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Only 57% of women in the U.S. are working or looking for work right now—the lowest rate since 1988.
That telling data point is just one of several that illustrate a stark contrast in these stark times: of the millions who’ve seen their employment affected by the pandemic, women have been hardest hit.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), some 2.3 million women left the workforce between the start of the pandemic and January 2021. Meanwhile, the BLS statistic for the number of men who left the U.S. workforce in that same period was 1.8 million. With International Women’s Day here, it’s time we ask ourselves how we can stem this inordinately sized tide of hard-working and talented women from leaving the workforce.
A broader BLS statistic provides a further perspective: a total of 4,637,000 payroll jobs for women have been lost in total since the pandemic began in the U.S. alone. That ranges from executive roles, jobs in retail, and educators, to work in public service and more. Of those jobs lost, about one third of women aged 25-44 cited that childcare was the reason for that unemployment.
Combine that with the fact that globally women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men, and a global gender pay gap of 23%, it’s easy to see why millions of women have simply dropped out of the workforce to manage children and home schooling—even in the instances where employment is available.
Not that this should surprise us. For example, just a few years before the pandemic, research showed that few Americans wanted to revert to the traditional roles of women at home and men in the workplace. However, when push came to shove, the Pew Research showed that women most often made compromises when needs at home conflicted with work. And now we’ve seen that sentiment come home to roost. On a massive scale.
Put plainly, when the pandemic pushed, women’s working lives predominantly went over the edge.
Within these facts and figures, I’d like to focus on the women who are working remotely while caring for their families, whether that’s their children, elders in their lives, or even a mix of both. What can we do, as employers, leaders, and co-workers in our businesses to better support them?
As early as June, Forbes reported that women were reducing their working hours at a rate four to five times greater than men, ostensibly to manage a household where everything from daycare, school, elder care, and work all take place under the same roof. The article went on to cite ripple-effect concerns in the wake of such reductions like the tendency to pursue less-demanding work, greater vulnerability to layoffs, and reduced likelihood for promotion. In fact, one study conducted in the U.S. last summer found that 34% of men with children at home say they’ve received a promotion while working remotely, while only 9% of women with children at home say the same.
In an interview with the BBC, Melinda Gates, the Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, stated her views on the situation succinctly: “I hope Covid-19 forces us to confront how unsustainable the current arrangement is—and how much we all miss out on when women’s responsibilities at home limit their ability to contribute beyond it. The solutions lie with governments, employers, and families committed to doing things more equitably.” I agree. This is a problem for us to solve together.
As for the role of employers and leaders in the solution, some thinking presented in The Harvard Business Review caught my eye. The article, “3 Ways Companies Can Retain Working Moms Right Now” focuses on what employers can do to better support the women in their workforce. The three ingredients the authors propose are:
If we think about the stressors we all face, this simple recipe actually reveals some depth. It takes knowing, and engaging with, employees perhaps more greatly than before. One sentence in the conclusion struck me in particular:
“It is no longer an option for managers to pretend that their employees do not have lives outside of their jobs, as these evaporated boundaries between home and work are not going away anytime soon.”
I see this every practically every day when I meet with my team. I’m sure you’ve seen it as well. With our laptop cameras on for sometimes hours a day, we’ve all caught glimpses into our coworker’s lives outside the office, seen that 7am meeting rescheduled for 8am to accommodate a busy breakfast rush with the family, or even kiddos pop into the frame during a call to say “hi.” What we may not see is just how much of a struggle that could be for some in the long haul.
Enter again those notions of providing certainty and clarity, rightsizing job expectations, and showing empathy. While not the end-all-be-all answers, they provide a starting point. As employers and leaders, if we can minimize the x-factors, adapt the workloads, and show compassion as we navigate the road to recovery, we can retain employees—and at least mitigate some of the stressors that are pushing women out of their jobs and careers during this pandemic. Exceptional employers and leaders have always done this. And now, in exceptional times, I believe it must become the norm.
Likewise, for co-workers, it’s absolutely okay to check in with people on your team, your vendors, your clients, and other people in your network and simply ask how they’re doing. I’ve had many meetings where we informally go around the horn and talk about what’s going on outside of work. The shared experience of working remotely has a way of creating new norms, and perhaps starting a meeting with an informal check-in way on occasion is one of them.
This is an opportunity to listen, simply so someone can feel better by being heard, and so that we can pinpoint places where we can come in and offer some support.
Some challenges women are facing are beyond our capacity to help firsthand, yet we can identify them when we see them. If you or someone you know is struggling, here are a few resources in the U.S. that can help:
The Office on Women’s Health, part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human services, offers a wealth of resources on its website, along with a help line that can provide further resources as well.
The National Institute of Mental Health has an extended list of articles, resources, and links to services that can provide immediate help for people who are struggling to cope or who are in crisis.
A Better Balance is a nonprofit legal advocacy group that “uses the power of the law to advance justice for workers, so they can care for themselves and their loved ones without jeopardizing their economic security.” They offer a confidential help line that can provide people with information about their workplace rights.
The National Women’s Law Center offers complementary legal consultations and with questions about accessing paid sick leave and paid leave to care for a child whose school or childcare provider is closed because of COVID-19.
As women leave the workforce worldwide, we’ve seen organizations lose precious talent, and we’ve seen women sacrifice their livelihoods and career paths. As such, the pandemic has exacted hard and human costs, ones that have fallen on women in outsized ways.
A problem of this scope is one for us to solve collectively. Apart from the bigger, broader solutions that may be forthcoming, as the employers and co-workers of women, there’s something we can do right now: reach out, listen, and act. These days call for more empathy and adaptation than ever before, particularly for the hard-working women who are doing it all—and then some.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Supporting the Women Most Affected by the Pandemic appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Something you’ll want to know about all those movies, mp3s, eBooks, air miles, and hotel points you’ve accrued over the years: they’re digital assets that can factor into a divorce settlement.
Understandably, several factors determine the distribution of assets in a divorce. However, when it comes to dividing digital assets, divorce settlements and proceedings are charting new territory. The rate of digital innovation and adoption in recent years has filled our phones, tablets, and computers with all manner of digital assets. What’s more, there are also the funds sitting in our payment apps or possibly further monies kept in the form of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Put plainly, the law is catching up with regards to the distribution of these and other digital assets like them.
Yet one thing that the law recognizes is that digital assets can have value and thus can be considered property subject to distribution in a divorce.
In light of this, the following is a checklist of considerations that can help prepare you or someone you know for the distribution of digital assets in a fair and just way.
Nothing offered in this article is legal advice, nor should it be construed as such. For legal advice, you can and should turn to your legal professional for counsel on the best approach for you and the laws in your area.
For starters, let’s get an understanding as to what actually constitutes a digital asset.
Because laws regarding digital assets vary (and continue to evolve), the best answer you can get to this question will come from your legal counsel. However, for purposes of discussion, a digital asset is any text or media in digital form that has value and offers the bearer the right to use it.
To put that in practical terms, let’s look at some real-world examples of what could constitute a digital asset. That list includes, but is not limited to:
However, digital assets can readily expand to further include:
And like any other asset in the case of a divorce, a value will be ascribed to each digital asset and then distributed per the conditions or orders of the settlement.
Arriving at the value of specific digital assets begins with an inventory—listing all the digital assets and accounts you own, just as you would with any other monetary or physical assets like bank accounts, properties, and cars. When you go through this process, chances are you’ll quickly find that you have hundreds if not thousands of dollars of digital assets.
For example, we can look at the research we conducted in 2011 which found that people placed an average value of $37,438 on the digital assets they owned at the time. Now, with the growth of streaming services, digital currency, cloud storage, and more in the past ten years, that figure feels conservative.
Above and beyond preparing for a divorce settlement, taking such an inventory of your digital assets is a wise move. One, it provides you with a clearer vision of the things you own and their worth; two, maintaining such a list gives you a basis for estate planning and determining who you would like to see receive those assets. Likewise, maintain that list on a regular basis and keep it safe. It’s good digital hygiene to do so.
