Extortion scams capitalize on compromised credentials, sensitive data, and technical vulnerabilities
Cyber thieves seeking sensitive data on high net-worth individuals will pay an average of $360,000 per year to target executives, lawyers, doctors, and other prominent figures, researchers discovered. The money comes through extortion
The Digital Shadows Photon Research Team today published "A Tale of Epic Extortions," a deep dive into the ways cybercriminals prey on individuals' online exposure. Extortionists take advantage of compromised credentials, sensitive data (documents, intellectual property), and technical vulnerabilities on Internet-facing applications to convince their victims to pay up.
Extortion has a human element
"The extortion landscape is broader and more diverse than any of us thought before we started," says Rafael Amado, senior strategy and research analyst with Digital Shadows.
Oftentimes, he continues, the technical ... Read More
Fake reviews waste time and money
Earlier this month, the US Federal Trade Commission banned fake reviews. FTC Chair Linda M Khan reported: “Fake reviews not only waste people’s time and money, but also pollute the marketplace and divert business away from honest competitors. By strengthening the FTC’s toolkit to fight deceptive advertising, the final rule will protect Americans from getting cheated, put businesses that unlawfully game the system on notice, and promote markets that are fair, honest, and competitive.”
In real-world terms, advertisers cannot buy fake reviews to help promote a movie. This includes both positive and negative reviews. But wait there’s more. This also includes reviews and testimonials from someone that does not exist. You guessed it, I am talking about AI here. The FTC ... Read More
Successful cyber attacks attract additional cyber attackers
Recent cyber attacks against city governments have provided their attackers with revenue from scams, data breaches, and data held ransom. They also draw the attention of other cyber thieves. If you were a smart cyber thief, you’d be wanting to find victims that meet a few criteria:
Relatively vulnerable to attack
High-Profile (particularly in the case of Ransomware)
Have lots of valuable data to steal/hold for ransom
Deals in large monetary transactions
Cities are attractive targets
City governments across the U.S. have been the victim of countless attacks over the last number of years. It’s because they are one of the few organizations that meet all the needed criteria.
Vulnerable to Attack – Cities usually run as multiple departments with disparate technology and processes, ... Read More
Time for a PCI-DSS Assessment? Maybe?
If you accept charge cards, you are subject to the rules laid out by the PCI Security Standards Council. You could be in medical, retail or online. The field does not matter. What matters is you accept charge cards and/or debit cards. The PCI Security Standards Council mandates assessments and vulnerability scans. You perform assessments annually, or after significant changes. You perform vulnerability scans quarterly, or after a significant change.
Annual PCI-DSS Assessments
You should perform PCI-DSS assessments annually, or after significant changes. "What does that mean?" you may say.
Annually. https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/minisite/en/docs/Navigating_DSS_v2.pdf tells us on page 4 "At least annually and prior to the annual assessment,
the assessed entity should confirm the accuracy of their PCI DSS scope by identifying all locations and ... Read More
Cyber attack closes bank's doors
Reuters reported that the Bank of Valetta, which accounts for almost half of Malta’s banking transactions, had to shut down all of its operations last month after hackers broke into its systems and shifted funds overseas.
"Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told parliament the cyber attack involved the creation of false international payments totaling 13 million euros ($14.7 million) to banks in Britain, the United States, the Czech Republic and Hong Kong.
The funds have been traced and the Bank of Valletta is seeking to have the fraudulent transactions reversed.
Muscat said the attack was detected soon after the start of business on Wednesday when discrepancies were noticed during the reconciliation of international transactions.
Shortly after, the bank was informed by state security services that it had received ... Read More
Cyber thieves sending fake security alerts
Con artists are targeting thousands of people with tech support scams that pose as security alerts from Norton Security, researchers at Symantec have found. The phony alerts pop up in the browser and urge the victim to run a quick scan of their computer. If the user clicks “OK,” they’ll see a very realistic-looking fake Norton scan running, which tells them their computer is infected. They’ll then be prompted to download an “update” for their antivirus software, which is actually a potentially unwanted application (PUA).
The scammers use HTML and JavaScript to create a very convincing illusion that a Norton scan is taking place. The source code contains several invisible HTML div elements which are progressively made visible by JavaScript code. ... Read More
Real-estate phishing scam took $123,000 from a home buyer
A man in Portland, Oregon lost $123,000 after falling victim to a phishing real-estate scam, according to Michele Lerner at The Washington Post. In December, Aaron Cole and his family were about to buy a new house through WFG National Title Insurance Company.
Shortly before the deal was supposed to take place, Cole received an email that purported to come from WFG which told him to wire the $123,000 down payment to a different address. Cole complied, and the money was laundered through multiple banks and sent out of the country before anyone realized it had been sent to a scammer.
Never rely solely on email
Fortunately, WFG hired Cole as a spokesperson to raise awareness about cybercrime and scams, ... Read More
Malwarebytes releases State of Malware report
Growth in attacks designed to obfuscate access and purpose should put organizations on alert as cybercriminals gain control over endpoints to do just about anything they want.
The most dangerous cyberattack is the one you don’t know about.
That’s exactly what cybercriminals are focusing on, according to Malwarebytes’ 2019 State of Malware report. If an attack can either run completely in stealth, or simply hide their true intention, in many ways, they’ve already won.
According to the report, two very specific types of attacks are on the rise from 2017 to 2018:
Trojans saw a 132% increase
Backdoors saw a 173% increase
Trojans and backdoors
Malwarebytes defines each of these separately. Trojans are programs "that claim to perform one function but actually do another", with Backdoors defined as "a type ... Read More
Why Is Ransomware a Threat?
Ransomware is a big problem for businesses because it can lock up important files and demand money to unlock them. These attacks are becoming more common, so it's important to know how to protect your business. See https://youtu.be/PBQsk_yGUJI to learn what gets stolen in a ransomware attack.
Steps to Protect Your Business
Here are some simple steps to help keep your business safe:
Train Employees: Teach your employees how to spot fake emails that might contain viruses. This can help stop ransomware before it starts.
Update Software: Make sure all your computer programs are up to date. This can help protect against known problems that hackers might try to use.
Control Access: Only let people who really need it access important files. This can help stop ... Read More
Scammers use Google Translate to create spoof login pages
A clever use of Google Translate fools victims into believing spoofed authentication requests are being handled by Google itself.
Compromising credentials are the number one staple in any cybercriminal’s book of activities, according to the Verizon Data Breach Investigation’s Report. A new phishing scam uses Google Translate to hide spoof logon pages when asking a user for their Google credentials. The user is sent a supposed Google Security Alert about a new device accessing their Google account with a “Consult the Activity” button to find out more.
The user is then taken to a spoofed Google logon page (shown below).
Random text in the URL
The kicker is that instead of seeing the mediacity.co URL, the cybercriminals use Google Translate to display the page, ... Read More