GodFather Android Banking Trojan Targeting Users of Over 400 Banking and Crypto Apps

An Android banking trojan known as GodFather is being used to target users of more than 400 banking and cryptocurrency apps spanning across 16 countries. This includes 215 banks, 94 crypto wallet providers, and 110 crypto exchange platforms serving users in the U.S., Turkey, Spain, Italy, Canada, and Canada, among others, Singapore-headquartered Group-IB said in a report shared with The Hacker

Ransomware Hackers Using New Way to Bypass MS Exchange ProxyNotShell Mitigations

Threat actors affiliated with a ransomware strain known as Play are leveraging a never-before-seen exploit chain that bypasses blocking rules for ProxyNotShell flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server to achieve remote code execution (RCE) through Outlook Web Access (OWA). "The new exploit method bypasses URL rewrite mitigations for the Autodiscover endpoint," CrowdStrike researchers Brian Pitchford,

Ukraine's DELTA Military System Users Under Attack from Info Stealing Malware

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) this week disclosed that users of the Delta situational awareness program received phishing emails from a compromised email account belonging to the Ministry of Defense. The attacks, which have been attributed to a threat cluster dubbed UAC-0142, aimed to infect systems with two pieces of data-stealing malware referred to as FateGrab and

Beware: Cybercriminals Launch New BrasDex Android Trojan Targeting Brazilian Banking Users

The threat actors behind the Windows banking malware known as Casbaneiro has been attributed as behind a novel Android trojan called BrasDex that has been observed targeting Brazilian users as part of an ongoing multi-platform campaign. BrasDex features a "complex keylogging system designed to abuse Accessibility Services to extract credentials specifically from a set of Brazilian targeted apps,

Russian Hackers Targeted Petroleum Refinery in NATO Country During Ukraine War

The Russia-linked Gamaredon group attempted to unsuccessfully break into a large petroleum refining company within a NATO member state earlier this year amid the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. The attack, which took place on August 30, 2022, is just one of multiple intrusions orchestrated by the advanced persistent threat (APT) that's attributed to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).

A Guide to Efficient Patch Management with Action1

It's no secret that keeping software up to date is one of the key best practices in cybersecurity. Software vulnerabilities are being discovered almost weekly these days. The longer it takes IT teams to apply updates issued by developers to patch these security flaws, the more time attackers have to exploit the underlying vulnerability. Once threat actors gain access to corporate IT ecosystems,

KmsdBot Botnet Suspected of Being Used as DDoS-for-Hire Service

An ongoing analysis of the KmsdBot botnet has raised the possibility that it's a DDoS-for-hire service offered to other threat actors. This is based on the different industries and geographies that were attacked, web infrastructure company Akamai said. Among the notable targets included FiveM and RedM, which are game modifications for Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2, as well as

FTC Fines Fortnite Maker Epic Games $275 Million for Violating Children's Privacy Law

Epic Games has reached a $520 million settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations that the Fortnite creator violated online privacy laws for children and tricked users into making unintended purchases in the video game. To that end, the company will pay a record $275 million monetary penalty for breaching the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by

Microsoft Details Gatekeeper Bypass Vulnerability in Apple macOS Systems

Microsoft has disclosed details of a now-patched security flaw in Apple macOS that could be exploited by an attacker to get around security protections imposed to prevent the execution of malicious applications. The shortcoming, dubbed Achilles (CVE-2022-42821, CVSS score: 5.5), was addressed by the iPhone maker in macOS Ventura 13, Monterey 12.6.2, and Big Sur 11.7.2, describing it as a logic

Researchers Discover Malicious PyPI Package Posing as SentinelOne SDK to Steal Data

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new malicious package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that impersonates a software development kit (SDK) for SentinelOne, a major cybersecurity company, as part of a campaign dubbed SentinelSneak. The package, named SentinelOne and now taken down, is said to have been published between December 8 and 11, 2022, with nearly two dozen