With this inventory, each asset can then have an assessed value ascribed to it. In some instances, a value will easily present itself, such as the cost of a subscription or how much money is sitting in a PayPal account. In other cases, the value will be sentimental, such as the case is with digital photos and videos. Ideally, you and your spouse will simply be able to duplicate and share those photos and videos amicably, yet it is important that you articulate any such agreement to do so. This way, a settlement can call out what is to be shared, how it will be shared, and when.
Not all digital assets are transferrable. Certain digital assets are owned solely in your name. In other words, you may have access to certain digital assets that cannot transfer to someone else because you do not have the rights to do so per your user agreement. This can be the case with things such as digital books, digital music, and digital shows and movies.
In such circumstances, there may be grounds for negotiation and a “limited transfer” in the settlement, where one party exchanges one asset for another rather than splitting it equally. A case in point might be a sizeable eBook library on a device that’s in the name of one spouse. While that library can’t be split or transferred, one spouse may keep the eBook library while another spouse keeps a similarly valued asset or group of assets in return—like say a collection of physical books.
Streaming services will need to be addressed too. Be prepared to either terminate your accounts or simply have them assigned to the person in whose name they are kept. In the case of family accounts, the settlement should determine how that is handled, whether it gets terminated or similarly turned over to one spouse or the other. In all, your settlement will want to specify who takes over what streaming service and when that must occur.
Like dividing up investment accounts where the value of the account can vary daily, digital currencies can present challenges when spouses look to divide the holdings. Cryptocurrency valuation can be quite volatile, thus it can be a challenging asset to settle from a strict dollar standpoint.
What’s more, given the nature of digital currencies, there are instances where an unscrupulous spouse may seek to hide worth in such currency—which is an evolving issue in of itself. This recent article, “Cryptocurrency: What to Know Before and During Divorce,” covers the additional challenges of cryptocurrency in detail, along with an excellent primer on what cryptocurrency is and how it works.
Ultimately, cryptocurrency is indeed an asset, one that your attorney and settlement process will need to address, specifically so that there are no complications later with the transfer or valuation of the awarded currency.
With accounts changing hands, now’s the time to start fresh with a new set of passwords. What’s more, we have a tendency to reuse the same passwords over and over again, which may be known to an ex-spouse and is an inherent security risk in of itself. Change them. Even better, take this opportunity to use a password manager. A password manager can create and securely store strong, unique passwords for you, thus saving you the headache of maintaining dozens of them yourself—not to mention making you far more secure than before.
Again, keep in mind that nothing here is legal advice. Yet, do keep these things in mind when consulting with an attorney. The reality is that we likely have thousands of dollars of what could be considered digital assets. Inventorying them and ascribing a fair market value to them along with your legal professional is the first step in a fair and just settlement.
The post Digital Divorce: Who Gets the Airline Miles and Music Files? appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Equipping and guiding your digitally connected child is one of the toughest challenges you will face as a parent. As your child grows and changes, so too will their online activities. Friend groups, favorite apps, and online interests can shift from one month to the next, which is why parental controls can be a parent’s best friend.
According to a report from Common Sense Media, teens spend an average of seven hours and 22 minutes on their phones a day. Tweens (ages 8 to 12) spend four hours and 44 minutes daily. This is time outside of schoolwork.
That is a lot of time to stroll the streets of cyberspace for entertainment purposes, and it’s only increased since the pandemic.
Striking a balance between screen time and healthy device use is an always-evolving challenge. On the one hand, your child’s device is an essential channel connecting them to their self-identity, peer acceptance, and emotional well-being. On the other hand, that same device is also the door that can bring issues such as cyberbullying, predators, risky behavior, and self-image struggles into your child’s life.
Parental controls are tools that allow parents to set controls on their children’s internet use. Controls include content filters (inappropriate content), usage limits (time controls), and monitoring (tracking activity).
Many of the technology your family already owns or sites your kids visit have basic parental controls (i.e., built-in controls for android and iPhone and social networks such as YouTube). However, another level of parental control comes in software specifically engineered to filter, limit, and track digital activity. These consumer-designed parental controls offer families a higher, more powerful form of protection.
If you are like many parents who land on this blog, you’ve hit a rough patch. You have concerns about your child’s online activity but aren’t sure how to begin restoring balance. Rightly, you want to find the best parental control software and put digital safeguards in place.
Every family dynamic is different, as is every family’s approach to online monitoring. However, most parents can agree that when a negative influence begins to impact the family’s emotional and physical health, exploring new solutions can help get you back on track.
Depending on your child’s age, you may need to consider parental controls if:
1. They don’t respond when you talk to them
If your child is increasingly engrossed in their phone and it’s causing communication issues in your family, you may want to consider software that includes time limits. Connecting with your child during device-free time can improve communication.
2. They’ve started ignoring homework and family responsibilities
There are a lot of reasons grades can plummet, or interests can fade. However, if your child is spending more and more time online, limiting or monitoring what goes on in that time can help restore emotional balance and self-discipline to meet responsibilities.
3. Their browser history shows access to risky content
Innocent online searches can lead to not so innocent results or children may go looking for content simply because they’re curious. Parental controls automatically block age-inappropriate sites and filter websites, apps, and web searches.
4. They won’t give you their device without a fight
If the phone has become the center of your child’s world at the cost of parental respect and family rules, they may be engaged in inappropriate behavior online, connecting with the wrong friends, or struggling with tech balance. With the proper parental controls, a parent can block risky content, view daily activity, and set healthy time limits.
5. They’re losing interest in family outings and other non-digital activities
Poor habits form quietly over time. If your child has dramatically changed their focus in the past three to six months, consider zooming in on why. It may not be technology use, but you may consider an additional layer of protection if it is.
6. They go into another room to respond to a text
While everyone deserves privacy, if constantly sneaking away to communicate with a friend is your child’s new norm, you may consider making some screen time adjustments.
7. They are exhausted
Unbeknownst to parents, kids might be exchanging sleep for screen time. Parental controls can help you nip this unhealthy habit. Setting time limits can help kids experience deeper sleep, better moods, more focus, and more energy.
8. They overshare online
If you browse through your child’s social media and notice their profiles are public instead of private, or if your child tends to overshare personal information, parental controls can help you monitor future activity.
Ideally, we’d all prefer to live in a world where we didn’t need parental controls at all. Unfortunately, that is neither a present nor future reality. So, we recalibrate, keep learning, and keep adding to our parenting skills. As always, we believe the first go-to digital safety tool is investing in consistent open and honest conversation with your child. And the second tool? Yup, reach for the parental controls. While you may hear some hemming and hawing from your kids at first, the peace of mind you gain from having parental controls in place will be worth it.
The post 8 Signs It May Be Time for Parental Controls appeared first on McAfee Blog.
What do social media companies really know about you? It’s a fair question. And the quick answer is this: the more you use social media, the more those companies likely know.
The moment you examine the question more closely, the answer takes on greater depth. Consider how much we use social media for things other than connecting with friends. While that was the original intent behind social networks, the role of social media has since evolved into something far more expansive. We use it to get our news, stay up to date on when artists will drop a new release, and sometimes reach out for customer service on a company’s social media page. In some cases, we use our social media accounts to log into other sites and apps or we even make payments through social media.
Taken together, all of those likes, taps, clicks, links, and time spent reading or watching videos can add up and paint a detailed picture of who you are.
Why are they collecting all this information? Largely, it’s for two reasons:
1. To make improvements to their platform, by better understanding your behavior and ways you like to use their service.
2. To create an exacting user profile that advertisers can use for targeting ads that they think will interest you.
That’s the exchange in play here. You use the company’s social media service for free, and in return, they gain rights to gather specific information about you, which you consent to by agreeing to their terms of service.
Let’s get into the details of what social media companies may collect and know about you—along with ways you can limit the data and information they gather.
Different social media platforms have different user agreements that cover what types of information they collect and use. For starters, we’ll speak broadly about social media companies in general, and then we’ll weave in a few specific examples along the way. Generally, they may know:
We collect information about how you use our Products, such as the types of content you view or engage with; the features you use; the actions you take; the people or accounts you interact with; and the time, frequency and duration of your activities.
