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
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
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
Office Depot found malware in scans...not really
Office Depot and its tech partner tricked customers into buying unneeded tech support services by offering malware scans that gave fake results, according to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). Consumers paid up to $300 each for unnecessary services.
The FTC yesterday announced that Office Depot and its software supplier, Support.com, have agreed to pay a total of $35 million in settlements with the agency. Office Depot agreed to pay $25 million while Support.com will pay the other $10 million. The FTC said it intends to use the money to provide refunds to wronged consumers.
Office Depot caught claiming out-of-box PCs showed “symptoms of malware”
Between 2009 and 2016, Office Depot and OfficeMax offered computer scans inside their stores using a "PC Health Check" ... Read More
Triton got into a petrochemical plant
In the summer of 2017, a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia experienced a worrisome security incident that cybersecurity experts consider to be the first-ever cyber attack carried out with “a blatant, flat-out intent to hurt people.” The attack involved a highly sophisticated new malware strain called Triton, which was capable of remotely disabling safety systems inside the plant with potentially catastrophic consequences. It all started when someone launched a spear phishing attack and someone else clicked a link they should not have clicked.
Luckily, a flaw in the Triton code triggered a safety system that responded by shutting down the plant. If it hadn’t been for that flaw, the hackers could have released toxic hydrogen sulfide gas or caused explosions. As ... Read More
Phishing and File Sharing
Internet thieves have long used file sharing sites and services to host their malicious files. When they do this, they typically use the underlying service to generate download links that anyone can click without logging in to the hosting service.
Over the past month we started noticing apparently legitimate Dropbox emails pushing links to files with names suspiciously similar to those routinely used by the bad guys. When we clicked the links to check, however, we were greeted with a demand to log in to the service. That's typically been a sign that the files involved were legit.
Still, something wasn't right here. Given the file names presented, we reckoned there was little chance those files were innocuous. So, we decided to log in to ... Read More
Ransomware knocked most systems offline
Officials in Jackson County, Georgia, paid $400,000 to cyber-criminals this week to get rid of a ransomware infection and regain access to their IT systems. The County hired cyber-security consultant to negotiate ransom fee with hacker group. Jackson County officials have not yet confirmed how hackers breached their network.
The infection forced most of the local government's IT systems offline, with the exception of its website and 911 emergency system.
"Everything we have is down," Sheriff Janis Mangum told StateScoop in an interview. "We are doing our bookings the way we used to do it before computers. We're operating by paper in terms of reports and arrest bookings. We've continued to function. It's just more difficult."
Jackson County officials notified the FBI and hired a cyber-security consultant. ... Read More