Glupteba Botnet Continues to Thrive Despite Google's Attempts to Disrupt It

The operators of the Glupteba botnet resurfaced in June 2022 as part of a renewed and "upscaled" campaign, months after Google disrupted the malicious activity. The ongoing attack is suggestive of the malware's resilience in the face of takedowns, cybersecurity company Nozomi Networks said in a write-up. "In addition, there was a tenfold increase in TOR hidden services being used as C2 servers

Cybercrime (and Security) Predictions for 2023

Threat actors continue to adapt to the latest technologies, practices, and even data privacy laws—and it's up to organizations to stay one step ahead by implementing strong cybersecurity measures and programs.  Here's a look at how cybercrime will evolve in 2023 and what you can do to secure and protect your organization in the year ahead.  Increase in digital supply chain attacks  With the

New Agenda Ransomware Variant, Written in Rust, Aiming at Critical Infrastructure

A Rust variant of a ransomware strain known as Agenda has been observed in the wild, making it the latest malware to adopt the cross-platform programming language after BlackCat, Hive, Luna, and RansomExx. Agenda, attributed to an operator named Qilin, is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group that has been linked to a spate of attacks primarily targeting manufacturing and IT industries across

Facebook Cracks Down on Spyware Vendors from U.S., China, Russia, Israel, and India

Meta Platforms disclosed that it took down no less than 200 covert influence operations since 2017 spanning roughly 70 countries across 42 languages. The social media conglomerate also took steps to disable accounts and block infrastructure operated by spyware vendors, including in China, Russia, Israel, the U.S. and India, that targeted individuals in about 200 countries. "The global

Google Takes Gmail Security to the Next Level with Client-Side Encryption

Google on Friday announced that its client-side encryption for Gmail is in beta for Workspace and education customers as part of its efforts to secure emails sent using the web version of the platform. The development comes at a time when concerns about online privacy and data security are at an all-time high, making it a welcome change for users who value the protection of their personal data.

Samba Issues Security Updates to Patch Multiple High-Severity Vulnerabilities

Samba has released software updates to remediate multiple vulnerabilities that, if successfully exploited, could allow an attacker to take control of affected systems. The high-severity flaws, tracked as CVE-2022-38023, CVE-2022-37966, CVE-2022-37967, and CVE-2022-45141, have been patched in versions 4.17.4, 4.16.8 and 4.15.13 released on December 15, 2022. Samba is an open source Windows

Trojanized Windows 10 Installer Used in Cyberattacks Against Ukrainian Government Entities

Government entities in Ukraine have been breached as part of a new campaign that leveraged trojanized versions of Windows 10 installer files to conduct post-exploitation activities. Mandiant, which discovered the "socially engineered supply chain" attack around mid-July 2022, said the malicious ISO files were distributed via Ukrainian- and Russian-language Torrent websites. It's tracking the

Ex-Twitter employee Gets 3.5 Years Jail for Spying on Behalf of Saudi Arabia

A former Twitter employee who was found guilty of spying on behalf of Saudi Arabia by sharing data pertaining to specific individuals has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. Ahmad Abouammo, 45, was convicted earlier this August on various criminal counts, including money laundering, fraud, falsifying records, and being an illegal agent of a foreign government. Abouammo was

Cyber Security Is Not a Losing Game – If You Start Right Now

Reality has a way of asserting itself, irrespective of any personal or commercial choices we make, good or bad. For example, just recently, the city services of Antwerp in Belgium were the victim of a highly disruptive cyberattack.  As usual, everyone cried "foul play" and suggested that proper cybersecurity measures should have been in place. And again, as usual, it all happens a bit too late.