When you communicate with others by sending or receiving Direct Messages, we will store and process your communications and information related to them. This includes link scanning for malicious content, link shortening to http://t.co URLs, detection of spam, abuse and prohibited images, and use of reported issues. We also use information about whom you have communicated with and when (but not the content of those communications) to better understand the use of our services, to protect the safety and integrity of our platform, and to show more relevant content.
If you use our Products for purchases or other financial transactions (such as when you make a purchase in a game or make a donation), we collect information about the purchase or transaction. This includes payment information, such as your credit or debit card number and other card information; other account and authentication information; and billing, shipping and contact details.
By the way, none of this is secret. What I’ve listed here can be found by simply reading the terms of use posted by various social media companies. Note that these terms of use can and do change. Checking up on them regularly will help you understand what is being collected and how it may be used.
This nearly goes without saying, yet another layer of data and information collection comes by way of the pictures and updates you post. Per Instagram (as of October 2021):
We collect the content, communications and other information you provide when you use our Products, including when you sign up for an account, create or share content, and message or communicate with others. This can include information in or about the content you provide (like metadata), such as the location of a photo or the date a file was created.
Another consideration is how the content you interact with on other sites may be shared with social media companies in return. Some social media companies partner with other third parties to gather this data, which is used to round out your user profile in yet more detail. That information can include purchases you made, how often you visited that third party’s site, and so on.
In the case of Facebook, they refer to this as “Off-Facebook Activity.” In their words:
Off-Facebook activity includes information that businesses and organizations share with us about your interactions with them. Interactions are things like visiting their website or logging into their app with Facebook. Off-Facebook activity does not include customer lists that businesses use to show a unique group of customers relevant ads.
The good news here is that you can take control of the Off-Facebook Activity setting with a few clicks.
No doubt about it, the content you create and interact with, both on the social media sites and sometimes off of them as well, can generate information about you that’s collected by social media companies.
Short of deleting your accounts altogether, there are several things you can do to take control and limit the amount of information you share.
For example, you can visit your Facebook Settings, Instagram Settings, and Twitter Settings, which each gives you options for managing your information—or download it and even delete it from their platform outright if you wish. (Note that this will likely only delete data associated with your account. Content you posted or shared with other people on their accounts will remain.)
As noted above, this isn’t an absolute fix because social media companies can infer your location other ways. Yet taking this step gives them one less piece of exacting information about you.
Each platform will have its own settings and options, so give them a look. Here, you can determine which information advertisers are allowed to use to serve up ads to you, set rules for facial recognition, enable or disable location history, and much more. If possible, do this from your computer or laptop rather than your smartphone. Often, the account controls that you can access from a computer browser are far more comprehensive than the ones in a mobile app.
Using direct messaging on social media platforms may tell social media companies even more about you and who you interact with. When possible, think about using text messaging instead or other means of communication that aren’t tied to a social media company.
Some apps and sites will allow you to use your social media login instead of creating a new one. While convenient, this can provide the social media company with more information about you. Additionally, if your social media account is compromised, it could compromise the other accounts that are tied to it as well. Check your settings and look for “Apps and Websites” to see what’s connected to your social media account, what’s being shared, and how you can disable it.
Protection like ours will include a VPN, which anonymizes your online activity and thus may shield you from certain types of information collection, such as your location. Additionally, using online protection software is simply a good move because it can create and store strong, unique passwords for you, steer you clear of risky sites, protect your identity, and make your time online safer overall.
The very nature of social media is sharing and exchanging. That’s the draw it has—the way it keeps us connected to the people, pastimes, and things we care about. Yet that exchange runs deeper. In return for using these free services, social media companies collect information on us which they use to improve their platforms and generate revenue. It’s all there for you to see in the various terms of use associated with your social media accounts. In short, using social media means sharing information about yourself with social media companies.
Yet you can do several things to reduce the amount of information that social media companies know about you. By spending some time on the account and privacy settings for each of your social media accounts, you can determine what information you’re providing to them and get a much better sense of what social media companies know about you.
The post What Do Social Media Companies Know About You? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles about how we can help our elder parents get the most out of digital life—the ways we can help them look after their finances and health online, along with how they can use the internet to keep connected with friends and family, all safely and simply.
Online banking is for everyone. Or at least it should be.
The benefits of online banking are many for our moms, dads, and grandparents, just as they are for us. Elder adults can deposit checks, pay bills, transfer money to and from investments, and so on, all without needing to leave home. However, our parents and the older people in our lives may face a few hurdles that are holding them back. As a son, daughter, or loved one, there are things you can do to help them clear those hurdles so they can enjoy the convenience of online banking, safely and securely.
What do some of those hurdles look like?
Meanwhile, the digital world continues to evolve apace, particularly with regard to online banking. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of people in the U.S. who use online banking steadily rose to more than 65%, and more than three-quarters of Americans used a mobile device the last time they checked their balance. And as of 2020, nearly two billion people worldwide used online banking, a number that only continues to increase.
This rise in online banking has implications for the elders in our lives. Even if they aren’t active in online banking themselves, their financial information is part of this digital mix. The banks and financial institutions where they keep their savings and funds are digitally connected and digitally accessible. At a minimum, this means that they should take steps to protect themselves and their finances. Yet the upside is here is that we can help them do much more than that—that we can actually help them take advantage of online banking and enjoy its benefits.
Depending on their comfort level, you may want to start by reviewing some basic digital literacy before diving right into online banking. As mentioned above, there’s so much about the internet that we take for granted, and the elders in your life may benefit a little 101-level introduction to the internet.
When you’re both confident that their comfort level with the internet is in the right place, you can move on to the next step—making sure mom and dad have solid online protection in place. This is square one before going online, particularly when you’re banking online. Some basic digital hygiene will help protect their banking and finances. Moreover, it will help protect the other things they do online as well.
The following quick list is a great way to make them far more secure:
That includes the operating system of their computers, smartphones, and tablets, along with the apps that are on them. Many updates include security upgrades and fixes that make it tougher for hackers to launch an attack.
Computers, smartphones, and tablets will have a way of locking them using a PIN, a password, a fingerprint, or the owner’s face. Take advantage of that protection, which is particularly important if that device is lost or stolen.
This is important should they lose their smartphone or believe it’s been stolen. Have them turn on device tracking so that they can locate their phone or even wipe its data and contents remotely if they need to. Apple provides iOS users with a step-by-step guide for remotely wiping devices, and Google offers up a guide for Android users as well.
Protecting your devices with comprehensive online protection software will defend them against the latest virus, malware, spyware and ransomware attacks plus help steer them clear of phishing attacks and malicious websites designed to steal personal and financial information. Also, make sure it offers a password manager like ours does, which can create and store strong, unique passwords for each of their accounts—alleviating the burden of mom and dad remembering them.
With all the personally identifiable information (PII) we create simply by using the internet, tracking and monitoring your PII is essential for preventing identity fraud and theft. The same is true for mom and dad. A strong identity theft protection package will offer cyber monitoring that can detect the misuse of your PII. Our identity protection service takes that protection a step further if the unfortunate happens with $1M coverage for lawyer fees, travel expenses, lost wages, and more.
With their devices and PII more secure, you can move on to the banking portion itself. While there’s so much you can do with online banking, it’s a good idea to take things one at a time. Some elders aren’t sure how to sign up for online banking with their financial institution, so you can start there. Take them through the setup process (using that strong, unique password as mentioned above) and simply get them going.
From there, they can familiarize themselves with the layout of banking site or app they’re using. A straightforward task like checking account balances is a great way to do just that. After their comfort level with the site or app tales root, you can move on to other things they can do online, like pay bills online, deposit a paper check with their phone, and review their statements for any discrepancies.
Another thing that may help put your folks at ease is to let them know you’re there to help. Questions will inevitably come up, and it’ll be a great comfort to them knowing that you’re around to lend them a quick answer as needed.
For example, let’s talk about spotting possible discrepancies in their statements. Some account entries may look a little strange because the name of a business does not always match the way it appears in a bank or credit card statement. This may lead to questions about the purchase—was it something they made? Is it a legitimate charge? These are answers you can help them track down.
