US and South Korean security agencies have issued a joint warning regarding North Korea’s use of social engineering tactics in cyber-attacks. The document was published on Thursday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Department of State, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Republic of Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), the National Police
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A peek under the hood of a cybercrime operation and what you can do to avoid being an easy target for similar ploys They hacked into corporate emails, stole money from people and businesses, and tricked others into transferring the loot. Nigerian nationals Solomon Ekunke Okpe and Johnson Uke Obogo ran a sophisticated fraud scheme
A survey of global cybersecurity leaders through the 2023 Certified CISO Hall of Fame Report commissioned by the EC-Council identified 4 primary areas of grave concern: cloud security, data security, security governance, and lack of cybersecurity talent. EC-Council, the global leader in cybersecurity education and training, released its Certified Chief Information Security Officer Hall of
Enzo Biochem, a biotechnology company renowned for producing and distributing DNA-based tests designed to identify viral and bacterial diseases, has recently confirmed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it fell victim to a ransomware attack. The malicious cyber assault has exposed the confidential information of 2.47 million patients, including names,
by Paul Ducklin Researchers at firmware and supply-chain security company Eclypsium claim to have found what they have rather dramatically dubbed a “backdoor” in hundreds of motherboard models from well-known hardware maker Gigabyte. In fact, Eclypsium’s headline refers to it not merely as a backdoor, but all in upper case as a BACKDOOR. The good
Given the reliance of today’s digital world on APIs and the fact that attacks targeting them continue to rise sharply, API security cannot be an afterthought. Given the increasing reliance of today’s digital world on APIs and the fact that cyberattacks targeting them continue to rise sharply, API security cannot be an afterthought. Here is
Jun 03, 2023Ravie LakshmananEndpoint Security / Linux An analysis of the Linux variant of a new ransomware strain called BlackSuit has covered significant similarities with another ransomware family called Royal. Trend Micro, which examined an x64 VMware ESXi version targeting Linux machines, said it identified an “extremely high degree of similarity” between Royal and BlackSuit.
A catastrophic “once-in-200-years” cyber event could cause $33bn in losses for the cyber-insurance sector, according to a new report from Guy Carpenter. The reinsurer’s Through the Looking Glass report used three modelling platforms to calculate its estimates: CyberCube, Cyence and Moody’s RMS. Into these it fed proprietary data related to almost two million cyber policies.
by Paul Ducklin IT’S HARDER THAN YOU THINK No audio player below? Listen directly on Soundcloud. With Doug Aamoth and Paul Ducklin. Intro and outro music by Edith Mudge. You can listen to us on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and anywhere that good podcasts are found. Or just drop the URL of
As APIs are a favorite target for threat actors, the challenge of securing the glue that holds various software elements together is taking on increasing urgency The application programming interface (API) is an unsung hero of the digital revolution. It provides the glue that sticks together diverse software components in order to create new user
Jun 02, 2023Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / APT U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies have issued a new alert warning of North Korean cyber actors’ use of social engineering tactics to strike think tanks, academia, and news media sectors. The “sustained information gathering efforts” have been attributed to a state-sponsored cluster dubbed Kimsuky, which is also
The UK’s tax office has warned of a new set of scams designed to trick customers claiming tax credits into handing over their personal and financial information. Currently being phased out in favor of a new Universal Credit system, tax credits can be claimed by low-income households to help them with the cost of living. However,
by Paul Ducklin Over the last two weeks, we’ve seen a series of articles talking up what’s been described as a “master password crack” in the popular open-source password manager KeePass. The bug was considered important enough to get an official US government identifier (it’s known as CVE-2023-32784, if you want to hunt it down),
A roundup of some of the handiest tools for the collection and analysis of publicly available data from Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms Social media sites are a near-bottomless source of information that almost anyone can use for security and intelligence research, as well as for marketing campaigns. The platforms allow anybody to
Jun 01, 2023Ravie LakshmananEndpoint Security / Encryption The threat actors behind BlackCat ransomware have come up with an improved variant that prioritizes speed and stealth in an attempt to bypass security guardrails and achieve their goals. The new version, dubbed Sphynx and announced in February 2023, packs a “number of updated capabilities that strengthen the
