Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange Falls Victim to JokerSpy macOS Backdoor Attack

An unknown cryptocurrency exchange located in Japan was the target of a new attack earlier this month to deploy an Apple macOS backdoor called JokerSpy. Elastic Security Labs, which is monitoring the intrusion set under the name REF9134, said the attack led to the installation of Swiftbelt, a Swift-based enumeration tool inspired by an open-source utility called SeatBelt. JokerSky was first

Twitter Hacker Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for $120,000 Crypto Scam

A U.K. citizen who took part in the massive July 2020 hack of Twitter has been sentenced to five years in prison in the U.S. Joseph James O'Connor (aka PlugwalkJoe), 24, was awarded the sentence on Friday in the Southern District of New York, a little over a month after he pleaded guilty to the criminal schemes. He was arrested in Spain in July 2021. The infamous Twitter breach allowed the

Cybercrime Group 'Muddled Libra' Targets BPO Sector with Advanced Social Engineering

A threat actor known as Muddled Libra is targeting the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry with persistent attacks that leverage advanced social engineering ploys to gain initial access. "The attack style defining Muddled Libra appeared on the cybersecurity radar in late 2022 with the release of the 0ktapus phishing kit, which offered a prebuilt hosting framework and bundled templates,"

New Cryptocurrency Mining Campaign Targets Linux Systems and IoT Devices

Internet-facing Linux systems and Internet of Things (IoT) devices are being targeted as part of a new campaign designed to illicitly mine cryptocurrency. "The threat actors behind the attack use a backdoor that deploys a wide array of tools and components such as rootkits and an IRC bot to steal device resources for mining operations," Microsoft threat intelligence researcher Rotem Sde-Or said.

Critical 'nOAuth' Flaw in Microsoft Azure AD Enabled Complete Account Takeover

A security shortcoming in Microsoft Azure Active Directory (AD) Open Authorization (OAuth) process could have been exploited to achieve full account takeover, researchers said. California-based identity and access management service Descope, which discovered and reported the issue in April 2023, dubbed it nOAuth. "nOAuth is an authentication implementation flaw that can affect Microsoft Azure AD

Zyxel Releases Urgent Security Updates for Critical Vulnerability in NAS Devices

Zyxel has rolled out security updates to address a critical security flaw in its network-attached storage (NAS) devices that could result in the execution of arbitrary commands on affected systems. Tracked as CVE-2023-27992 (CVSS score: 9.8), the issue has been described as a pre-authentication command injection vulnerability. "The pre-authentication command injection vulnerability in some Zyxel

Over 100,000 Stolen ChatGPT Account Credentials Sold on Dark Web Marketplaces

Over 101,100 compromised OpenAI ChatGPT account credentials have found their way on illicit dark web marketplaces between June 2022 and May 2023, with India alone accounting for 12,632 stolen credentials. The credentials were discovered within information stealer logs made available for sale on the cybercrime underground, Group-IB said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The number of

Rogue Android Apps Target Pakistani Individuals in Sophisticated Espionage Campaign

Individuals in the Pakistan region have been targeted using two rogue Android apps available on the Google Play Store as part of a new targeted campaign. Cybersecurity firm Cyfirma attributed the campaign with moderate confidence to a threat actor known as DoNot Team, which is also tracked as APT-C-35 and Viceroy Tiger. The espionage activity involves duping Android smartphone owners into

Researchers Discover New Sophisticated Toolkit Targeting Apple macOS Systems

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a set of malicious artifacts that they say is part of a sophisticated toolkit targeting Apple macOS systems. "As of now, these samples are still largely undetected and very little information is available about any of them," Bitdefender researchers Andrei Lapusneanu and Bogdan Botezatu said in a preliminary report published on Friday. The Romanian firm's

State-Backed Hackers Employ Advanced Methods to Target Middle Eastern and African Governments