Related, online banking provides our parents with a powerful tool against identity theft and fraud. By reviewing account statements closely, they can potentially spot bogus charges and purchases before they become a larger, and more costly, problem. (For a great primer on the topic, read and share this article that covers identity theft and fraud, along with steps to prevent it.)
Several different banks offer resources specifically for elder bankers. The offerings will of course vary from bank to bank, yet you may find that they have videos and information on their websites designed to make online banking easier. Likewise, they may offer special services that mom and dad may qualify for. In all, feel free to lean on their bank for assistance as needed. They’re there to help.
You can also look into independent resources as well, such as the AARP and “Ready, Set, Bank,” which both provide a wealth of videos and articles about online banking.
As kids, grandkids, and younger loved ones, there’s plenty we can do to help the elders in our lives enjoy online banking with confidence. Shoring up their security, starting them easy, and then being there to answer questions can help them clear the hurdles of familiarity and trust they face.
Just as they’ve guided you through the ins and outs of life, here’s a chance to return the favor. What’s more, it’s yet another way you can spend time together, whether in person or over a call. And that’s a good thing.
The post Helping Mom & Dad: Online Banking appeared first on McAfee Blog.
ESET researchers spot an updated version of the malware loader used in the Industroyer2 and CaddyWiper attacks
The post Sandworm uses a new version of ArguePatch to attack targets in Ukraine appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Listen to Aryeh Goretsky, Martin Smolár, and Jean-Ian Boutin discuss what UEFI threats are capable of and what the ESPecter bootkit tells us about their evolution
The post ESET Research Podcast: UEFI in crosshairs of ESPecter bootkit appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
On December 7, 2021, Google announced it was suing two Russian men allegedly responsible for operating the Glupteba botnet, a global malware menace that has infected millions of computers over the past decade. That same day, AWM Proxy — a 14-year-old anonymity service that rents hacked PCs to cybercriminals — suddenly went offline. Security experts had long seen a link between Glupteba and AWM Proxy, but new research shows AWM Proxy’s founder is one of the men being sued by Google.
AWMproxy, the storefront for renting access to infected PCs, circa 2011.
Launched in March 2008, AWM Proxy quickly became the largest service for crooks seeking to route their malicious Web traffic through compromised devices. In 2011, researchers at Kaspersky Lab showed that virtually all of the hacked systems for rent at AWM Proxy had been compromised by TDSS (a.k.a TDL-4 and Alureon), a stealthy “rootkit” that installs deep within infected PCs and loads even before the underlying Windows operating system boots up.
In March 2011, security researchers at ESET found TDSS was being used to deploy Glupteba, another rootkit that steals passwords and other access credentials, disables security software, and tries to compromise other devices on the victim’s network — such as Internet routers and media storage servers — for use in relaying spam or other malicious traffic.
A report from the Polish computer emergency response team (CERT Orange Polksa) found Glupteba was by far the biggest malware threat in 2021.
Like its predecessor TDSS, Glupteba is primarily distributed through “pay-per-install” or PPI networks, and via traffic purchased from traffic distribution systems (TDS). Pay-per-install networks try to match cybercriminals who already have access to large numbers of hacked PCs with other crooks seeking broader distribution of their malware.
In a typical PPI network, clients will submit their malware—a spambot or password-stealing Trojan, for example —to the service, which in turn charges per thousand successful installations, with the price depending on the requested geographic location of the desired victims. One of the most common ways PPI affiliates generate revenue is by secretly bundling the PPI network’s installer with pirated software titles that are widely available for download via the web or from file-sharing networks.
An example of a cracked software download site distributing Glupteba. Image: Google.com.
Over the past decade, both Glupteba and AWM Proxy have grown substantially. When KrebsOnSecurity first covered AWM Proxy in 2011, the service was selling access to roughly 24,000 infected PCs scattered across dozens of countries. Ten years later, AWM Proxy was offering 10 times that number of hacked systems on any given day, and Glupteba had grown to more than one million infected devices worldwide.
There is also ample evidence to suggest that Glupteba may have spawned Meris, a massive botnet of hacked Internet of Things (IoT) devices that surfaced in September 2021 and was responsible for some of the largest and most disruptive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks the Internet has ever seen.
But on Dec. 7, 2021, Google announced it had taken technical measures to dismantle the Glupteba botnet, and filed a civil lawsuit (PDF) against two Russian men thought to be responsible for operating the vast crime machine. AWM Proxy’s online storefront disappeared that same day.
AWM Proxy quickly alerted its customers that the service had moved to a new domain, with all customer balances, passwords and purchase histories seamlessly ported over to the new home. However, subsequent takedowns targeting AWM Proxy’s domains and other infrastructure have conspired to keep the service on the ropes and frequently switching domains ever since.
Earlier this month, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K. dismantled the “RSOCKS” botnet, a competing proxy service that had been in operation since 2014. KrebsOnSecurity has identified the owner of RSOCKS as a 35-year-old from Omsk, Russia who runs the world’s largest forum catering to spammers.
The employees who kept things running for RSOCKS, circa 2016.
Shortly after last week’s story on the RSOCKS founder, I heard from Riley Kilmer, co-founder of Spur.us, a startup that tracks criminal proxy services. Kilmer said RSOCKS was similarly disabled after Google’s combined legal sneak attack and technical takedown targeting Glupteba.
“The RSOCKS website gave you the estimated number of proxies in each of their subscription packages, and that number went down to zero on Dec. 7,” Kilmer said. “It’s not clear if that means the services were operated by the same people, or if they were just using the same sources (i.e., PPI programs) to generate new installations of their malware.”
Kilmer said each time his company tried to determine how many systems RSOCKS had for sale, they found each Internet address being sold by RSOCKS was also present in AWM Proxy’s network. In addition, Kilmer said, the application programming interfaces (APIs) used by both services to keep track of infected systems were virtually identical, once again suggesting strong collaboration.
“One hundred percent of the IPs we got back from RSOCKS we’d already identified in AWM,” Kilmer said. “And the IP port combinations they give you when you access an individual IP were the same as from AWM.”
In 2011, KrebsOnSecurity published an investigation that identified one of the founders of AWM Proxy, but Kilmer’s revelation prompted me to take a fresh look at the origins of this sprawling cybercriminal enterprise to determine if there were additional clues showing more concrete links between RSOCKS, AWM Proxy and Glupteba.
Supporting Kilmer’s theory that AWM Proxy and RSOCKS may simply be using the same PPI networks to spread, further research shows the RSOCKS owner also had an ownership stake in AD1[.]ru, an extremely popular Russian-language pay-per-install network that has been in operation for at least a decade.
Google took aim at Glupteba in part because its owners were using the botnet to divert and steal vast sums in online advertising revenue. So it’s more than a little ironic that the critical piece of evidence linking all of these operations begins with a Google Analytics code included in the HTML code for the original AWM Proxy back in 2008 (UA-3816536).
That analytics code also was present on a handful of other sites over the years, including the now-defunct Russian domain name registrar Domenadom[.]ru, and the website web-site[.]ru, which curiously was a Russian company operating a global real estate appraisal business called American Appraisal.
Two other domains connected to that Google Analytics code — Russian plastics manufacturers techplast[.]ru and tekhplast.ru — also shared a different Google Analytics code (UA-1838317) with web-site[.]ru and with the domain “starovikov[.]ru.”
The name on the WHOIS registration records for the plastics domains is an “Alexander I. Ukraincki,” whose personal information also is included in the domains tpos[.]ru and alphadisplay[.]ru, both apparently manufacturers of point-of-sale payment terminals in Russia.
Constella Intelligence, a security firm that indexes passwords and other personal information exposed in past data breaches, revealed dozens of variations on email addresses used by Alexander I. Ukraincki over the years. Most of those email addresses start with some variation of “uai@” followed by a domain from one of the many Russian email providers (e.g., yandex.ru, mail.ru). [Full disclosure: Constella is currently an advertiser on this website].
But Constella also shows those different email addresses all relied on a handful of passwords — most commonly “2222den” and “2222DEN.” Both of those passwords have been used almost exclusively in the past decade by the person who registered more than a dozen email addresses with the username “dennstr.”