The Pentagon’s strategy for proactive disruption of malicious activity has been influenced by the unfolding events in Ukraine, according to a classified document sent to Congress. The US Department of Defense’s 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy is not immediately available to view, but a fact sheet summarized some of the key points for public consumption. “Since 2018,
by Paul Ducklin Researchers at web coding security company SALT just published a fascinating description of how they found an authentication bug dubbed CVE-2023-28131 in a popular online app-buildin toolkit known as Expo. The good news is that Expo responded really quickly to SALT’s bug report, coming up with a fix within just a few
May 31, 2023Ravie LakshmananAdvanced Persistent Threat The threat actor known as Dark Pink has been linked to five new attacks aimed at various entities in Belgium, Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam between February 2022 and April 2023. This includes educational entities, government agencies, military bodies, and non-profit organizations, indicating the adversarial crew’s continued focus on
Nearly half a million members of a notorious cybercrime forum have had their details publicly exposed after a key database was published on another hacking site. Cybersecurity researchers at VX-Underground confirmed the news that over 478,000 users of RaidForums had their data leaked on up-and-coming forum Exposed. “The administrative staff of Exposed would not tell
May 30, 2023Ravie LakshmananMobile Security / Android A new open source remote access trojan (RAT) called DogeRAT targets Android users primarily located in India as part of a sophisticated malware campaign. The malware is distributed via social media and messaging platforms under the guise of legitimate applications like Opera Mini, OpenAI ChatGOT, and Premium versions
A critical security flaw in the Expo framework has been discovered that could be exploited to reveal user data in various online services. The vulnerability (CVE-2023-28131) was discovered by Salt Security and has a CVSS score of 9.6. In particular, the bug was found in the way Expo’s Open Authorization (OAuth) social-login feature is implemented.
A new phishing technique called “file archiver in the browser” can be leveraged to “emulate” a file archiver software in a web browser when a victim visits a .ZIP domain. “With this phishing attack, you simulate a file archiver software (e.g., WinRAR) in the browser and use a .zip domain to make it appear more
Romanian cybersecurity firm Safetech launched its official presence in the UK on May 23, 2023, underscoring the recent growth of the UK’s cybersecurity sector. Plans to build a security operations center (SOC) at the Plexal Innovation Hub based in London were announced during the company’s launch event. Anca Stancu, co-founder and managing partner of Safetech
ESET research uncovers an Android app that initially had no harmful features but months later turned into a spying tool This week, ESET malware researcher Lukas Stefanko revealed how an initially legitimate Android app morphed into a malicious trojan that could steal users’ files and record surrounding audio from the device’s microphone and then exfiltrate
A new stealthy information stealer malware called Bandit Stealer has caught the attention of cybersecurity researchers for its ability to target numerous web browsers and cryptocurrency wallets. “It has the potential to expand to other platforms as Bandit Stealer was developed using the Go programming language, possibly allowing cross-platform compatibility,” Trend Micro said in a
New Russian-linked malware designed to take down electricity networks has been identified by Mandiant threat researchers, who have urged energy firms to take action to mitigate this “immediate threat.” The specialized operational technology (OT) malware, dubbed COSMICENERGY, has similarities to malware used in previous attacks targeting electricity grids, including the ‘Industroyer’ incident that took down
ESET researchers reveal details about a prevalent cryptor, operating as a cryptor-as-a-service used by tens of malware families In this blogpost we examine the operation of AceCryptor, originally documented by Avast. This cryptor has been around since 2016 and because – throughout its existence – it has been used to pack tens of malware families,
May 26, 2023Ravie LakshmananData Safety / Cloud Security A new security flaw has been disclosed in the Google Cloud Platform’s (GCP) Cloud SQL service that could be potentially exploited to obtain access to confidential data. “The vulnerability could have enabled a malicious actor to escalate from a basic Cloud SQL user to a full-fledged sysadmin
Perception Point has observed a 356% growth in the number of advanced phishing attacks attempted by threat actors in 2022. According to the company’s 2023 Annual Report: Cybersecurity Trends & Insights report, the total number of attacks increased by 87%. Among the reasons behind this growth is the fact that malicious actors continue to gain widespread
by Paul Ducklin A PYTHON PERSPECTIVE VORTEX No audio player below? Listen directly on Soundcloud. With Doug Aamoth and Paul Ducklin. Intro and outro music by Edith Mudge. You can listen to us on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and anywhere that good podcasts are found. Or just drop the URL of our
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