Malware | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

In an effort to infect large number of people, cybercriminals have developed a new malicious software program that contains functionality to spread itself quickly. Geodo , a new version of the infamous Cridex (also known as Feodo or Bugat ) banking information stealing Trojan works in conjunction with a worm that sends out emails automatically to continue its self-spreading infection method, effectively turning each infected Windows system in the botnet for infecting new targets, Seculert warned . The Infected Windows systems in the botnet network download and install an additional piece of malware (i.e. an email worm) from the Botnet 's command and control servers, provided with approximately 50,000 stolen SMTP account credentials including those of the associated SMTP servers. The stolen SMTP credentials appeared to come from Cridex victims and with the help of those credentials, the malware then sends out emails from legitimate accounts to other potential victim

Gone are the days when cyber criminals focuses only on PCs to spread malwares and target people, whether it's ordinary or a high profile person. Nowadays, organizations in the energy sector have become an interesting target for cyber minds. Few days ago, security researchers uncovered a Stuxnet-like malware, " Havex ", which was also programmed to infect industrial control system software of SCADA systems , with the capability to possibly disable hydroelectric dams, overload nuclear power plants, and even shut down a country's power grid with a single keystroke. RUSSIAN HACKERS HIT 1000 ENERGY FIRMS Recently, a Russian group of hackers known as ' Energetic Bear ' has compromised over 1,000 European and North American energy firms with a sophisticated cyber weapon, similar to Stuxnet, that gave hackers access to power plant control systems, said a security firm. The group of hackers also known as ' Dragonfly ', an eastern European collective that has been active since

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

In an effort to crackdown on cyber crimes, Microsoft has taken a legal action against a malware network what it thought is responsible for more than 7.4 million infections of Windows PCs across the globe. Millions of legitimate servers that rely on Dynamic Domain Name Service (DDNS) from No-IP.com, owned by Vitalwerks Internet Solutions were blacked out on Monday after Microsoft seized their 23 domain names that were being used by malware developed in the Middle East and Africa. No-IP FOR MALWARE OPERATORS The Dynamic Domain Name Service (DDNS) from No-IP.com works by mapping users' dynamic IP addresses to a customized No-IP sub-domain like yourhost.no-ip.org or yourhost.no-ip.biz. This mechanism allows users to connect to a system with dynamic IP address using a static No-IP sub-domain. No doubt its a useful service, but Nevada-based No-IP Dynamic DNS (DDNS) service subdomains have been abused by creators of malware for infecting millions of computers with ma

Oh MY God! Is Tracy Morgan Really Dead? NO, Thankfully it's only a hoax, but scammers announced the popular comedian and actor Tracy Morgan dead. Another Facebook scam is circulating across the social networking website just a day before the former " Saturday Night Live " and " 30 Rock " star Tracy Morgan was critically hurt in a six-vehicle fatal accident on the New Jersey Turnpike that killed his friend and writer 62-year-old James McNair. With the rise in various scams on the popular social networking giant, Facebook that has more than one billion active users, it became very clear that not only does the social networking platform provide special opportunities for people to connect and share information, but serves as a great platform for scammers as well. TOTAL SCAM LEADS TO MALWARE Scammers spare no incident to target as many victims as possible, and this time they made use of this roadway accident to target users by spreading the fake Facebook videos proclaimin

The hike in the banking malware this year is no doubt almost double compared to the previous one, and so in the techniques of malware authors. Until now, we have seen banking Trojans affecting devices and steal users' financial credentials in order to run them out of their money. But nowadays, malware authors are adopting more sophisticated techniques in an effort to target as many victims as possible. BANKING MALWARE WITH NETWORK SNIFFING Security researchers from the Anti-virus firm Trend Micro have discovered a new variant of banking malware that not only steals users' information from the device it has infected but, has ability to " sniff " network activity in an effort to compromise the devices of same network users as well. The banking malware, dubbed as EMOTET spreads rapidly through spammed emails that masquerade itself as a bank transfers and shipping invoices. The spammed email comes along with an attached link that users easily click, considering that t