The dennstr identity leads to several variations on the same name — Denis Strelinikov, or Denis Stranatka, from Ukraine, but those clues ultimately led nowhere promising. And maybe that was the point.
Things began looking brighter after I ran a search in DomainTools for web-site[.]ru’s original WHOIS records, which shows it was assigned in 2005 to a “private person” who used the email address lycefer@gmail.com. A search in Constella on that email address says it was used to register nearly two dozen domains, including starovikov.ru and starovikov[.]com.
A cached copy of the contact page for Starovikov[.]com shows that in 2008 it displayed the personal information for a Dmitry Starovikov, who listed his Skype username as “lycefer.”
Finally, Russian incorporation documents show the company LLC Website (web-site[.]ru)was registered in 2005 to two men, one of whom was named Dmitry Sergeevich Starovikov.
Bringing this full circle, Google says Starovikov is one of the two operators of the Glupteba botnet:
The cover page for Google’s lawsuit against the alleged Glupteba botnet operators.
Mr. Starovikov did not respond to requests for comment. But attorneys for Starovikov and his co-defendant last month filed a response to Google’s complaint in the Southern District of New York, denying (PDF) their clients had any knowledge of the scheme.
Despite all of the disruption caused by Google’s legal and technical meddling, AWM is still around and nearly as healthy as ever, although the service has been branded with a new name and there are dubious claims of new owners. Advertising customer plans ranging from $50 a day to nearly $700 for “VIP access,” AWM Proxy says its malware has been running on approximately 175,000 systems worldwide over the last 24 hours, and that roughly 65,000 of these systems are currently online.
AWM Proxy, as it exists today.
Meanwhile, the administrators of RSOCKS recently alerted customers that the service and any unspent balances will soon be migrated over to a new location.
Many people seem to equate spending time, money and effort to investigate and prosecute cybercriminals with the largely failed war on drugs, meaning there is an endless supply of up-and-coming crooks who will always fill in any gaps in the workforce whenever cybercriminals face justice.
While that may be true for many low-level cyber thieves today, investigations like these show once again how small the cybercriminal underground really is. It also shows how it makes a great deal of sense to focus efforts on targeting and disrupting the relatively small number of established hackers who remain the real force multipliers of cybercrime.
Previously unknown macOS malware uses cloud storage as its C&C channel and to exfiltrate documents, keystrokes, and screen captures from compromised Macs
The post I see what you did there: A look at the CloudMensis macOS spyware appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Listen to Cameron Camp, Juraj Jánošík, and Filip Mazán discuss the use of machine learning in cybersecurity, followed by Cameron’s insights into the security of medical devices
The post ESET Research Podcast: Hot security topics at RSA or mostly hype? appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Your digital footprint grows with every internet account you make. While your old Tumblr account may be fun for reminiscing, dormant accounts are actually one of the most significant sources of user data on the internet. These accounts can be used by data brokers or third parties to access your personal information.
To improve your data security, it’s good practice to remove public-facing information by deleting unused accounts. Simply put, having less personal data stored on the internet reduces the risk of theft and/or non-consensual data usage.
Deleting, canceling, unsubscribing, or removing your account can be a long process, depending on the service. This article will walk you through the simplest ways to delete unwanted accounts from various social media platforms.
Deleting unwanted accounts protects your information and prevents the monetization of your data. Your internet accounts often hold personal information like your name, age, email, or home address. What’s more alarming is that some platforms may even have credit card details, phone numbers, and bank account information.
When left unattended, internet accounts become vulnerable to being suspended or taken over by the platform. This means that if your accounts are left inactive for too long, you might be handing some or all of your data over to the tech platform.
For example, even if you believe an old Google account doesn’t have any sensitive information stored, it may be linked to other platforms you use (like Amazon or Google services like Gmail and Google Play). This exposes all of these accounts to several data privacy vulnerabilities.
Moreover, a recent survey found that 70% of surveyed adults admitted using the same password for more than one service. People who don’t use password managers or reuse passwords are at a greater security risk than others, as multiple accounts can become compromised at once. Whether the platform is now out of service or you are cutting down on your app usage, deleting dormant accounts will minimize security threats and safeguard your data.
Every platform has a different process for deleting accounts: Some take only a few clicks to complete and others are a little longer. Companies usually don’t want a user to stop using their services, so account deletion pages are often hidden in a complex web of tabs that you have to navigate.
In addition, some subscription services might require that you send an email to customer support to close your account. You can go to justdelete.me, an online directory that lets you access direct links to account deletion pages of various web services.
Remember to download your personal information and data before pulling the plug on your account. Most platforms let you download your data before initiating a deletion request, which saves you from losing important details and files. It is also important to check whether your Google account is used for your YouTube channel or connected to other online accounts.
To help you get rid of accounts you no longer use, we’ve broken down deleting accounts from some of the most popular social networks. The steps described below are for a desktop browser and may not apply to Android or iOS devices (unless specified).
Facebook’s user privacy policy enables it to store a large amount of user information, including personal messages, posts, search history, name, age, birthdate, and even metadata from posted photos and videos.
Follow these simple steps to delete your Facebook account:
LinkedIn collects information on users and uses it for targeted advertising. As a result, it amasses quite a lot of your data, from professional details to personal preferences and even your online behavior trail.
Follow these simple steps from your desktop to delete your account:
It’s simple to delete your Twitter account, but you’ll have to wait 30 days for your data and tweets to clear. To delete your account, you first need to deactivate it.
Once you’ve decided to delete your account from the micro-blogging site, follow these steps from your desktop:
Remember to revoke third-party access to your Twitter account to avoid having your account reactivated in the 30 days following deactivation.
Since Facebook and Instagram are both owned by Meta, they share a lot of data for targeted advertising. You can adjust the privacy settings of your Instagram account from the mobile app, but you will need to log in from a web browser like Chrome to delete your account.
To delete your Instagram account:
Your information and data will be permanently deleted after 30 days and you won’t be able to retrieve it. However, completing a deletion process may take up to 90 days.
Tumblr has a fairly simple process to delete your account:
Follow these steps to delete your account from the popular picture-sharing platform:
Pinterest servers continue to store your data after deletion, but your information won’t be visible to other users.
There are different steps to deleting your email account depending on which email service you use. Backing up email data usually takes more time because of the sheer volume of data a mail account can hold.
Complete the following steps to delete your Google account:
Here’s what you need to do to delete your Yahoo email account:
Deleting your Yahoo account also deletes the linked information from Yahoo’s other services.
Follow these steps to delete your Microsoft account on Outlook 2010, 2013, or 2016:
Leaving old information scattered across the internet makes you susceptible to identity theft. There are multiple ways to keep your identity and data secure online, including McAfee’s Total Protection plan.
Total Protection lets you choose from multiple affordable subscription models that provide comprehensive security against identity theft and potential data breaches and offers web protection and several related benefits. In addition, having access to 24/7 online security experts and a 30-day money-back guarantee make the Total Protection plan an easy, reliable, and safe choice. You can also have peace of mind with McAfee’s Personal Data Cleanup feature where our teams will work to find your personal information online and assist in removing it.
The post How to Delete Old Accounts Containing Personal Information appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Focused mostly on Asia, this new cyberespionage group uses undocumented tools, including steganographically extracting PowerShell payloads from PNG files
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Misconfigured remote access services continue to give bad actors an easy access path to company networks – here’s how you can minimize your exposure to attacks misusing Remote Desktop Protocol
The post RDP on the radar: An up‑close view of evolving remote access threats appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
ESET researchers have uncovered another tool in the already extensive arsenal of the SparklingGoblin APT group: a Linux variant of the SideWalk backdoor
The post You never walk alone: The SideWalk backdoor gets a Linux variant appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
ESET researchers have discovered Lazarus attacks against targets in the Netherlands and Belgium that use spearphishing emails connected to fake job offers
The post Amazon‑themed campaigns of Lazarus in the Netherlands and Belgium appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
When U.S. consumers have their online bank accounts hijacked and plundered by hackers, U.S. financial institutions are legally obligated to reverse any unauthorized transactions as long as the victim reports the fraud in a timely manner. But new data released this week suggests that for some of the nation’s largest banks, reimbursing account takeover victims has become more the exception than the rule.