Governmental entities in the Middle East and Africa have been at the receiving end of sustained cyber-espionage attacks that leverage never-before-seen and rare credential theft and Exchange email exfiltration techniques. "The main goal of the attacks was to obtain highly confidential and sensitive information, specifically related to politicians, military activities, and ministries of foreign

Beware: New DoubleFinger Loader Targets Cryptocurrency Wallets with Stealer

A novel multi-stage loader called DoubleFinger has been observed delivering a cryptocurrency stealer dubbed GreetingGhoul in what's an advanced attack targeting users in Europe, the U.S., and Latin America. "DoubleFinger is deployed on the target machine, when the victim opens a malicious PIF attachment in an email message, ultimately executing the first of DoubleFinger's loader stages,"

Two Russian Nationals Charged for Masterminding Mt. Gox Crypto Exchange Hack

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged two Russian nationals in connection with masterminding the 2014 digital heist of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox. According to unsealed indictments released last week, Alexey Bilyuchenko, 43, and Aleksandr Verner, 29, have been accused of conspiring to launder approximately 647,000 bitcoins stolen from September 2011 through at

Beware: 1,000+ Fake Cryptocurrency Sites Trap Users in Bogus Rewards Scheme

A previously undetected cryptocurrency scam has leveraged a constellation of over 1,000 fraudulent websites to ensnare users into a bogus rewards scheme since at least January 2021. "This massive campaign has likely resulted in thousands of people being scammed worldwide," Trend Micro researchers said in a report published last week, linking it to a Russian-speaking threat actor named "Impulse

New Malware Campaign Leveraging Satacom Downloader to Steal Cryptocurrency

A recent malware campaign has been found to leverage Satacom downloader as a conduit to deploy stealthy malware capable of siphoning cryptocurrency using a rogue extension for Chromium-based browsers. "The main purpose of the malware that is dropped by the Satacom downloader is to steal BTC from the victim's account by performing web injections into targeted cryptocurrency websites," Kaspersky

Malicious PyPI Packages Using Compiled Python Code to Bypass Detection

Researchers have discovered a novel attack on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that employs compiled Python code to sidestep detection by application security tools. "It may be the first supply chain attack to take advantage of the fact that Python bytecode (PYC) files can be directly executed," ReversingLabs analyst Karlo Zanki said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The package

Cybercriminals Targeting Apache NiFi Instances for Cryptocurrency Mining

A financially motivated threat actor is actively scouring the internet for unprotected Apache NiFi instances to covertly install a cryptocurrency miner and facilitate lateral movement. The findings come from the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC), which detected a spike in HTTP requests for “/nifi” on May 19, 2023. “Persistence is achieved via timed processors or entries to cron,” said Dr.

6 Steps to Effectively Threat Hunting: Safeguard Critical Assets and Fight Cybercrime

Finding threat actors before they find you is key to beefing up your cyber defenses. How to do that efficiently and effectively is no small task – but with a small investment of time, you can master threat hunting and save your organization millions of dollars. Consider this staggering statistic. Cybersecurity Ventures estimates that cybercrime will take a $10.5 trillion toll on the global

AceCryptor: Cybercriminals' Powerful Weapon, Detected in 240K+ Attacks

A crypter (alternatively spelled cryptor) malware dubbed AceCryptor has been used to pack numerous strains of malware since 2016. Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET said it identified over 240,000 detections of the crypter in its telemetry in 2021 and 2022. This amounts to more than 10,000 hits per month. Some of the prominent malware families contained within AceCryptor are SmokeLoader, RedLine

PyPI Implements Mandatory Two-Factor Authentication for Project Owners

The Python Package Index (PyPI) announced last week that every account that maintains a project on the official third-party software repository will be required to turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) by the end of the year. "Between now and the end of the year, PyPI will begin gating access to certain site functionality based on 2FA usage," PyPI administrator Donald Stufft said. "In addition

New Stealthy Bandit Stealer Targeting Web Browsers and Cryptocurrency Wallets

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 Friday report

Indonesian Cybercriminals Exploit AWS for Profitable Crypto Mining Operations

A financially motivated threat actor of Indonesian origin has been observed leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances to carry out illicit crypto mining operations. Cloud security company's Permiso P0 Labs, which first detected the group in November 2021, has assigned it the moniker GUI-vil (pronounced Goo-ee-vil). "The group displays a preference for Graphical

Dr. Active Directory vs. Mr. Exposed Attack Surface: Who'll Win This Fight?

