dark web, a senior official said Tuesday.

Joker Billing Fraud Malware Apps with 30,000 Downloads Found in Google Play Store

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

The Joker malware family is a well-known variant that focuses on compromising Android devices. It's designed to spy on its victims, steal information, harvest contact lists, and monitor SMS messaging.

Google Chrome now comes with up to 50x faster phishing detection

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Computer, Internet Security

Additionally, these speed improvements lead to less CPU time needed, which, in turn, contribute to a general performance boost and less battery drain while browsing the web.

Several New Critical Flaws Affect CODESYS Industrial Automation Software

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Researchers disclosed security vulnerabilities impacting CODESYS automation software and the WAGO PLC platform that could be remotely exploited to take control of a company's cloud OT infrastructure.

Microsoft shares workarounds for SeriousSAM Windows 10 zero-day bug

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Microsoft has shared workarounds for a Windows 10 zero-day vulnerability that can let attackers gain admin rights on vulnerable systems and execute arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges.

DNSFilter secures $30M Series A to step up fight against DNS-based threats

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Companies to Watch

DNSFilter, an artificial intelligence startup that provides DNS-based web content filtering and threat protection, has secured $30 million in Series A funding from Insight Partners.

StrongPity APT Group Deploys Android Malware for the First Time

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Threat Actors

Trend Micro conducted an investigation into a malicious Android malware sample, which is believed to be linked to the StrongPity APT group, that was posted on the Syrian e-Gov website.

Malicious NPM Package Steals Chrome Passwords on Windows via ChromePass Recovery Tool

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

The malware listens for incoming connections from C2 servers and provides screen and camera access, directory listing, file lookup, file upload, shell command execution, and other capabilities.

XLoader Windows InfoStealer Malware Now Upgraded to Attack macOS Systems

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Cybersecurity researchers on Wednesday disclosed details of an evolving malware that has now been upgraded to steal sensitive information from Apple's macOS operating system.

Adobe Patches 21 Vulnerabilities Across Seven Products

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Seven vulnerabilities have been addressed in Adobe After Effects for Windows and macOS. Five of them can allow arbitrary code execution and they have been rated critical.

MosaicLoader Malware Delivers Facebook Stealers, RATs

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

A never-before-documented Windows malware strain dubbed MosaicLoader is spreading worldwide, acting as a full-service malware-delivery platform that’s being used to infect victims with RATs, Facebook cookie stealers, and other threats.

Kaseya ransomware attack highlights cyber vulnerabilities of small businesses

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Expert Blogs and Opinion

The recent ransomware attack on software group Kaseya hit small businesses especially hard, targeting companies that often have few resources to defend themselves and highlighting long-standing vulnerabilities.

REvil’s Gone But its Technique is Relevant

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

McAfee Labs described the use of DLL sideloading in REvil’s attacks after the group made a sudden exit that surprised everyone. Generally, this technique is used by APT groups to avoid raising any flags on security radars.

Experts Confirm Diavol Ransomware Steals Data

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Security analysts provide proof of Diavol ransomware stealing data from infected systems as opposed to previous claims by the FortiGuard Labs’s researchers. The Diavol group is resilient and evasive in nature. Security professionals need to erect a robust security infra to avoid any unpleasant surprises.

TA2721: A New Threat Group Spreading Bandook Malware

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Proofpoint discovered a new threat group, TA2721, targeting global organizations across finance, entertainment, and other industries via malspam emails written in Spanish. A highly-targeted campaign by TA2721 suggests that the group has a clear goal and prepares well before launching attacks. Security professionals need to keep an eye on this steadily growing threat to avoid any sudden surprises.

Current State of Consent Phishing Emails

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Trends, Reports, Analysis

Microsoft threat researchers are tracking an increased rise in consent phishing attacks that exploit OAuth request links. The threat actors are attempting to lure targets into providing permission to attacker-owned apps and eventually, sensitive information.

New Windows and Linux Flaws Give Attackers Highest System Privileges

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Microsoft's Windows 10 and the upcoming Windows 11 versions have been found vulnerable to a new local privilege escalation vulnerability that permits users with low-level permissions access.

France warns of APT31 cyberspies targeting French organizations

cyware Jul 21, 2021 Threat Actors

The French national cyber-security agency has warned of an ongoing series of attacks against a large number of French organizations coordinated by the Chinese-backed APT31 hacking group.

TSA Announces New Pipeline Security Order

packetstormsecurity Jul 21, 2021 headline,hacker,government,malware,usa,r

Fortinet's Security Appliances Hit By Remote Code Exec Vuln

packetstormsecurity Jul 21, 2021 headline,flaw

Why Apple's Walled Garden Is No Match For Pegasus Spyware

packetstormsecurity Jul 21, 2021 headline,phone,israel,spyware,apple

EU Plans To Make Bitcoin Transfers More Traceable

packetstormsecurity Jul 21, 2021 headline,government,privacy,bank,cryptog