The findings came in a report released by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who in April 2022 opened an investigation into fraud tied to Zelle, the “peer-to-peer” digital payment service used by many financial institutions that allows customers to quickly send cash to friends and family.
Zelle is run by Early Warning Services LLC (EWS), a private financial services company which is jointly owned by Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo. Zelle is enabled by default for customers at over 1,000 different financial institutions, even if a great many customers still don’t know it’s there.
Sen. Warren said several of the EWS owner banks — including Capital One, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo — failed to provide all of the requested data. But Warren did get the requested information from PNC, Truist and U.S. Bank.
“Overall, the three banks that provided complete data sets reported 35,848 cases of scams, involving over $25.9 million of payments in 2021 and the first half of 2022,” the report summarized. “In the vast majority of these cases, the banks did not repay the customers that reported being scammed. Overall these three banks reported repaying customers in only 3,473 cases (representing nearly 10% of scam claims) and repaid only $2.9 million.”
Importantly, the report distinguishes between cases that involve straight up bank account takeovers and unauthorized transfers (fraud), and those losses that stem from “fraudulently induced payments,” where the victim is tricked into authorizing the transfer of funds to scammers (scams).
A common example of the latter is the Zelle Fraud Scam, which uses an ever-shifting set of come-ons to trick people into transferring money to fraudsters. The Zelle Fraud Scam often employs text messages and phone calls spoofed to look like they came from your bank, and the scam usually relates to fooling the customer into thinking they’re sending money to themselves when they’re really sending it to the crooks.
Here’s the rub: When a customer issues a payment order to their bank, the bank is obligated to honor that order so long as it passes a two-stage test. The first question asks, Did the request actually come from an authorized owner or signer on the account? In the case of Zelle scams, the answer is yes.
Trace Fooshee, a strategic advisor in the anti money laundering practice at Aite-Novarica, said the second stage requires banks to give the customer’s transfer order a kind of “sniff test” using “commercially reasonable” fraud controls that generally are not designed to detect patterns involving social engineering.
Fooshee said the legal phrase “commercially reasonable” is the primary reason why no bank has much — if anything — in the way of controlling for scam detection.
“In order for them to deploy something that would detect a good chunk of fraud on something so hard to detect they would generate egregiously high rates of false positives which would also make consumers (and, then, regulators) very unhappy,” Fooshee said. “This would tank the business case for the service as a whole rendering it something that the bank can claim to NOT be commercially reasonable.”
Sen. Warren’s report makes clear that banks generally do not pay consumers back if they are fraudulently induced into making Zelle payments.
“In simple terms, Zelle indicated that it would provide redress for users in cases of unauthorized transfers in which a user’s account is accessed by a bad actor and used to transfer a payment,” the report continued. “However, EWS’ response also indicated that neither Zelle nor its parent bank owners would reimburse users fraudulently induced by a bad actor into making a payment on the platform.”
Still, the data suggest banks did repay at least some of the funds stolen from scam victims about 10 percent of the time. Fooshee said he’s surprised that number is so high.
“That banks are paying victims of authorized payment fraud scams anything at all is noteworthy,” he said. “That’s money that they’re paying for out of pocket almost entirely for goodwill. You could argue that repaying all victims is a sound strategy especially in the climate we’re in but to say that it should be what all banks do remains an opinion until Congress changes the law.”
However, when it comes to reimbursing victims of fraud and account takeovers, the report suggests banks are stiffing their customers whenever they can get away with it. “Overall, the four banks that provided complete data sets indicated that they reimbursed only 47% of the dollar amount of fraud claims they received,” the report notes.
How did the banks behave individually? From the report:
-In 2021 and the first six months of 2022, PNC Bank indicated that its customers reported 10,683 cases of unauthorized payments totaling over $10.6 million, of which only 1,495 cases totaling $1.46 were refunded to consumers. PNC Bank left 86% of its customers that reported cases of fraud without recourse for fraudulent activity that occurred on Zelle.
-Over this same time period, U.S. Bank customers reported a total of 28,642 cases of unauthorized transactions totaling over $16.2 million, while only refunding 8,242 cases totaling less than $4.7 million.
-In the period between January 2021 and September 2022, Bank of America customers reported 81,797 cases of unauthorized transactions, totaling $125 million. Bank of America refunded only $56.1 million in fraud claims – less than 45% of the overall dollar value of claims made in that time.
–Truist indicated that the bank had a much better record of reimbursing defrauded customers over this same time period. During 2021 and the first half of 2022, Truist customers filed 24,752 unauthorized transaction claims amounting to $24.4 million. Truist reimbursed 20,349 of those claims, totaling $20.8 million – 82% of Truist claims were reimbursed over this period. Overall, however, the four banks that provided complete data sets indicated that they reimbursed only 47% of the dollar amount of fraud claims they received.
Fooshee said there has long been a great deal of inconsistency in how banks reimburse unauthorized fraud claims — even after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CPFB) came out with guidance on what qualifies as an unauthorized fraud claim.
“Many banks reported that they were still not living up to those standards,” he said. “As a result, I imagine that the CFPB will come down hard on those with fines and we’ll see a correction.”
Fooshee said many banks have recently adjusted their reimbursement policies to bring them more into line with the CFPB’s guidance from last year.
“So this is heading in the right direction but not with sufficient vigor and speed to satisfy critics,” he said.
Seth Ruden is a payments fraud expert who serves as director of global advisory for digital identity company BioCatch. Ruden said Zelle has recently made “significant changes to its fraud program oversight because of consumer influence.”
“It is clear to me that despite sensational headlines, progress has been made to improve outcomes,” Ruden said. “Presently, losses in the network on a volume-adjusted basis are lower than those typical of credit cards.”
But he said any failure to reimburse victims of fraud and account takeovers only adds to pressure on Congress to do more to help victims of those scammed into authorizing Zelle payments.
“The bottom line is that regulations have not kept up with the speed of payment technology in the United States, and we’re not alone,” Ruden said. “For the first time in the UK, authorized payment scam losses have outpaced credit card losses and a regulatory response is now on the table. Banks have the choice right now to take action and increase controls or await regulators to impose a new regulatory environment.”
Sen. Warren’s report is available here (PDF).
There are, of course, some versions of the Zelle fraud scam that may be confusing financial institutions as to what constitutes “authorized” payment instructions. For example, the variant I wrote about earlier this year began with a text message that spoofed the target’s bank and warned of a pending suspicious transfer.
Those who responded at all received a call from a number spoofed to make it look like the victim’s bank calling, and were asked to validate their identities by reading back a one-time password sent via SMS. In reality, the thieves had simply asked the bank’s website to reset the victim’s password, and that one-time code sent via text by the bank’s site was the only thing the crooks needed to reset the target’s password and drain the account using Zelle.
None of the above discussion involves the risks affecting businesses that bank online. Businesses in the United States do not enjoy the same fraud liability protection afforded to consumers, and if a banking trojan or clever phishing site results in a business account getting drained, most banks will not reimburse that loss.
This is why I have always and will continue to urge small business owners to conduct their online banking affairs only from a dedicated, access restricted and security-hardened device — and preferably a non-Windows machine.
For consumers, the same old advice remains the best: Watch your bank statements like a hawk, and immediately report and contest any charges that appear fraudulent or unauthorized.
ESET researchers analyzed previously undocumented custom backdoors and cyberespionage tools deployed in Israel by the POLONIUM APT group
The post POLONIUM targets Israel with Creepy malware appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
APT-C-50’s Domestic Kitten campaign continues, targeting Iranian citizens with a new version of the FurBall malware masquerading as an Android translation app
The post Domestic Kitten campaign spying on Iranian citizens with new FurBall malware appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
A nonprofit organization is suing the state of Massachusetts on behalf of thousands of low-income families who were collectively robbed of more than a $1 million in food assistance benefits by card skimming devices secretly installed at cash machines and grocery store checkout lanes across the state. Federal law bars states from replacing these benefits using federal funds, and a recent rash of skimming incidents nationwide has disproportionately affected those receiving food assistance via state-issued prepaid debit cards.