Active Directory (AD) is among the oldest pieces of software still used in the production environment and can be found in most organizations today. This is despite the fact that its historical security gaps have never been amended. For example, because of its inability to apply any security measures beyond checking for a password and username match, AD (as well the resources it manages) is

8220 Gang Exploiting Oracle WebLogic Flaw to Hijack Servers and Mine Cryptocurrency

The notorious cryptojacking group tracked as 8220 Gang has been spotted weaponizing a six-year-old security flaw in Oracle WebLogic servers to ensnare vulnerable instances into a botnet and distribute cryptocurrency mining malware. The flaw in question is CVE-2017-3506 (CVSS score: 7.4), which, when successfully exploited, could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary commands

Apple Thwarts $2 Billion in App Store Fraud, Rejects 1.7 Million App Submissions

Apple has announced that it prevented over $2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions and rejected roughly 1.7 million app submissions for privacy and security violations in 2022. The computing giant said it terminated 428,000 developer accounts for potential fraudulent activity, blocked 105,000 fake developer account creations, and deactivated 282 million bogus customer accounts. It

Industrial Cellular Routers at Risk: 11 New Vulnerabilities Expose OT Networks

Several security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in cloud management platforms associated with three industrial cellular router vendors that could expose operational technology (OT) networks to external attacks. The findings were presented by Israeli industrial cybersecurity firm OTORIO at the Black Hat Asia 2023 conference last week. "Industrial cellular routers and gateways are essential

CLR SqlShell Malware Targets MS SQL Servers for Crypto Mining and Ransomware

Poorly managed Microsoft SQL (MS SQL) servers are the target of a new campaign that's designed to propagate a category of malware called CLR SqlShell that ultimately facilitates the deployment of cryptocurrency miners and ransomware. "Similar to web shell, which can be installed on web servers, SqlShell is a malware strain that supports various features after being installed on an MS SQL server,

New Flaw in WordPress Plugin Used by Over a Million Sites Under Active Exploitation

A security vulnerability has been disclosed in the popular WordPress plugin Essential Addons for Elementor that could be potentially exploited to achieve elevated privileges on affected sites. The issue, tracked as CVE-2023-32243, has been addressed by the plugin maintainers in version 5.7.2 that was shipped on May 11, 2023. Essential Addons for Elementor has over one million active

Twitter Finally Rolling Out Encrypted Direct Messages — Starting with Verified Users

Twitter is officially beginning to roll out support for encrypted direct messages (DMs) on the platform, more than five months after its chief executive Elon Musk confirmed plans for the feature in November 2022. The "Phase 1" of the initiative will appear as separate conversations alongside existing direct messages on users' inboxes. Encrypted chats carry a lock icon badge to visually

Why Honeytokens Are the Future of Intrusion Detection

A few weeks ago, the 32nd edition of RSA, one of the world's largest cybersecurity conferences, wrapped up in San Francisco. Among the highlights, Kevin Mandia, CEO of Mandiant at Google Cloud, presented a retrospective on the state of cybersecurity. During his keynote, Mandia stated: "There are clear steps organizations can take beyond common safeguards and security tools to strengthen their

How to Set Up a Threat Hunting and Threat Intelligence Program

Threat hunting is an essential component of your cybersecurity strategy. Whether you're getting started or in an advanced state, this article will help you ramp up your threat intelligence program. What is Threat Hunting? The cybersecurity industry is shifting from a reactive to a proactive approach. Instead of waiting for cybersecurity alerts and then addressing them, security organizations are

New Android Malware 'FluHorse' Targeting East Asian Markets with Deceptive Tactics