Security researchers have uncovered a new Stuxnet like malware, named as " Havex ", which was used in a number of previous cyber attacks against organizations in the energy sector. Just like Famous Stuxnet Worm , which was specially designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear project, the new trojan Havex is also programmed to infect industrial control system softwares of SCADA and ICS systems, with the capability to possibly disable hydroelectric dams, overload nuclear power plants, and even can shut down a country's power grid with a single keystroke. According to security firm F-Secure who first discovered it as Backdoor:W32/Havex.A. , it is a generic remote access Trojan ( RAT ) and has recently been used to carry out industrial espionage against a number of companies in Europe that use or develop industrial applications and machines. SMARTY PANTS, TROJANIZED INSTALLERS To accomplish this, besides traditional infection methods such as exploit kits and spam emails,

Purchasing malware to victimize people is illegal by laws but if the same thing any government official do, then its not!! Yes, the police forces around the World are following the footsteps of U.S. National Security Agency ( NSA ) and FBI. Researchers from the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and computer security firm Kaspersky Lab have unearthed a broad network of controversial spyware which is specially designed to give law enforcement agencies complete access to a suspect's phone for the purpose of surveillance. MALWARE FOR DESKTOPS AND ALL MOBILE DEVICES The malware , dubbed as Remote Control System (RCS) , also known as Da Vinci and Galileo, is developed by an Italian company known as Hacking Team, available for desktop computers, laptops, and mobile devices. The latest version of the malware works for all phone including Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, Symbian and BlackBerry devices, but best on Android devices , and can also b

In a previous story, I reported about a new ransomware threat known as Simplocker discovered by researchers at the security firm ESET, targeting Android users in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, India and Russia, for ransom. Simplocker (Android/Simplocker.A) is the latest Android ransomware that has ability to encrypt the files using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) on the Android device SD cards demanding users pay a ransom of 260 UAH ( Ukrainian hryvnias ), which is roughly equal to $21 US, for those files to be decrypted. To hide their track, the malware author is using the Command-and-Control server hosted on TOR .onion domain, which makes it difficult to trace the server's physical location or determine who is operating it. The malware collects information about the users' phone such as IMEI number, Operating System, phone model and manufacturer to send it all to Command-and-Control server. STUDENT CRACKS SIMPLOCKER RANSOMWARE Now, an undergraduate stu

If US has banned its several major government departments, including NASA, Justice and Commerce Departments, from purchasing Chinese products and computer technology due to suspected backdoors, then they are not wrong at all. A popular Chinese Android Smartphone comes pre-installed with a Trojan that could allow manufacturer to spy onto their users' comprising their personal data and conversations without any restrictions and users knowledge. GOOGLE PLAY STORE OR A SPYING APP? According to the researchers at the German security firm G Data , the Star N9500 smartphone, a popular and cheap handset device in China, comes pre-installed with Uupay.D Trojan horse, disguising as a version of the Google Play Store. The trojan camouflage as the Google Play Store , so it enables Chinese Company to secretly install malicious apps, which creates the whole spectrum of abuse. STEALING WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS The nasty Spyware runs in the background and has capability to steal

With the beginning of FIFA World Cup tournaments in Brazil, Football fever is going viral across the world. Soccer or Football is the most popular sport in the world with billions of fans who don't even miss a single tournament. Now, this is the most awaited and rejoicing atmosphere for Football fans as well as cybercriminals right now. For bad actors, the World Cup is a perfect opportunities to scam people online. While you are busy figuring out websites where you can stream live Fifa Matches on your PCs without missing a single moment of the world cup tournament, cyber criminals are also busy to launch phishing attacks in form of scams and malwares in order to victimize the system by several Trojans and viruses. This isn't surprising as cyber criminals have become smart enough to gain from every possible eventuality they get and their prior/common target is every time the users' interest based major news and current events. The most popular threat this World