GitHub Announces Free Secret Scanning for All Public Repositories

GitHub on Thursday said it is making available its secret scanning service to all public repositories on the code hosting platform for free. "Secret scanning alerts notify you directly about leaked secrets in your code," the company said, adding it's expected to complete the rollout by the end of January 2023.  Secret scanning is designed to examine repositories for access tokens, private keys,

Goodbye SHA-1: NIST Retires 27-Year-Old Widely Used Cryptographic Algorithm

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency within the Department of Commerce, announced Thursday that it's formally retiring the SHA-1 cryptographic algorithm. SHA-1, short for Secure Hash Algorithm 1, is a 27-year-old hash function used in cryptography and has since been deemed broken owing to the risk of collision attacks. While hashes are designed to be

Minecraft Servers Under Attack: Microsoft Warns About Cross-Platform DDoS Botnet

Microsoft on Thursday flagged a cross-platform botnet that's primarily designed to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against private Minecraft servers. Called MCCrash, the botnet is characterized by a unique spreading mechanism that allows it to propagate to Linux-based devices despite originating from malicious software downloads on Windows hosts. "The botnet spreads by

Researchers Uncover MirrorFace Cyber Attacks Targeting Japanese Political Entities

A Chinese-speaking advanced persistent threat (APT) actor codenamed MirrorFace has been attributed to a spear-phishing campaign targeting Japanese political establishments. The activity, dubbed Operation LiberalFace by ESET, specifically focused on members of an unnamed political party in the nation with the goal of delivering an implant called LODEINFO and a hitherto unseen credential stealer

Microsoft Reclassifies SPNEGO Extended Negotiation Security Vulnerability as 'Critical'

Microsoft has revised the severity of a security vulnerability it originally patched in September 2022, upgrading it to "Critical" after it emerged that it could be exploited to achieve remote code execution. Tracked as CVE-2022-37958 (CVSS score: 8.1), the flaw was previously described as an information disclosure vulnerability in SPNEGO Extended Negotiation (NEGOEX) Security Mechanism. SPNEGO,

CISA Alert: Veeam Backup and Replication Vulnerabilities Being Exploited in Attacks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added two vulnerabilities impacting Veeam Backup & Replication software to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation in the wild. The now-patched critical flaws, tracked as CVE-2022-26500 and CVE-2022-26501, are both rated 9.8 on the CVSS scoring system, and could be leveraged to

Android Malware Campaign Leverages Money-Lending Apps to Blackmail Victims

A previously undocumented Android malware campaign has been observed leveraging money-lending apps to blackmail victims into paying up with personal information stolen from their devices. Mobile security company Zimperium dubbed the activity MoneyMonger, pointing out the use of the cross-platform Flutter framework to develop the apps. MoneyMonger "takes advantage of Flutter's framework to

Top 5 Web App Vulnerabilities and How to Find Them

Web applications, often in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS), are now the cornerstone for businesses all over the world. SaaS solutions have revolutionized the way they operate and deliver services, and are essential tools in nearly every industry, from finance and banking to healthcare and education.  Most startup CTOs have an excellent understanding of how to build highly functional

Hackers Bombard Open Source Repositories with Over 144,000 Malicious Packages

NuGet, PyPi, and npm ecosystems are the target of a new campaign that has resulted in over 144,000 packages being published by unknown threat actors. "The packages were part of a new attack vector, with attackers spamming the open source ecosystem with packages containing links to phishing campaigns," researchers from Checkmarx and Illustria said in a report published Wednesday. Of the 144,294

FBI Charges 6, Seizes 48 Domains Linked to DDoS-for-Hire Service Platforms

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Wednesday announced the seizure of 48 domains that offered services to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on behalf of other threat actors, effectively lowering the barrier to entry for malicious activity. It also charged six suspects – Jeremiah Sam Evans Miller (23), Angel Manuel Colon Jr. (37), Shamar Shattock (19), Cory Anthony Palmer

Hacking Using SVG Files to Smuggle QBot Malware onto Windows Systems

Phishing campaigns involving the Qakbot malware are using Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) images embedded in HTML email attachments. The new distribution method was spotted by Cisco Talos, which said it identified fraudulent email messages featuring HTML attachments with encoded SVG images that incorporate HTML script tags. HTML smuggling is a technique that relies on using legitimate features of