Various sectors in East Asian markets have been subjected to a new email phishing campaign that distributes a previously undocumented strain of Android malware called FluHorse that abuses the Flutter software development framework. "The malware features several malicious Android applications that mimic legitimate applications, most of which have more than 1,000,000 installs," Check Point said in

Fleckpe Android Malware Sneaks onto Google Play Store with Over 620,000 Downloads

A new Android subscription malware named Fleckpe has been unearthed on the Google Play Store, amassing more than 620,000 downloads in total since 2022. Kaspersky, which identified 11 apps on the official app storefront, said the malware masqueraded as legitimate photo editing apps, camera, and smartphone wallpaper packs. The apps have since been taken down. The operation primarily targets users

Apple and Google Join Forces to Stop Unauthorized Location-Tracking Devices

Apple and Google have teamed up to work on a draft industry-wide specification that's designed to tackle safety risks and alert users when they are being tracked without their knowledge or permission using devices like AirTags. "The first-of-its-kind specification will allow Bluetooth location-tracking devices to be compatible with unauthorized tracking detection and alerts across Android and

Researchers Uncover New BGP Flaws in Popular Internet Routing Protocol Software

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered weaknesses in a software implementation of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) that could be weaponized to achieve a denial-of-service (DoS) condition on vulnerable BGP peers. The three vulnerabilities reside in version 8.4 of FRRouting, a popular open source internet routing protocol suite for Linux and Unix platforms. It's currently used by several

Wanted Dead or Alive: Real-Time Protection Against Lateral Movement

Just a few short years ago, lateral movement was a tactic confined to top APT cybercrime organizations and nation-state operators. Today, however, it has become a commoditized tool, well within the skillset of any ransomware threat actor. This makes real-time detection and prevention of lateral movement a necessity to organizations of all sizes and across all industries. But the disturbing truth

New Atomic macOS Malware Steals Keychain Passwords and Crypto Wallets

Threat actors are advertising a new information stealer for the Apple macOS operating system called Atomic macOS Stealer (or AMOS) on Telegram for $1,000 per month, joining the likes of MacStealer. "The Atomic macOS Stealer can steal various types of information from the victim's machine, including Keychain passwords, complete system information, files from the desktop and documents folder, and

LimeRAT Malware Analysis: Extracting the Config

Remote Access Trojans (RATs) have taken the third leading position in ANY. RUN's Q1 2023 report on the most prevalent malware types, making it highly probable that your organization may face this threat. Though LimeRAT might not be the most well-known RAT family, its versatility is what sets it apart. Capable of carrying out a broad spectrum of malicious activities, it excels not only in data

Chinese Hackers Spotted Using Linux Variant of PingPull in Targeted Cyberattacks

The Chinese nation-state group dubbed Alloy Taurus is using a Linux variant of a backdoor called PingPull as well as a new undocumented tool codenamed Sword2033. That's according to findings from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, which discovered recent malicious cyber activity carried out by the group targeting South Africa and Nepal. Alloy Taurus is the constellation-themed moniker assigned to a

Google Authenticator App Gets Cloud Backup Feature for TOTP Codes

Search giant Google on Monday unveiled a major update to its 12-year-old Authenticator app for Android and iOS with an account synchronization option that allows users to back up their time-based one-time passwords (TOTPs) to the cloud. "This change means users are better protected from lockout and that services can rely on users retaining access, increasing both convenience and security,"

Kubernetes RBAC Exploited in Large-Scale Campaign for Cryptocurrency Mining

A large-scale attack campaign discovered in the wild has been exploiting Kubernetes (K8s) Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to create backdoors and run cryptocurrency miners. "The attackers also deployed DaemonSets to take over and hijack resources of the K8s clusters they attack," cloud security firm Aqua said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The Israeli company, which dubbed the attack 

Israeli Spyware Vendor QuaDream to Shut Down Following Citizen Lab and Microsoft Expose

