Coronavirus | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Threat actors such as the notorious Lazarus group are continuing to tap into the ongoing COVID-19 vaccine research to steal sensitive information to speed up their countries' vaccine-development efforts. Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky  detailed  two incidents at a pharmaceutical company and a government ministry in September and October leveraging different tools and techniques but exhibiting similarities in the post-exploitation process, leading the researchers to connect the two attacks to the North Korean government-linked hackers. "These two incidents reveal the Lazarus group's interest in intelligence related to COVID-19," Seongsu Park, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky, said. "While the group is mostly known for its financial activities, it is a good reminder that it can go after strategic research as well." Kaspersky did not name the targeted entities but said the pharmaceutical firm was breached on September 25, 2020, with the attack again...

A Russian threat actor known for its malware campaigns has reappeared in the threat landscape with yet another attack leveraging COVID-19 as phishing lures, once again indicating how adversaries are adept at repurposing the current world events to their advantage. Linking the operation to a sub-group of APT28 (aka Sofacy, Sednit, Fancy Bear, or STRONTIUM), cybersecurity firm Intezer said the pandemic-themed phishing emails were employed to deliver the Go version of Zebrocy (or Zekapab) malware. The cybersecurity firm told The Hacker News that the campaigns were observed late last month. Zebrocy is delivered primarily via phishing attacks that contain decoy Microsoft Office documents with macros as well as executable file attachments. First spotted in the wild in 2015 , the operators behind the malware have been found to overlap with GreyEnergy , a threat group believed to be the successor of BlackEnergy aka Sandworm , suggesting its role as a sub-group with links to Sofacy and ...

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A global spear-phishing campaign has been targeting organizations associated with the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines since September 2020, according to new research. Attributing the operation to a nation-state actor,  IBM Security X-Force researchers  said the attacks took aim at the vaccine cold chain, companies responsible for storing and delivering the COVID-19 vaccine at safe temperatures. The development has prompted the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to  issue an alert , urging Operation Warp Speed ( OWS ) organizations and companies involved in vaccine storage and transport to review the indicators of compromise (IoCs) and beef up their defenses. It is unclear whether any of the phishing attempts were successful, but the company said it has notified appropriate entities and authorities about this targeted attack. The phishing emails, dating to September, targeted organizations in Italy, Germany, South Korea, the Czech Republic, ...

Most cybersecurity professionals fully anticipated that cybercriminals would leverage the fear and confusion surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic in their cyberattacks. Of course, malicious emails would contain subjects relating to Covid-19, and malicious downloads would be Covid-19 related. This is how cybercriminals operate. Any opportunity to maximize effectiveness, no matter how contemptible, is taken. While many have anecdotally suggested ways in which Covid-19 related cyberattacks would unfold, we have little data supporting the actual impact of Covid-19 on cybersecurity. Several have reported that the number of malicious emails with the subject related to Covid-19 has grown several hundred percent and that the majority of Covid-19 related emails are now malicious. Beyond the anticipated increase in Covid-19 related malicious emails, videos, and an array of downloadable files, which we all anticipated, what else is going on behind the scenes? Interestingly, cybersecurity ...

For much of this year, IT professionals all over the globe have had their hands full, finding ways to help businesses cope with the fallout of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In many cases, it involved a rapid rollout of significant remote work infrastructure. That infrastructure was called into service with little to no warning and even less opportunity for testing. Needless to say, the situation wasn't ideal from a cybersecurity standpoint. And hackers all over the world knew it. Almost immediately, Google reported a significant increase in malicious activity, and Microsoft noted trends that appeared to back that up. The good news is that the wave of cyberattacks unleashed by the pandemic peaked in April and has since died down. Fortunately, that's allowing IT professionals and network administrators everywhere to take a deep breath and take stock of the new security environment they're now operating in. The trouble is, there's still so much uncertainty ...

As hospitals around the world are struggling to respond to the coronavirus crisis, cybercriminals—with no conscience and empathy—are continuously targeting healthcare organizations, research facilities, and other governmental organizations with ransomware and malicious information stealers. The new research, published by Palo Alto Networks and shared with The Hacker News, confirmed that "the threat actors who profit from cybercrime will go to any extent, including targeting organizations that are in the front lines and responding to the pandemic on a daily basis." While the security firm didn't name the latest victims, it said a Canadian government healthcare organization and a Canadian medical research university both suffered ransomware attacks, as criminal groups seek to exploit the crisis for financial gain. The attacks were detected between March 24 and March 26 and were initiated as part of the coronavirus-themed phishing campaigns that have become widespr...

The Coronavirus quarantine introduces an extreme challenge for IT and Security teams to maintain secure environments during the mass transition of employees working remotely and the surge in cyberattacks targeting its inherent security weaknesses. In a webinar for security service providers taking place on April 22nd ( register here ), a leading MSSP will share how they conquer and overcome the coronavirus quarantine challenges to grow their customer base. The webinar sheds light on the opportunities and challenges this new reality introduces to MSSPs from the perspective of a leading Canadian MSSP. While it might sound strange to discuss the opportunities Coronavirus brings, especially with the changes it imposes on the IT environment, but it does bring a shift in priorities. It turns out that cyber threats that were normally considered a reasonable risk to contain, suddenly become regarded as a critical need to address. Thus, organizations that did not have advanced threat...

