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Emotet malware is back with ferocious vigor, according to ESET telemetry in the first four months of 2022. Will it survive the ever-tightening controls on macro-enabled documents?
The post How Emotet is changing tactics in response to Microsoft’s tightening of Office macro security appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
The topic most top of mind today for HR professionals is keeping and acquiring great talent. One of the most important elements of doing both is providing a desirable and meaningful set of employee benefits.
The idea of Digital Wellness isn’t exactly brand new, but the world we’ve lived in for the past few years has cemented it into one of the main pillars of employee benefits, joining the traditional big three of Financial, Mental and Physical Wellness.
One of the main reasons Digital Wellness has become essential is that so many people have had to both live and work exclusively online for an extended period of time – spending 8+ hours a day on personal things in addition to all those hours they spend working via the web. Things like banking, telehealth and shopping to name a few.
There’s almost no aspect of life that isn’t touched by the internet for most people, especially when adding their work environment into the mix.
In addition to all the regular life they live online, employees have become accustomed to working remotely, even if it’s just part of the time.
With these kinds of stats, it’s hardly surprising that 74% of employers plan to maintain some sort of remote/hybrid workforce into the foreseeable future6.
The digital world has become a veritable smorgasbord for hungry cyber criminals. In fact, there’s been a 400% increase in cybercrime just over the last couple of years7. To put it in perspective, here are a few sobering statistics that happen on a daily basis:
Unfortunately, all this means that people are in a constant battle to protect themselves from cyber risk.
With everyone going about their daily activities and working whenever and wherever they happen to be at the time, it’s probably no surprise that more than half of employees are using their personal devices for work11. It’s just too convenient not to. However, when you also realize that 95% of breaches are caused by human error12, this intersection between personal life and work-life becomes risky for both the employees and their employers. It’s no wonder that companies with a large number of employees working remotely have seen a 24% increase in breaches since the pandemic began13.
When companies’ networks are breached it causes their customers to be vulnerable, risking a huge blow to their reputation and invoking serious fines and penalties due to compliance failures. And trying to get cyber insurance to protect against financial loss has become increasingly more difficult. A recent article by the Wall Street Journal reported that cyber insurance premiums rose 92% in 2021 and the hoops companies have to jump through are much more stringent to be eligible for the coverage – things like providing cyber education and ensuring they’re taking stronger steps to protect their network and customer data14.
In addition to the direct financial impact of cyber threats, there’s also the loss of human capital. It can take up to six months and up to 200 hours of a person’s time to address and correct identity theft15. If employees are focusing on digital healing, it’s a fair bet they’re not focusing as closely on their work.
Preventative care is the first step toward Digital Wellness, and it consists of three, simple parts.
Restorative care is the second step in the Digital Wellness journey. If a digital threat sneaks through even after all the careful preventive care, it’s important to quickly remedy the situation.
Great benefits that have real meaning for employees are key to helping retain and acquire amazing talent. Providing an all-in-one and easy-to-use Digital Wellness solution designed to safeguard against compromised devices, privacy leaks, identity theft and other frustrating, time-consuming issues not only provides peace of mind for employees but also directly – and positively, impacts a company’s bottom line. Choosing a trusted cyber protection solution like McAfee for your Digital Wellness benefit will give your employees a brand they love and your company the advantage of 30+ years of experience protecting people from digital threats.
For more information on McAfee Digital Wellness, visit www.mcafee.com/employee-benefits-info or send an email to EmployeeBenefits@McAfee.com.
Footnotes –
The post McAfee’s Digital Wellness Delivers Online Protection As An Employee Benefit appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Authored by Dexter Shin
Instagram has become a platform with over a billion monthly active users. Many of Instagram’s users are looking to increase their follower numbers, as this has become a symbol of a person’s popularity. Instagram’s large user base has not gone unnoticed to cybercriminals. McAfee’s Mobile Research Team recently found new Android malware disguised in an app to increase Instagram followers.
You can easily find apps on the internet that increase the number of Instagram followers. Some of these apps require both a user account and a password. Other types of apps only need the user to input their user account. But are these apps safe to use?
Many YouTubers explain how to use these apps with tutorial videos. They log into the app with their own account and show that the number of followers is increasing. Among the many videos, the domain that appears repeatedly was identified.
The way the domain introduces is very simple.
When you run the function, you can see that the number of followers increases every few seconds.
Some Telegram channels are promoting YouTube videos with domain links to the malware.
We have also observed a video from a famous YouTuber with over 190,000 subscribers promoting a malicious app. However, in the video, we found some concerning comments with people complaining that their credentials were being stolen.
