by Paul Ducklin Just under two months ago, some worrying bug news broke: a pair of zero-day vulnerabilities were announced in Microsoft Exchange. As we advised at the time, these vulnerabilities, officially designated CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082: [were] two zero-days that [could] be chained together, with the first bug used remotely to open enough of a
Month: November 2022
A malicious extension for Chromium-based web browsers has been observed to be distributed via a long-standing Windows information stealer called ViperSoftX. Czech-based cybersecurity company dubbed the rogue browser add-on VenomSoftX owing to its standalone features that enable it to access website visits, steal credentials and clipboard data, and even swap cryptocurrency addresses via an adversary-in-the-middle
Google has announced a legal victory against two Russian nationals connected with the Glupteba botnet. In a blog post last Friday, the tech giant said the court’s ruling against the botnet operators set a crucial legal precedent and sends a warning to cyber-criminals and their accomplices. “Last December, Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) shared the
by Paul Ducklin Phishing scams that try to trick you into putting your real password into a fake site have been around for decades. As regular Naked Security readers will know, precautions such as using a password manager and turning on two-factor authentication (2FA) can help to protect you against phishing mishaps, because: Password managers
The joy of purchasing a new device is liberating. Now you can work, learn, and play faster — along with enjoying ample storage space. So, the last thing you’d expect is your apparently safe device being exposed to vulnerabilities, or “bloat.” Exposure to unwanted software can derail its performance and hog its storage within a
What have some of the world’s most notorious APT groups been up to lately? A new ESET report released this week has the answers. What have advanced persistent threat (APT) groups been up to lately? This week, the ESET Research team published their inaugural APT Activity Report, which reviews the activities of selected APT threat
The cybercrime group called Daixin Team has leaked sample data belonging to AirAsia, a Malaysian low-cost airline, on its data leak portal. The development comes a little over a week after the company fell victim to a ransomware attack on November 11 and 12, per DataBreaches.net. The threat actors allegedly claim to have obtained the
A credential phishing attack reportedly targeted 22,000 students at national educational institutions with a campaign impersonating Instagram. The information comes from security experts at Armorblox, who highlighted the new threat in an advisory on November 17, 2022. “The subject of this email encouraged victims to open the message,” reads the technical write-up. The goal of this
Hackers have posted another batch of stolen health records on the dark web—following a breach that could potentially affect nearly 8 million Australian Medibank customers, along with nearly 2 million more international customers. The records were stolen in October’s reported breach at Medibank, one of Australia’s largest private health insurance providers. Given Australia’s population of
A developing threat activity cluster has been found using Google Ads in one of its campaigns to distribute various post-compromise payloads, including the recently discovered Royal ransomware. Microsoft, which spotted the updated malware delivery method in late October 2022, is tracking the group under the name DEV-0569. “Observed DEV-0569 attacks show a pattern of continuous
On Thursday, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published the final part of its three-section series on securing the software supply chain. The publication, which follows the August 2022 release of guidance for developers and the October 2022 release of guidance for suppliers, provides recommended practices for customers to ensure the integrity and
Internet security is a broad term that refers to a wide range of tactics that aim to protect activities conducted over the internet. Implementing internet security measures helps protect users from different online threats like types of malware, phishing attacks, scams, and even unauthorized access by hackers. In this article, we highlight the importance of
Both Tor and a VPN can greatly help you keep prying eyes away from your online life, but they’re also two very different beasts. Which suits your needs better? People who want to keep their online activities private are often faced with the question – should I use a virtual private network (VPN) or the Tor anonymity network?
