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The Good
We’re back with the most interesting threat intel of the week. Before we get into cybersecurity incidents and new threats, let’s first acknowledge all the positive events that happened over the past week. RSA conference has announced its new innovation program in the Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) region to help cybersecurity startups accelerate its growth. USA.gov has launched an AI-powered chatbot ‘Sam’ that is capable of answering users’ questions on scams and frauds. Meanwhile, two US senators have introduced new bipartisan legislation to ban social networking platforms from using ‘dark patterns’ to trick users into providing their private data.
- USA.gov, the official online portal of the U.S federal government, has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) powered chatbot named ‘Sam’ that is capable of answering users’ questions on scams and frauds. In just over a month, Sam interacted with over 4,000 users, with 78% users having successfully asked their question and received an answer.
- RSA conference has announced its new innovation program in the Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) region to help cybersecurity startups accelerate their growth. The innovation program will include RSAC Launch Pad, which is designed to give cybersecurity talents a platform to pitch their new businesses and industry solutions to high-profile venture capitalists (VCs) and Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs).
- US senators have introduced a bipartisan bill named ‘Cyber Resiliency Act’ that would require DHS to provide grants to support state and local governments in enhancing cyber defenses and addressing cybersecurity threats.
- Another two US senators have introduced a new bipartisan legislation to ban social networking platforms from using ‘dark patterns’ to trick users into providing their private data. Social media platforms have long abused dark patterns and have gained access to users’ private data such as geolocation, contacts, call logs, friend lists, and more.
The Bad
Several data breaches and massive cyber attacks have occurred over the past week. Researchers have detected almost 74 Facebook groups that were used to carry out illicit trading of stolen credentials, email addresses, private data, credit card information, and phishing kits. An unprotected database at VoterVoice exposed over 300,000 unique email addresses and other personal information of people. Last but not least, researchers have uncovered a new cybercrime marketplace named ‘Genesis’ where cybercriminals are selling full digital fingerprints of over 60,000 users.
- Researchers have detected almost 74 Facebook groups with nearly 385,000 members that were used to carry out illicit trading of stolen credentials, email addresses, private data, credit card information, and phishing kits. Facebook’s security team has removed all the 74 groups from the site.
- Kaspersky Lab researchers have revealed the existence of a new cybercrime marketplace named ‘Genesis’ where cybercriminals are selling full digital fingerprints for over 60,000 users. Genesis market sells digital fingerprints, digital identity, cookies, credit card information, sensitive documents, browser user-agent details, WebGL signatures, website user logins, and passwords.
- Genesee County has been hit by ransomware attack which led to the shut down of the County’s computers. The ransomware attack impacted its email services and regular operations across all departments. However, Genesee County confirmed that no information has been compromised.
- Japanese optical manufacturer Hoya Corporation has suffered a cyber attack which led to the shut down of its factories for almost 3 days. In the attack, almost 100 computers were infected with a virus and user ID - passwords were stolen. However, no data leak was detected due to the attack.
- AeroGrow International disclosed that attackers injected malicious code on its website in order to steal customers’ payment card information such as card number, expiration date, and CVV code. However, no personal information such as Social Security number, personal identification number (PIN), and driver’s license number, was leaked in the incident.
- An unprotected database at VoterVoice exposed over 300,000 unique email addresses and other personal information of people who have sent messages to legislators or participated in campaigns via ‘the grassroots advocacy system’. The database also contained sensitive information related to political persuasions and religious beliefs.
- The official website of the Bangladeshi oil company PetroBangla was initially hacked on April 07, 2019. On April 08, 2019, around 9.30 AM, the company restored its websites. However, hackers managed to successfully compromise the website for the second time around 5 PM.
- Researchers have observed a new phishing scheme wherein cybercriminals are using international companies’ official newsletter subscription forms to trick victims into making payments to attackers’ bank account. This phishing scheme targets Russian users with a message written in Russian that states ‘Money for you’.
- A new extortion email campaign has been observed wherein scammers claim that they have hacked your computer network and uncovered that you’re hiding your taxes from tax authorities. They then demand 2 bitcoins otherwise threatening to release all the tax-related documents to the tax department, DDoS the network, and installing WannaCry ransomware on the victims’ computers.