We analyzed the application that is being promoted by the domain. The hidden malware does not require many permissions and therefore does not appear to be harmful. When users launch the app, they can only see the below website via the Android Webview.
After inspecting the app, we observe the initial code does not contain many features. After showing an advertisement, it will immediately show the malicious website. Malicious activities are performed at the website’s backend rather than within the Android app.
The website says that your transactions are carried out using the Instagram API system with your username and password. It is secure because they use the user’s credentials via Instagram’s official server, not their remote server.
Contrary to many people’s expectations, we received abnormal login attempts from Turkey a few minutes after using the app. The device logged into the account was not an Instagram server but a personal device model of Huawei as LON-L29.
As shown above, they don’t use an Instagram API. In addition, as you request followers, the number of the following also increases. In other words, the credentials you provided are used to increase the number of followers of other requesters. Everyone who uses this app has a relationship with each other. Moreover, they will store and use your credentials in their database without your acknowledgement.
The languages of most communication channels were English, Portuguese, and Hindi. Especially, Hindi was the most common, and most videos had more than 100 views. In the case of a famous YouTuber’s video, they have recorded more than 2,400 views. In addition, our test account had 400 followers in one day. It means that at least 400 users have sent credentials to the malware author.
As we mentioned in the opening remarks, many Instagram users want to increase their followers and likes. Unfortunately, attackers are also aware of the desires of these users and use that to attack them.
Therefore, users who want to install these apps should consider that their credentials may be leaked. In addition, there may be secondary attacks such as credential stuffing (=use of a stolen username and password pairs on another website). Aside from the above cases, there are many unanalyzed similar apps on the Internet. You shouldn’t use suspicious apps to get followers and likes.
McAfee Mobile Security detects this threat as Android/InstaStealer and protects you from this malware. For more information, visit McAfee Mobile Security.
SHA256:
Domains:
The post Instagram credentials Stealers: Free Followers or Free Likes appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Authored by Dexter Shin
McAfee’s Mobile Research Team introduced a new Android malware targeting Instagram users who want to increase their followers or likes in the last post. As we researched more about this threat, we found another malware type that uses different technical methods to steal user’s credentials. The target is users who are not satisfied with the default functions provided by Instagram. Various Instagram modification application already exists for those users on the Internet. The new malware we found pretends to be a popular mod app and steals Instagram credentials.
Instander is one of the famous Instagram modification applications available for Android devices to help Instagram users access extra helpful features. The mod app supports uploading high-quality images and downloading posted photos and videos.
The initial screens of this malware and Instander are similar, as shown below.
Figure 1. Instander legitimate app(Left) and Mmalware(Right)
Next, this malware requests an account (username or email) and password. Finally, this malware displays an error message regardless of whether the login information is correct.
Figure 2. Malware requests account and password
The malware steals the user’s username and password in a very unique way. The main trick is to use the Firebase API. First, the user input value is combined with l@gmail.com. This value and static password(=kamalw20051) are then sent via the Firebase API, createUserWithEmailAndPassword. And next, the password process is the same. After receiving the user’s account and password input, this malware will request it twice.
Since we cannot see the dashboard of the malware author, we tested it using the same API. As a result, we checked the user input value in plain text on the dashboard.
According to the Firebase document, createUserWithEmailAndPassword API is to create a new user account associated with the specified email address and password. Because the first parameter is defined as email patterns, the malware author uses the above code to create email patterns regardless of user input values.
It is an API for creating accounts in the Firebase so that the administrator can check the account name in the Firebase dashboard. The victim’s account and password have been requested as Firebase account name, so it should be seen as plain text without hashing or masking.
As an interesting point on the network traffic of the malware, this malware communicates with the Firebase server in Protobuf format in the network. The initial configuration of this Firebase API uses the JSON format. Although the Protobuf format is readable enough, it can be assumed that this malware author intentionally attempts to obfuscate the network traffic through the additional settings. Also, the domain used for data transfer(=www.googleapis.com) is managed by Google. Because it is a domain that is too common and not dangerous, many network filtering and firewall solutions do not detect it.
As mentioned, users should always be careful about installing 3rd party apps. Aside from the types of malware we’ve introduced so far, attackers are trying to steal users’ credentials in a variety of ways. Therefore, you should employ security software on your mobile devices and always keep up to date.
Fortunately, McAfee Mobile Security is able to detect this as Android/InstaStealer and protect you from similar threats. For more information visit McAfee Mobile Security
SHA256:
The post Instagram credentials Stealer: Disguised as Mod App appeared first on McAfee Blog.
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