New GoTrim Botnet Attempting to Break into WordPress Sites' Admin Accounts

A new Go-based botnet has been spotted scanning and brute-forcing self-hosted websites using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to seize control of targeted systems. "This new brute forcer is part of a new campaign we have named GoTrim because it was written in Go and uses ':::trim:::' to split data communicated to and from the C2 server," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researchers Eduardo

Ransomware Attackers Use Microsoft-Signed Drivers to Gain Access to Systems

Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed it took steps to implement blocking protections and suspend accounts that were used to publish malicious drivers that were certified by its Windows Hardware Developer Program. The tech giant said its investigation revealed the activity was restricted to a number of developer program accounts and that no further compromise was detected. Cryptographically signing

Why PCI DSS 4.0 Should Be on Your Radar in 2023

Protecting customer data is critical for any business accepting online payment information. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), created by leading credit card companies, establishes best practices for protecting consumers' information. By adhering to these standards, businesses can ensure that their customer's personal and financial information is secure.  The PCI DSS

December 2022 Patch Tuesday: Get Latest Security Updates from Microsoft and More

Tech giant Microsoft released its last set of monthly security updates for 2022 with fixes for 49 vulnerabilities across its software products. Of the 49 bugs, six are rated Critical, 40 are rated Important, and three are rated Moderate in severity. The updates are in addition to 24 vulnerabilities that have been addressed in the Chromium-based Edge browser since the start of the month.

Hackers Actively Exploiting Citrix ADC and Gateway Zero-Day Vulnerability

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) on Tuesday said a threat actor tracked as APT5 has been actively exploiting a zero-day flaw in Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Gateway to take over affected systems. The critical remote code execution vulnerability, identified as CVE-2022-27518, could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute commands remotely on vulnerable devices and

New Actively Exploited Zero-Day Vulnerability Discovered in Apple Products

Apple on Tuesday rolled out security updates to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and Safari web browser to address a new zero-day vulnerability that could result in the execution of malicious code. Tracked as CVE-2022-42856, the issue has been described by the tech giant as a type confusion issue in the WebKit browser engine that could be triggered when processing specially crafted content, leading to

Google Launches OSV-Scanner Tool to Identify Open Source Vulnerabilities

Google on Tuesday announced the open source availability of OSV-Scanner, a scanner that aims to offer easy access to vulnerability information about various projects. The Go-based tool, powered by the Open Source Vulnerabilities (OSV) database, is designed to connect "a project's list of dependencies with the vulnerabilities that affect them," Google software engineer Rex Pan in a post shared

Serious Attacks Could Have Been Staged Through This Amazon ECR Public Gallery Vulnerability

A critical security flaw has been disclosed in Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) Public Gallery that could have been potentially exploited to stage a multitude of attacks, according to cloud security firm Lightspin. "By exploiting this vulnerability, a malicious actor could delete all images in the Amazon ECR Public Gallery or update the image contents to inject malicious code," Gafnit

Cybersecurity Experts Uncover Inner Workings of Destructive Azov Ransomware

Cybersecurity researchers have published the inner workings of a new wiper called Azov Ransomware that's deliberately designed to corrupt data and "inflict impeccable damage" to compromised systems. Distributed through another malware loader known as SmokeLoader, the malware has been described as an "effective, fast, and unfortunately unrecoverable data wiper," by Israeli cybersecurity company

Malware Strains Targeting Python and JavaScript Developers Through Official Repositories

An active malware campaign is targeting the Python Package Index (PyPI) and npm repositories for Python and JavaScript with typosquatted and fake modules that deploy a ransomware strain, marking the latest security issue to affect software supply chains. The typosquatted Python packages all impersonate the popular requests library: dequests, fequests, gequests, rdquests, reauests, reduests,