Tech giants Apple and Google have joined forces to develop an interoperable contact-tracing tool that will help individuals determine if they have come in contact with someone infected with COVID-19. As part of this new initiative, the companies are expected to release an API that public agencies can integrate into their apps. The next iteration will be a built-in system-level platform that uses Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons to allow for contact tracing on an opt-in basis. The APIs are expected to be available mid-May for Android and iOS, with the broader contact tracing system set to roll out "in the coming months." "Privacy, transparency, and consent are of utmost importance in this effort, and we look forward to building this functionality in consultation with interested stakeholders," the companies said. The rare collaboration comes as governments worldwide are increasingly turning to technology such as phone tracking and facial recognition to ...

In our previous stories, you might have already read about various campaigns warning how threat actors are capitalizing on the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in an attempt to infect your computers and mobile devices with malware or scam you out of your money. Unfortunately, to some extent, it's working, and that's because the attack surface is changing and expanding rapidly as many organizations and business tasks are going digital without much preparation, exposing themselves to more potential threats. Most of the recent cyberattacks are primarily exploiting the fears around the COVID-19 outbreak—fueled by disinformation and fake news—to distribute malware via Google Play apps , malicious links and attachments, and execute ransomware attacks. Here, we took a look at some of the wide range of unseen threats rising in the digital space, powered by coronavirus-themed lures that cybercriminals are using for espionage and commercial gain. The latest development adds to a l...

Coronavirus crisis introduces a heavy burden on the CISOs with the collective impact of a mass transition to working remotely coupled with a surge of cyberattacks that strive to monetize the general chaos. Security vendors, unintendedly, contribute to this burden by a relentless generation of noise in the form of attack reports, best practices, tips, and threat landscape analysis. Here we have a new " CISO Checklist for Secure Remote Working " ( download here ) that has been built to assist CISOs in navigating through this noise, providing them with a concise and high-level list of the absolute essentials needed to ensure their organization is well protected in these challenging times. The Coronavirus quarantine forces us to face a new reality. It is critical to acknowledge this new reality in order to understand how to successfully confront these changes. Make no mistake – these changed apply to any organization, regardless of its former security posture. For exa...

These are unprecedented times, and everyone is going through a testing period, with more than 3 billion people locked down all over the world. Businesses are scrambling to stay afloat and are forced to move digital in a very short span of time without much preparation. As these businesses move digital, cyber threats are more real than ever. Every day we are hearing news about hackers taking advantage of the situation. Cybersecurity company Indusface that holds expertise in keeping applications over the internet secure has decided to step up and do our bit to the society. During this unprecedented time, Indusface has announced to support organizations affected by COVID-19 by offering professional cybersecurity protection to their online businesses at free of cost for at least a month. Indusface already provides a Free Forever Website security assessment service, and as part of this additional offering, businesses can get 30 days of its paid offering without any charges. Cus...

As people increasingly work from home and online communication platforms such as Zoom explode in popularity in the wake of coronavirus outbreak, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the spike in usage by registering new fake "Zoom" domains and malicious "Zoom" executable files in an attempt to trick people into downloading malware on their devices. According to a report published by Check Point and shared with The Hacker News, over 1,700 new "Zoom" domains have been registered since the onset of the pandemic, with 25 percent of the domains registered in the past seven days alone. "We see a sharp rise in the number of 'Zoom' domains being registered, especially in the last week," said Omer Dembinsky, Manager of Cyber Research at Check Point . "The recent, staggering increase means that hackers have taken notice of the work-from-home paradigm shift that COVID-19 has forced, and they see it as an opportunity to deceive, lure,...

Preying on public fears, the ongoing coronavirus outbreak is proving to be a goldmine of opportunity for attackers to stage a variety of malware attacks, phishing campaigns, and create scam sites and malicious tracker apps. Now in a fresh twist, third-party Android app developers too have begun to take advantage of the situation to use coronavirus-related keywords in their app names, descriptions, or in the package names so as to drop malware, perpetrate financial theft and rank higher in Google Play Store searches related to the topic. "Most malicious apps found are bundle threats that range from ransomware to SMS-sending malware, and even spyware designed to clean out the contents of victims' devices for personal or financial data," Bitdefender researchers said in a telemetry analysis report shared with The Hacker News. The find by Bitdefender is the latest in an avalanche of digital threats piggybacking on the coronavirus pandemic. Using Coronavirus-Relat...

The Coronavirus is hitting hard on the world's economy, creating a high volume of uncertainty within organizations. Cybersecurity firm Cynet today revealed new data, showing that the Coronavirus now has a significant impact on information security and that the crisis is actively exploited by threat actors. In light of these insights, Cynet has also shared a few ways to best prepare for the Coronavirus derived threat landscape and provides a solution ( learn more here ) to protect employees that are working from home with their personal computers because of the Coronavirus. The researchers identify two main trends – attacks that aim to steal remote user credentials and weaponized email attacks: Remote User Credential Theft The direct impact of the Coronavirus is a comprehensive quarantine policy that compels multiple organizations to allow their workforce to work from home to maintain business continuity. This inevitably entails shifting a significant portion of the wor...