The Massachusetts SNAP benefits card looks more like a library card than a payment card.
On Nov. 4, The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI) filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of low-income families whose Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were stolen from their accounts. The SNAP program serves over a million people in Massachusetts, and 41 million people nationally.
“Over the past few months, thieves have stolen over a million SNAP dollars from thousands of Massachusetts families – putting their nutrition and economic stability at risk,” the MLRI said in a statement on the lawsuit. “The criminals attach a skimming device on a POS (point of sale) terminal to capture the household’s account information and PIN. The criminals then use that information to make a fake card and steal the SNAP benefits.”
In announcing the lawsuit, the MRLI linked to a story KrebsOnSecurity published last month that examined how skimming thieves increasingly are targeting SNAP payment card holders nationwide. The story looked at how the vast majority of SNAP benefit cards issued by the states do not include the latest chip technology that makes it more difficult and expensive for thieves to clone them.
The story also highlighted how SNAP cardholders usually have little recourse to recover any stolen funds — even in unlikely cases where the victim has gathered mountains of proof to show state and federal officials that the fraudulent withdrawals were not theirs.
Deborah Harris is a staff attorney at the MLRI. Harris said the goal of the lawsuit is to force Massachusetts to reimburse SNAP skimming victims using state funds, and to convince The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) — which funds the program that states draw from — to change its policies and allow states to replace stolen benefits with federal funds.
“Ultimately we think it’s the USDA that needs to step up and tell states they have a duty to restore the stolen benefits, and that USDA will cover the cost at least until there is better security in place, such as chip cards,” Harris told KrebsOnSecurity.
“The losses we’re talking about are relatively small in the scheme of total SNAP expenditures which are billions,” she said. “But if you are a family that can’t pay for food because you suddenly don’t have money in your account, it’s devastating for the family.”
The USDA has not said it will help states restore the stolen funds. But on Oct. 31, 2022, the agency released guidance (PDF) whose primary instructions were included in an appendix titled, Card Security Options Available to Households. Notably, the USDA did not mention the idea of shifting to chip-based SNAP benefits cards.
The recently issued USDA guidance.
“The guidance generally continues to make households responsible for preventing the theft of their benefits as well as for suffering the loss when benefits are stolen through no fault of the household,” Harris said. “Many of the recommendations are not practical for households who don’t have a smartphone to receive text messages and aren’t able to change their PIN after each transaction and keep track of the new PIN.”
Harris said three of the four recommendations are not currently available in Massachusetts, and they are very likely not currently available in other states. For example, she said, Massachusetts households do not have the option of freezing or locking their cards between transactions. Nor do they receive alerts about transactions. And they most certainly don’t have any way to block out-of-state transactions.
“Perhaps these are options that [card] processors and states could provide, but they are not available now as far as we know,” Harris said. “Most likely they would take time to implement.”
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) recently published Five Ways State Agencies Can Support EBT Users at Risk of Skimming. CLASP says while it is true states can’t use federal funds to replace benefits unless the loss was due to a “system error,” states could use their own funds.
“Doing so will ensure families don’t have to go without food, gas money, or their rent for the month,” CLASP wrote.
That would help address the symptoms of card skimming, but not a root cause. Hardly anyone is suggesting the obvious, which is to equip SNAP benefit cards with the same security technology afforded to practically everyone else participating in the U.S. banking system.
There are several reasons most state-issued SNAP benefit cards do not include chips. For starters, nobody says they have to. Also, it’s a fair bit more expensive to produce chip cards versus plain old magnetic stripe cards, and many state assistance programs are chronically under-funded. Finally, there is no vocal (or at least well-heeled) constituency advocating for change.
A copy of the class action complaint filed by the MLRI is available here.
Malicious apps used in this active campaign exfiltrate contacts, SMS messages, recorded phone calls, and even chat messages from apps such as Signal, Viber, and Telegram
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ESET researchers uncover Dolphin, a sophisticated backdoor extending the arsenal of the ScarCruft APT group
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ESET researchers analyzed a supply-chain attack abusing an Israeli software developer to deploy Fantasy, Agrius’s new wiper, with victims including the diamond industry
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ESET researchers discovered a spearphishing campaign targeting Japanese political entities a few weeks before the House of Councillors elections, and in the process uncovered a previously undescribed MirrorFace credential stealer
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Millions of people likely just received an email or snail mail notice saying they’re eligible to claim a class action payment in connection with the 2017 megabreach at consumer credit bureau Equifax. Given the high volume of reader inquiries about this, it seemed worth pointing out that while this particular offer is legit (if paltry), scammers are likely to soon capitalize on public attention to the settlement money.
One reader’s copy of their Equifax Breach Settlement letter. They received a check for $6.97.
In 2017, Equifax disclosed a massive, extended data breach that led to the theft of Social Security Numbers, dates of birth, addresses and other personal information on nearly 150 million people. Following a public breach response perhaps best described as a giant dumpster fire, the big-three consumer credit reporting bureau was quickly hit with nearly two dozen class-action lawsuits.
In exchange for resolving all outstanding class action claims against it, Equifax in 2019 agreed to a settlement that includes up to $425 million to help people affected by the breach.
Affected consumers were eligible to apply for at least three years of credit monitoring via all three major bureaus simultaneously, including Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Or, if you didn’t want to take advantage of the credit monitoring offers, you could opt for a cash payment of up to $125.
The settlement also offered reimbursement for the time you may have spent remedying identity theft or misuse of your personal information caused by the breach, or purchasing credit monitoring or credit reports. This was capped at 20 total hours at $25 per hour ($500), with total cash reimbursement payments not to exceed $20,000 per consumer.
Those who did file a claim probably started receiving emails or other communications earlier this year from the Equifax Breach Settlement Fund, which has been messaging class participants about methods of collecting their payments.
How much each recipient receives appears to vary quite a bit, but probably most people will have earned a payment on the smaller end of that $125 scale — like less than $10. Those who received higher amounts likely spent more time documenting actual losses and/or explaining how the breach affected them personally.
So far this week, KrebsOnSecurity has received at least 20 messages from readers seeking more information about these notices. Some readers shared copies of letters they got in the mail along with a paper check from the Equifax Breach Settlement Fund (see screenshot above).
Others said they got emails from the Equifax Breach Settlement domain that looked like an animated greeting card offering instructions on how to redeem a virtual prepaid card.
If you received one of these settlement emails and are wary about clicking the included links (good for you, by the way), copy the redemption code and paste it into the search box at myprepaidcenter.com/redeem. Successfully completing the card application requires accepting a prepaid MasterCard agreement (PDF).
The website for the settlement — equifaxbreachsettlement.com — also includes a lookup tool that lets visitors check whether they were affected by the breach; it requires your last name and the last six digits of your Social Security Number.
But be aware that phishers and other scammers are likely to take advantage of increased public awareness of the payouts to snooker people. Tim Helming, security evangelist at DomainTools.com, today flagged several new domains that mimic the name of the real Equifax Breach Settlement website and do not appear to be defensively registered by Equifax, including equifaxbreechsettlement[.]com, equifaxbreachsettlementbreach[.]com, and equifaxsettlements[.]co.
In February 2020, the U.S. Justice Department indicted four Chinese officers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for perpetrating the 2017 Equifax hack. DOJ officials said the four men were responsible for carrying out the largest theft of sensitive personal information by state-sponsored hackers ever recorded.
Equifax surpassed Wall Street’s expectations in its most recent quarterly earnings: The company reported revenues of $1.24 billion for the quarter ending September 2022.
Of course, most of those earnings come from Equifax’s continued legal ability to buy and sell eye-popping amounts of financial and personal data on U.S. consumers. As one of the three major credit bureaus, Equifax collects and packages information about your credit, salary, and employment history. It tracks how many credit cards you have, how much money you owe, and how you pay your bills. Each company creates a credit report about you, and then sells this report to businesses who are deciding whether to give you credit.