Fortinet Warns of Active Exploitation of New SSL-VPN Pre-auth RCE Vulnerability

Fortinet on Monday issued emergency patches for a severe security flaw affecting its FortiOS SSL-VPN product that it said is being actively exploited in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2022-42475 (CVSS score: 9.3), the critical bug relates to a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code via specially crafted requests. The company said

Researchers Demonstrate How EDR and Antivirus Can Be Weaponized Against Users

High-severity security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in different endpoint detection and response (EDR) and antivirus (AV) products that could be exploited to turn them into data wipers. "This wiper runs with the permissions of an unprivileged user yet has the ability to wipe almost any file on a system, including system files, and make a computer completely unbootable," SafeBreach Labs

Top 4 SaaS Security Threats for 2023

With 2022 coming to a close, there is no better time to buckle down and prepare to face the security challenges in the year to come. This past year has seen its fair share of breaches, attacks, and leaks, forcing organizations to scramble to protect their SaaS stacks. March alone saw three different breaches from Microsoft, Hubspot, and Okta.  With SaaS sprawl ever growing and becoming more

Google Adds Passkey Support to Chrome for Windows, macOS and Android

Google has officially begun rolling out support for passkeys, the next-generation passwordless login standard, to its stable version of Chrome web browser. "Passkeys are a significantly safer replacement for passwords and other phishable authentication factors," the tech giant's Ali Sarraf said. "They cannot be reused, don't leak in server breaches, and protect users from phishing attacks." The

Cryptocurrency Mining Campaign Hits Linux Users with Go-based CHAOS Malware

A cryptocurrency mining attack targeting the Linux operating system also involved the use of an open source remote access trojan (RAT) dubbed CHAOS. The threat, which was spotted by Trend Micro in November 2022, remains virtually unchanged in all other aspects, including when it comes to terminating competing malware, security software, and deploying the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency miner. "The

Keep Your Grinch at Bay: Here's How to Stay Safe Online this Holiday Season

As the holiday season approaches, online shopping and gift-giving are at the top of many people's to-do lists. But before you hit the "buy" button, it's important to remember that this time of year is also the peak season for cybercriminals. In fact, cybercriminals often ramp up their efforts during the holidays, taking advantage of the influx of online shoppers and the general hustle and bustle

Royal Ransomware Threat Takes Aim at U.S. Healthcare System

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has cautioned of ongoing Royal ransomware attacks targeting healthcare entities in the country. "While most of the known ransomware operators have performed Ransomware-as-a-Service, Royal appears to be a private group without any affiliates while maintaining financial motivation as their goal," the agency's Health Sector Cybersecurity

Hack-for-Hire Group Targets Travel and Financial Entities with New Janicab Malware Variant

Travel agencies have emerged as the target of a hack-for-hire group dubbed Evilnum as part of a broader campaign aimed at legal and financial investment institutions in the Middle East and Europe. The attacks, which took place during 2020 and 2021 and likely went as far back as 2015, involved a revamped variant of a malware called Janicab that leverages a number of public services like WordPress

Researchers Detail New Attack Method to Bypass Popular Web Application Firewalls

A new attack method can be used to circumvent web application firewalls (WAFs) of various vendors and infiltrate systems, potentially enabling attackers to gain access to sensitive business and customer information. Web application firewalls are a key line of defense to help filter, monitor, and block HTTP(S) traffic to and from a web application, and safeguard against attacks such as cross-site

Cisco Warns of High-Severity Unpatched Flaw Affecting IP Phones Firmware

Cisco has released a new security advisory warning of a high-severity flaw affecting IP Phone 7800 and 8800 Series firmware that could be potentially exploited by an unauthenticated attacker to cause remote code execution or a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. The networking equipment major said it's working on a patch to address the vulnerability, which is tracked as CVE-2022-20968 (CVSS score