Israeli spyware vendor QuaDream is allegedly shutting down its operations in the coming days, less than a week after its hacking toolset was exposed by Citizen Lab and Microsoft. The development was reported by the Israeli business newspaper Calcalist, citing unnamed sources, adding the company "hasn't been fully active for a while" and that it "has been in a difficult situation for several

Russia-Linked Hackers Launches Espionage Attacks on Foreign Diplomatic Entities

The Russia-linked APT29 (aka Cozy Bear) threat actor has been attributed to an ongoing cyber espionage campaign targeting foreign ministries and diplomatic entities located in NATO member states, the European Union, and Africa. According to Poland's Military Counterintelligence Service and the CERT Polska team, the observed activity shares tactical overlaps with a cluster tracked by Microsoft as

New Python-Based "Legion" Hacking Tool Emerges on Telegram

An emerging Python-based credential harvester and a hacking tool named Legion is being marketed via Telegram as a way for threat actors to break into various online services for further exploitation. Legion, according to Cado Labs, includes modules to enumerate vulnerable SMTP servers, conduct remote code execution (RCE) attacks, exploit unpatched versions of Apache, and brute-force cPanel and

Cybercriminals Turn to Android Loaders on Dark Web to Evade Google Play Security

Malicious loader programs capable of trojanizing Android applications are being traded on the criminal underground for up to $20,000 as a way to evade Google Play Store defenses. "The most popular application categories to hide malware and unwanted software include cryptocurrency trackers, financial apps, QR-code scanners, and even dating apps," Kaspersky said in a new report based on messages

Cryptocurrency Stealer Malware Distributed via 13 NuGet Packages

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed the inner workings of the cryptocurrency stealer malware that was distributed via 13 malicious NuGet packages as part of a supply chain attack targeting .NET developers. The sophisticated typosquatting campaign, which was uncovered by JFrog late last month, impersonated legitimate packages to execute PowerShell code designed to retrieve a follow-on binary

Supply Chain Attacks and Critical Infrastructure: How CISA Helps Secure a Nation's Crown Jewels

Critical infrastructure attacks are a preferred target for cyber criminals. Here's why and what's being done to protect them. What is Critical Infrastructure and Why is It Attacked? Critical infrastructure is the physical and digital assets, systems and networks that are vital to national security, the economy, public health, or safety. It can be government- or privately-owned. According to Etay

New Rilide Malware Targeting Chromium-Based Browsers to Steal Cryptocurrency

Chromium-based web browsers are the target of a new malware called Rilide that masquerades itself as a seemingly legitimate extension to harvest sensitive data and siphon cryptocurrency. "Rilide malware is disguised as a legitimate Google Drive extension and enables threat actors to carry out a broad spectrum of malicious activities, including monitoring browsing history, taking screenshots, and

Cryptocurrency Companies Targeted in Sophisticated 3CX Supply Chain Attack

The adversary behind the supply chain attack targeting 3CX deployed a second-stage implant specifically singling out a small number of cryptocurrency companies. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which has been internally tracking the versatile backdoor under the name Gopuram since 2020, said it observed an increase in the number of infections in March 2023 coinciding with the 3CX breach.

Microsoft Fixes New Azure AD Vulnerability Impacting Bing Search and Major Apps

Microsoft has patched a misconfiguration issue impacting the Azure Active Directory (AAD) identity and access management service that exposed several "high-impact" applications to unauthorized access. "One of these apps is a content management system (CMS) that powers Bing.com and allowed us to not only modify search results, but also launch high-impact XSS attacks on Bing users," cloud security

Hackers Exploiting WordPress Elementor Pro Vulnerability: Millions of Sites at Risk!

