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The Good
Friday is here at last! This means that its once again time to take stock about the biggest and most important cybersecurity news from the week the flew past us. First, let's raise a glass to all the positive efforts made by law enforcement agencies and organizations in enhancing the security of people. US Capitol police arrested a suspect charged with doxing US Republican senators. Google plans to enforce more stringent roles on developers to block malicious Chrome extensions. Meanwhile, authorities arrested a man responsible for hacking scores of US government websites.
- Washington D.C.-based 27-year old Jackson Cosko was arrested by the US Capitol police for doxing three US Republican senators. Cosko, worked as an intern in the office of Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, modified information such as the Senators’ home addresses and personal phone numbers. The incident reportedly took place during the Senate hearings on Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh. However, following his arrest, Cosko was fired.
- Google plans to enforce more stringent roles on developers to block malicious Chrome extensions. The new measures will give the users of extensions more control over which sites extensions can access. Google is also prohibiting extensions using obfuscated code. Extension developers will also have to do more to protect their developer accounts. For instance, starting 2019, extension developers will have to enable two-factor authentication for their accounts.
- Authorities arrested a man responsible for hacking scores of US government websites. Billy Ribeiro Anderson, who went by the pseudonym “AlfabetoVirtual” pleaded guilty to two counts of computer fraud. According to the DoJ, Anderson gained unauthorized access to over 11,000 US military, government, and business websites.
- A French police officer was arrested for selling confidential police data on the dark web. The rogue officer, who went by the pseudonym “Haurus”, used to work for Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure (DGSI) or the General Directorate for Internal Security - a French intelligence agency.
The Bad
A number of major data breaches and leaks emerged over the past week. The biggest data breach of the week award goes to Facebook. The tech giant acknowledged suffering a massive breach. Sales engagement startup, Apollo was hit by hackers who stole a database that contained 200 million contact records. The Fast food chain Burgerville was targeted by the FIN7 hacker group in an attack that saw customers’ personal and financial data stolen.
- The biggest data breach of the week award goes to Facebook. The tech giant acknowledged suffering a massive breach that compromised over 50 million user accounts. The attackers exploited a flaw that first appeared in July 2017, when Facebook made some changes in the video uploading feature. This is Facebook’s second breach in 2018. The previous breach made headlines after profile details of 87 million users were improperly accessed by the political data firm Cambridge Analytica.
- Sales engagement startup, Apollo was hit by hackers who stole a database that contained 200 million contact records. The stolen database contained the contact details of prospective customers from 10 million companies. The compromised data includes customers’ names, email addresses, company names, and other business information.
- The fast-food chain Burgerville suffered a data breach that that may have compromised payment details of thousands of customers. Burgerville said that the attack was orchestrated by the notorious FIN7 cybercrime gang. The compromised data includes customers’ names, card numbers, expiration dates and CVV numbers of both credit and debit cards.
- Brazilian banks suffered a massive attack by cybercriminals who used a 100,000-strong botnet. The attack targeted users attempting to access the online banking sites of Brazilian banks were being redirected to phishing sites. The cybercriminals behind the GhostDNS botnet campaign are still scanning the internet for Brazilian routers with weak or no passwords.
New Threats
Multiple new malware, vulnerabilities and threat actors have been coming out of the woodwork all of last week. A flaw in Telegram exposed users’ IP addresses. The Fallout exploit kit was found distributing the Kraken Cryptor ransomware. Meanwhile, white-hat hackers discovered 150 bugs in websites of the US Marine Corps.
- A flaw in Telegram exposed users’ IP addresses. The breach was caused by a bug in the desktop version of the Telegram app, which inadvertently leaked users’ IP addresses during voice calls.
- The Fallout exploit kit has switched from spreading the GandCrab ransomware to distributing the Kraken Cryptor ransomware. The EK began distributing the Kraken Cryptor ransomware (version 1.5) earlier this week. Kraken Cryptor appeared in the Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) arena and is now being actively distributed in the wild by multiple sources.
- White-hat hackers discovered 150 bugs in websites of the US Marine Corps. Around 100 security researchers participated in the “Hack The Marine Corps” bug bounty program and took home a total of $150,000. The bugs were reported for the US Marine Corps Cyberspace Command team, during a three-week-long bug bounty program.
- The DanaBot banking malware is back in action. A new campaign was discovered targeting victims in the US. The malware was first discovered in May 2018, when it was targeting victims in Australia. Since then, DanaBot has been updated several times and has also switched targets from Australia to Europe, and now to the US.
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Posted on: October 05, 2018
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