Americans currently have no legal right to opt out of this data collection and trade. But you can and also should freeze your credit, which by the way can make your credit profile less profitable for companies like Equifax — because they make money every time some potential creditor wants a peek inside your financial life. Also, it’s probably a good idea to freeze the credit of your children and/or dependents as well. It’s free on both counts.
ESET researchers identified an active StrongPity campaign distributing a trojanized version of the Android Telegram app, presented as the Shagle app – a video-chat service that has no app version
The post StrongPity espionage campaign targeting Android users appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
ESET Research announces IPyIDA 2.0, a Python plugin integrating IPython and Jupyter Notebook into IDA
The post Introducing IPyIDA: A Python plugin for your reverse‑engineering toolkit appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
ESET researchers have identified a campaign using trojanized installers to deliver the FatalRAT malware, distributed via malicious websites linked in ads that appear in Google search results
The post These aren’t the apps you’re looking for: fake installers targeting Southeast and East Asia appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Millions of Americans receiving food assistance benefits just earned a new right that they can’t yet enforce: The right to be reimbursed if funds on their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards are stolen by card skimming devices secretly installed at cash machines and grocery store checkout lanes.
On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which — for the first time ever — includes provisions for the replacement of stolen EBT benefits. This is a big deal because in 2022, organized crime groups began massively targeting EBT accounts — often emptying affected accounts at ATMs immediately after the states disperse funds each month.
EBT cards can be used along with a personal identification number (PIN) to pay for goods at participating stores, and to withdraw cash from an ATM. However, EBT cards differ from debit cards issued to most Americans in two important ways. First, most states do not equip EBT cards with smart chip technology, which can make the cards more difficult and expensive for skimming thieves to clone.
More critically, EBT participants traditionally have had little hope of recovering food assistance funds when their cards were copied by card-skimming devices and used for fraud. That’s because while the EBT programs are operated by individually by the states, those programs are funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which until late last year was barred from reimbursing states for stolen EBT funds.
The protections passed in the 2023 Appropriations Act allow states to use federal funds to replace stolen EBT benefits, and they permit states to seek reimbursement for any skimmed EBT funds they may have replaced from their own coffers (dating back to Oct. 1, 2022).
But first, all 50 states must each submit a plan for how they are going to protect and replace food benefits stolen via card skimming. Guidance for the states in drafting those plans was issued by the USDA on Jan. 31 (PDF), and states that don’t get them done before Feb. 27, 2023 risk losing the ability to be reimbursed for EBT fraud losses.
Deborah Harris is a staff attorney at The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI), a nonprofit legal assistance organization that has closely tracked the EBT skimming epidemic. In November 2022, the MLRI filed a class-action lawsuit against Massachusetts on behalf of thousands of low-income families who were collectively robbed of more than $1 million in food assistance benefits by card skimming devices secretly installed at cash machines and grocery store checkout lanes across the state.
Harris said she’s pleased that the USDA guidelines were issued so promptly, and that the guidance for states was not overly prescriptive. For example, some security experts have suggested that adding contactless capability to EBT cards could help participants avoid skimming devices altogether. But Harris said contactless cards do not require a PIN, which is the only thing that stops EBT cards from being drained at the ATM when a participant’s card is lost or stolen.
Then again, nothing in the guidance even mentions chip-based cards, or any other advice for improving the physical security of EBT cards. Rather, it suggests states should seek to develop the capability to perform basic fraud detection and alerting on suspicious transactions, such as when an EBT card that is normally used only in one geographic area suddenly is used to withdraw cash at an ATM halfway across the country.
“Besides having the states move fast to approve their plans, we’d also like to see a focused effort to move states from magstripe-only cards to chip, and also assisting states to develop the algorithms that will enable them to identify likely incidents of stolen benefits,” Harris said.
Harris said Massachusetts has begun using algorithms to look for these suspicious transaction patterns throughout its EBT network, and now has the ability to alert households and verify transactions. But she said most states do not have this capability.
“We have heard that other states aren’t currently able to do that,” Harris said. “But encouraging states to more affirmatively identify instances of likely theft and assisting with the claims and verification process is critical. Most households can’t do that on their own, and in Massachusetts it’s very hard for a person to get a copy of their transaction history. Some states can do that through third-party apps, but something so basic should not be on the burden of EBT households.”
Some states aren’t waiting for direction from the federal government to beef up EBT card security. Like Maryland, which identified more than 1,400 households hit by EBT skimming attacks last year — a tenfold increase over 2021.
Advocates for EBT beneficiaries in Maryland are backing Senate Bill 401 (PDF), which would require the use of chip technology and ongoing monitoring for suspicious activity (a hearing on SB401 is scheduled in the Maryland Senate Finance Commission for Thursday, Feb. 23, at 1 p.m.).
Michelle Salomon Madaio is a director at the Homeless Persons Representation Project, a legal assistance organization based in Silver Spring, Md. Madaio said the bill would require the state Department of Human Services to replace skimmed benefits, not only after the bill goes into effect but also retroactively from January 2020 to the present.
Madaio said the bill also would require the state to monitor for patterns of suspicious activity on EBT cards, and to develop a mechanism to contact potentially affected households.
“For most of the skimming victims we’ve worked with, the fraudulent transactions would be pretty easy to spot because they mostly happened in the middle of the night or out of state, or both,” Madaio said. “To make matters worse, a lot of families whose benefits were scammed then incurred late fees on many other things as a result.”
It is not difficult to see why organized crime groups have pounced on EBT cards as easy money. In most traditional payment card transactions, there are usually several parties that have a financial interest in minimizing fraud and fraud losses, including the bank that issued the card, the card network (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, etc.), and the merchant.
But that infrastructure simply does not exist within state EBT programs, and it certainly isn’t a thing at the inter-state level. What that means is that the vast majority of EBT cards have zero fraud controls, which is exactly what continues to make them so appealing to thieves.
For now, the only fraud controls available to most EBT cardholders include being especially paranoid about where they use their cards, and frequently changing their PINs.
According to USDA guidance issued prior to the passage of the appropriations act, EBT cardholders should consider changing their card PIN at least once a month.
“By changing PINs frequently, at least monthly, and doing so before benefit issuance dates, households can minimize their risk of stolen benefits from a previously skimmed EBT card,” the USDA advised.
The targeted region, and overlap in behavior and code, suggest the tool is used by the infamous North Korea-aligned APT group
The post WinorDLL64: A backdoor from the vast Lazarus arsenal? appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the trends that defined the cyberthreat landscape in the final four months of 2022.
The post ESET Research Podcast: Ransomware trashed data, Android threats soared in T3 2022 appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
The first in-the-wild UEFI bootkit bypassing UEFI Secure Boot on fully updated UEFI systems is now a reality
The post BlackLotus UEFI bootkit: Myth confirmed appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
ESET researchers tease apart MQsTTang, a new backdoor used by Mustang Panda, which communicates via the MQTT protocol
The post MQsTTang: Mustang Panda’s latest backdoor treads new ground with Qt and MQTT appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
ESET researchers analyze a cyberespionage campaign that distributes CapraRAT backdoors through trojanized and supposedly secure Android messaging apps – but also exfiltrates sensitive information
The post Love scam or espionage? Transparent Tribe lures Indian and Pakistani officials appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
ESET Research uncovered a campaign by APT group Tick against a data-loss prevention company in East Asia and found a previously unreported tool used by the group
The post The slow Tick‑ing time bomb: Tick APT group compromise of a DLP software developer in East Asia appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
ESET researchers analyzed Android and Windows clippers that can tamper with instant messages and use OCR to steal cryptocurrency funds
The post Not‑so‑private messaging: Trojanized WhatsApp and Telegram apps go after cryptocurrency wallets appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
ESET experts share their insights on the cyber-elements of the first year of the war in Ukraine and how a growing number of destructive malware variants tried to rip through critical Ukrainian systems
The post ESET Research Podcast: A year of fighting rockets, soldiers, and wipers in Ukraine appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
When decommissioning their old hardware, many companies 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'
The post Discarded, not destroyed: Old routers reveal corporate secrets appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
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