Using XDR to Consolidate and Optimize Cybersecurity Technology

Businesses know they need cybersecurity, but it seems like a new acronym and system is popping up every day. Professionals that aren’t actively researching these technologies can struggle to keep up. As the cybersecurity landscape becomes more complicated, organizations are desperate to simplify it. Frustrated with the inefficiencies that come with using multiple vendors for cybersecurity, often

New TrueBot Malware Variant Leveraging Netwrix Auditor Bug and Raspberry Robin Worm

Cybersecurity researchers have reported an increase in TrueBot infections, primarily targeting Mexico, Brazil, Pakistan, and the U.S. Cisco Talos said the attackers behind the operation have moved from using malicious emails to alternative delivery methods such as the exploitation of a now-patched remote code execution (RCE) flaw in Netwrix auditor as well as the Raspberry Robin worm. "

Why is Robust API Security Crucial in eCommerce?

API attacks are on the rise. One of their major targets is eCommerce firms like yours.  APIs are a vital part of how eCommerce businesses are accelerating their growth in the digital world.  ECommerce platforms use APIs at all customer touchpoints, from displaying products to handling shipping. Owing to their increased use, APIs are attractive targets for hackers, as the following numbers expose

Researchers Uncover New Drokbk Malware that Uses GitHub as a Dead Drop Resolver

The subgroup of an Iranian nation-state group known as Nemesis Kitten has been attributed as behind a previously undocumented custom malware dubbed Drokbk that uses GitHub as a dead drop resolver to exfiltrate data from an infected computer, or to receive commands. "The use of GitHub as a virtual dead drop helps the malware blend in," Secureworks principal researcher Rafe Pilling said. "All the

What Stricter Data Privacy Laws Mean for Your Cybersecurity Policies

For today's businesses data privacy is already a big headache, and with modern privacy laws expanding to more of the world's population, regulatory compliance is on track to become a more complicated, high-stakes process touching on every aspect of an organization. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2024, 75% of the Global Population will have its personal data covered under privacy regulations.

MuddyWater Hackers Target Asian and Middle East Countries with Updated Tactics

The Iran-linked MuddyWater threat actor has been observed targeting several countries in the Middle East as well as Central and West Asia as part of a new spear-phishing activity. "The campaign has been observed targeting Armenia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Tajikistan, and the United Arab Emirates," Deep Instinct researcher Simon Kenin said in a technical write-up.

Researchers Uncover Darknet Service Allowing Hackers to Trojanize Legit Android Apps

Researchers have shed light on a new hybrid malware campaign targeting both Android and Windows operating systems in a bid to expand its pool of victims. The attacks entail the use of different malware such as ERMAC, Erbium, Aurora, and Laplas, according to a ThreatFabric report shared with The Hacker News. "This campaign resulted in thousands of victims," the Dutch cybersecurity company said,

COVID-bit: New COVert Channel to Exfiltrate Data from Air-Gapped Computers

An unconventional data exfiltration method leverages a previously undocumented covert channel to leak sensitive information from air-gapped systems. "The information emanates from the air-gapped computer over the air to a distance of 2 m and more and can be picked up by a nearby insider or spy with a mobile phone or laptop," Dr. Mordechai Guri, the head of R&D in the Cyber Security Research

Apple Boosts Security With New iMessage, Apple ID, and iCloud Protections

Apple on Wednesday announced a raft of security measures, including an Advanced Data Protection setting that enables end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) data backups in its iCloud service. The headlining feature, when turned on, is expected to secure 23 data categories using E2EE, including device and message backups, iCloud Drive, Notes, Photos, Reminders, Voice Memos, Safari Bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts,

Best Year-End Cybersecurity Deals from Uptycs, SANS Institute, and Bitdefender

Looking to up your cybersecurity game in the new year? Do not just buy electronics this vacation season, improve your cybersecurity! The end of the year is a great time to re-evaluate your cybersecurity strategy and make some important investments in protecting your personal and professional data. Cyber threats are constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated, so it's important to stay on