The Indian government on Friday released a draft version of the much-awaited data protection regulation, making it the fourth such effort since it was first proposed in July 2018. The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, as it’s called, aims to secure personal data, while also seeking users’ consent in what the draft claims is
Shoppers should stay alert on Black Friday as hackers launch new scams in the lead-up to the event. Check Point Research (CPR) said the team has already observed a sharp increase in shopping-related phishing scams, with threat actors imitating well-known brands. “While consumers are getting ready to bag the best deal, cybercriminals are taking advantage
by Paul Ducklin Given that we’re getting into peak retail season, you’ll find cybersecurity warnings with a “Black Friday” theme all over the internet… …including, of course, right here on Naked Security! As regular readers will know, however, we’re not terribly keen on online tips that are specific to Black Friday, because cybersecurity matters 365-and-a-quarter
Protecting your devices with antivirus is a great start, yet it’s only one part of staying safer online. With the way scammers and thieves target people today, you need to protect yourself too—specifically your identity and privacy. Threats have evolved over the years. While hackers still wage malware attacks on computers, tablets, and smartphones, the
Meta Platforms is said to have fired or disciplined over two dozen employees and contractors over the past year for allegedly compromising and taking over user accounts, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Some of these cases involved bribery, the publication said, citing sources and documents. Included among those fired were contractors who worked as
Swiss authorities have apprehended a Ukrainian national wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for 12 years for connections with a cyber-criminal group that stole millions of dollars from bank accounts using malware called Zeus. Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov was arrested in Geneva on October 23, 2022, and is now pending extradition to the US,
by Paul Ducklin DON’T LET ONE LOUSY EMAIL PASSWORD SINK THE COMPANY Microsoft’s tilt at the MP3 marketplace. Apple’s not-a-zero-day emergency. Cracking the lock on Android phones. Browser-in-the-Browser revisited. The Emmenthal cheese attack. Business Email Compromise and how to prevent it. Click-and-drag on the soundwaves below to skip to any point. You can also listen
Monkey in the middle, the beloved playground staple, extends beyond schoolyards into corporate networks, home desktops, and personal mobile devices in a not-so-fun way. Known as a monkey-in-the-middle or man-in-the-middle attack (MiTM), it’s a type of cybercrime that can happen to anyone. Here’s everything you need to know about mobile MiTM schemes specifically, how to
A China-based financially motivated group is leveraging the trust associated with popular international brands to orchestrate a large-scale phishing campaign dating back as far as 2019. The threat actor, dubbed Fangxiao by Cyjax, is said to have registered over 42,000 imposter domains, with initial activity observed in 2017. “It targets businesses in multiple verticals including
The convenience with which you manage all your financial wants and needs may come at a cost Since becoming more common in the mid-2010s, mobile banking apps have continued to grow in popularity and have ultimately become highly versatile tools for almost all things money-related. We use our phones to shop, pay for services, transfer
Google has announced plans to roll out the initial Privacy Sandbox Beta to Android 13 mobile devices earlier next year. Initially unveiled in February, the project aims to bring new and more private advertising solutions to mobile. “Over the course of 2022, we’ve published design proposals and released a number of Developer Previews,” Android product
by Paul Ducklin Firefox’s latest once-every-four-weeks security update is out, bringing the popular alternative browser to version 107.0, or Extended Support Release (ESR) 102.5 if you prefer not to get new feature releases every month. (As we’ve explained before, the ESR version number tells you which feature set you have, plus the number of times
Authored by Oliver Devane It hasn’t taken malicious actors long to take advantage of the recent bankruptcy filing of FTX, McAfee has discovered several phishing sites targeting FTX users. One of the sites discovered was registered on the 15th of November and asks users to submit their crypto wallet phrase to receive a refund. After
Hundreds of databases on Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) are exposing personal identifiable information (PII), new findings from Mitiga, a cloud incident response company, show. “Leaking PII in this manner provides a potential treasure trove for threat actors – either during the reconnaissance phase of the cyber kill chain or extortionware/ransomware campaigns,” researchers Ariel
State-sponsored actors in the Billbug group (aka Lotus Blossom and Thrip) have tried to compromise a digital certificate authority in an Asian country during a campaign targeting multiple government agencies. Security researchers from Symantec have made the discovery and shared the findings in an advisory published earlier today. “In activity documented by Symantec in 2019,
by Paul Ducklin Researchers at cloud coding security company Oxeye have written up a critical bug that they recently discovered in the popular cloud development toolkit Backstage. Their report includes an explanation of how the bug works, plus proof-of-concept (PoC) code showing how to exploit it. Backstage is what’s known as a cloud developer portal
Following up on our previous blog, How to Stop the Popups, McAfee Labs saw a sharp decrease in the number of deceptive push notifications reported by McAfee consumers running Microsoft’s Edge browser on Windows. Such browser-delivered push messages appear as toaster pop-ups in the tray above the system clock and are meant to trick users