Unknown threat actors are actively exploiting a recently patched security vulnerability in the Elementor Pro website builder plugin for WordPress. The flaw, described as a case of broken access control, impacts versions 3.11.6 and earlier. It was addressed by the plugin maintainers in version 3.11.7 released on March 22. "Improved code security enforcement in WooCommerce components," the Tel

Cyberstorage: Leveraging the Multi-Cloud to Combat Data Exfiltration

Multi-cloud data storage, once merely a byproduct of the great cloud migration, has now become a strategy for data management. "Multi-cloud by design," and its companion the supercloud, is an ecosystem in which several cloud systems work together to provide many organizational benefits, including increased scale and overall resiliency.And now, even security teams who have long been the holdout

Smart Mobility has a Blindspot When it Comes to API Security

The emergence of smart mobility services and applications has led to a sharp increase in the use of APIs in the automotive industry. However, this increased reliance on APIs has also made them one of the most common attack vectors. According to Gartner, APIs account for 90% of the web application attack surface areas.  With no surprise, similar trends are emerging also in the smart mobility

Trojanized TOR Browser Installers Spreading Crypto-Stealing Clipper Malware

Trojanized installers for the TOR anonymity browser are being used to target users in Russia and Eastern Europe with clipper malware designed to siphon cryptocurrencies since September 2022. "Clipboard injectors [...] can be silent for years, show no network activity or any other signs of presence until the disastrous day when they replace a crypto wallet address," Vitaly Kamluk, director of

North Korean APT43 Group Uses Cybercrime to Fund Espionage Operations

A new North Korean nation-state cyber operator has been attributed to a series of campaigns orchestrated to gather strategic intelligence that aligns with Pyongyang's geopolitical interests since 2018. Google-owned Mandiant, which is tracking the activity cluster under the moniker APT43, said the group's motives are both espionage- and financially-motivated, leveraging techniques like credential

Malicious Python Package Uses Unicode Trickery to Evade Detection and Steal Data

A malicious Python package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository has been found to use Unicode as a trick to evade detection and deploy an info-stealing malware. The package in question, named onyxproxy, was uploaded to PyPI on March 15, 2023, and comes with capabilities to harvest and exfiltrate credentials and other valuable data. It has since been taken down, but not before attracting

Preventing Insider Threats in Your Active Directory

Active Directory (AD) is a powerful authentication and directory service used by organizations worldwide. With this ubiquity and power comes the potential for abuse. Insider threats offer some of the most potentials for destruction. Many internal users have over-provisioned access and visibility into the internal network. Insiders' level of access and trust in a network leads to unique

Rogue NuGet Packages Infect .NET Developers with Crypto-Stealing Malware

The NuGet repository is the target of a new "sophisticated and highly-malicious attack" aiming to infect .NET developer systems with cryptocurrency stealer malware. The 13 rogue packages, which were downloaded more than 160,000 times over the past month, have since been taken down. "The packages contained a PowerShell script that would execute upon installation and trigger a download of a '

Hackers Steal Over $1.6 Million in Crypto from General Bytes Bitcoin ATMs Using Zero-Day Flaw

Bitcoin ATM maker General Bytes disclosed that unidentified threat actors stole cryptocurrency from hot wallets by exploiting a zero-day security flaw in its software. "The attacker was able to upload his own java application remotely via the master service interface used by terminals to upload videos and run it using 'batm' user privileges," the company said in an advisory published over the

New Cyber Platform Lab 1 Decodes Dark Web Data to Uncover Hidden Supply Chain Breaches

2022 was the year when inflation hit world economies, except in one corner of the global marketplace – stolen data. Ransomware payments fell by over 40% in 2022 compared to 2021. More organisations chose not to pay ransom demands, according to findings by blockchain firm Chainalysis. Nonetheless, stolen data has value beyond a price tag, and in risky ways you may not expect. Evaluating stolen

Lookalike Telegram and WhatsApp Websites Distributing Cryptocurrency Stealing Malware

Copycat websites for instant messaging apps like Telegram and WhatApp are being used to distribute trojanized versions and infect Android and Windows users with cryptocurrency clipper malware. "All of them are after victims' cryptocurrency funds, with several targeting cryptocurrency wallets," ESET researchers Lukáš Štefanko and Peter Strýček said in a new analysis. While the first instance of