Google just made a huge change to the way application permissions work on Android devices which has left a potential door open to malicious app developers and hackers. Google narrows down Android's 145 permissions into 13 broad categories and groups app permissions into ' groups of related permissions ', likely for Android users to have an easier time dealing with app permissions. Unfortunately, the new update has introduced a few potential security and privacy issues, as listed below: hiding permissions behind the group names auto-updating app with no warning for new permissions According to new update, once a user approves an app's permissions, he actually approves the whole respective permission groups. For example, if an app want to read your incoming SMS messages, then it requires the " Read SMS messages " permission. But now installing an app, you are actually giving it access to all SMS-related permissions. The app developer can then include

A new and relatively rare Zeus Trojan  program has found which is totally different from other banking Trojans and has capability to secretly steal data from forms, login credentials and files from the victim as well as can create fake web pages and take screenshots of victim's computer. Researchers at RSA Security's FraudAction team have discovered this new and critical threat, dubbed as ' Pandemiya ', which is being offered to the cyber criminals in underground forums as an alternative to the infamous Zeus Trojan and its many variants, that is widely used by most of the cyber-criminals for years to steal banking information from consumers and companies. The source code of the Zeus banking Trojan is available on the underground forums from past few years, which lead malware developers to design more sophisticated variants of Zeus Trojan such as Citadel, Ice IX and Gameover Zeus . But, Pandemiya is something by far the most isolated and dangerous piece of malware

Multiple flaws have been identified in Linux Kernel and related software could allow hackers to hack your Linux machines, shared hosting and websites hosted on them. PRIVILEGE ESCALATION VULNERABILITY IN LINUX KERNEL A privilege escalation vulnerability has been identified in the widely used Linux kernel that could allow an attackers to take the control of users' system. On Thursday, the most popular distributor of open source Linux OS, Debian warned about this vulnerability (CVE-2014-3153) in a security update, along with some other vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel that may lead to a denial of service attack. The most critical one is the flaw (CVE-2014-3153) discovered by Pinkie Pie which resides in the futex subsystem call of Linux Kernel 2.6.32.62/3.2.59/3.4.91/3.10.41/3.12.21/3.14.5 versions , leaving a queued kernel waiter on the stack, which can be exploited to potentially execute arbitrary code with kernel mode privileges. " Pinkie Pie discovered an

Ransomware is an emerging threat in the evolution of cybercriminals techniques to part you from your money. Typically, the malicious software either lock victim's computer system or encrypt the documents and files on it, in order to extort money from the victims. Though earlier we saw the samples of Ransomware tended to be simple with dogged determinations to extort money from victims. But with the exponential rise in the samples of Ransomware malwares, the recent ones are more subtle in design, including Cryptolocker , Icepole , PrisonLocker , CryptoDefense and its variants. Now, the ransomware dubbed as Crytowall , a latest variant of the infamous ransomware Cryptolocker is targeting users by forcing them to download the malicious software by through advertising on the high profile domains belonging to Disney, Facebook, The Guardian newspaper and others. Cryptolocker is designed by the same malware developer who created the sophisticated CryptoDefense ( Trojan.Crypt

We have seen cybercriminals targeting PCs with Ransomware malware that encrypts your files or lock down your computer and ask for a ransom amount to be paid in a specified duration of time to unlock it. To deliver the Ransomware malwares to the mobile devices, cyber criminals have already started creating malicious software programs for android devices. Last month, we reported about a new Police Ransomware malware that locks up the devices until the victims pay a ransom to get the keys to unlock the phone. But, the malware just lock the mobile screen and a loophole in the its implementation allowed users to recover their device and data stored on SDcard. Now, in an effort to overcome this, threat actors have adopted encryption in the development of mobile Ransomware malwares. Recently, the security firm ESET has discovered a new Android ransomware, dubbed as Android/Simplocker.A , that has ability to encrypt the files on the device SD card and then demand a ransom from the victim