- Greenville officials have disclosed that the city’s network has been infected with ransomware, forcing the city to shut down a majority of its servers. The city’s communications manager Brock Letchworth confirmed that no public safety is impacted and the city phones are operational.
- The UK Home Office has inadvertently leaked the email addresses of almost 240 EU citizens who applied for the EU Settlement Scheme. While communicating with a small group of applicants via email, an administrative error was made. All the recipients’ email addresses were included in the CC field instead of BCC, which exposed the email addresses of the applicants to other applicants.
New Threats
Over the past week, several vulnerabilities and malware strains have emerged. A researcher has spotted Anubis Android trojan that steals PayPal credentials. In another instance, researchers have discovered a sophisticated APT framework dubbed ‘TajMahal’. Meanwhile, researchers have discovered a set of vulnerabilities called Dragonblood in the WiFi Alliance’s WPA3 security and authentication standard.
- Researchers have discovered a new variant of the GoBrut malware that targets Unix-based machines. This malware was also spotted exploiting WordPress-based websites. GoBrut uses a malicious Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) file for this purpose.
- A new variant of Mirai botnet that targets processors has been discovered recently. The new variant has been evolved to include a modified version of XOR encryption algorithm and a type of DDoS attack method. This Mirai variant targets Altera Nios II, OpenRISC, Tensilica Xtensa, and Xilinx MicroBlaze processors.
- At the Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit in Singapore, this week, researchers have presented the iOS version of the Exodus spyware. This iOS version of Exodus spyware is capable of stealing contacts, photos, videos, audio recordings, and GPS information from the infected Apple device. It can also perform on-demand audio recording operations on the infected device.
- A security researcher spotted the Anubis trojan disguised as an Android application that is available for download in Google Play Store. This trojan is capable of stealing banking credentials from the infected device, encrypting all files, and locking the device with a black screen.
- FIN6, which is one of the sophisticated cybercriminal groups, has now shifted its focus to deploy ransomware in its attacks. Researchers uncovered this when they analyzed a cyber attack against an engineering firm. It was found that FIN6 installed ransomware on systems that did not have any payment data on them.
- The MyCar controls mobile application for Android and iOS contains hard-coded admin credentials, which can be used by attackers to communicate and send commands to the target user account’s server endpoint. Attackers can also retrieve data such as the target’s location from a target MyCar unit as well as gain unauthorized physical access to a target’s vehicle.
- A new info-stealer malware dubbed Baldr which was first spotted in the underground forums in January 2019 is now spotted in the wild. Baldr can steal system information and browser details such as browser history, cookies, stored passwords, system files, and user data. The malware can steal an entire file’s data and bulk transfer the stolen data to its C&C server.
- The infamous Triton malware has now been linked with the attack against a Russia-based technical research institute. Researchers revealed that the operators of Triton had used a custom attack tool along with a publicly available exploit kit to launch the attack. The tools that were used in the attack are identified as SecHack and Mimikatz.
- Kaspersky Lab researchers have revealed that Gaza Cybergang has targeted 240+ victims in the attacks across 39 countries. Majority of the victims were from the Palestinian Territories. Other victims were from countries such as Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and the UAE.
- Researchers have discovered a sophisticated APT framework dubbed ‘TajMahal’. Researchers noted that the recent activity related to TajMahal indicated that it contained two different packages named Tokyo and Yokohama. Tokyo was used to deploy Yokohama on victims’ machines, while Yokohama was used to steal sensitive data belonging to the victims.
- The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released a security alert about a new malware strain named HOPLIGHT. The backdoor trojan has been linked to HIDDEN COBRA, the North Korea-based hacking group.
- A new variant of Emotet trojan has been found collecting financial information of users by injecting malicious code into computers. The variant has affected a total of 176 users in Chile. In the malware attack, the attackers have leveraged the ‘Living off the Land’ technique to evade antivirus detection and complicate its analysis.
- Security researchers detected Dragonblood vulnerabilities in WiFi Alliance’s WiFi WPA3 security and authentication standard. These vulnerabilities, if exploited, could allow attackers to recover WiFi network passwords and gain access to the encrypted network traffic between the connected devices.
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Posted on: April 12, 2019
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