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Attention, Android users! A banking malware capable of stealing sensitive information is "spreading rapidly" across Europe, with the U.S. likely to be the next target. According to a new analysis by  Proofpoint , the threat actors behind FluBot (aka  Cabassous ) have branched out beyond Spain to target the U.K., Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Poland. The English-language campaign alone has been observed to make use of more than 700 unique domains, infecting about 7,000 devices in the U.K. In addition, German and English-language SMS messages were found being sent to U.S. users from Europe, which Proofpoint suspects could be the result of malware propagating via contact lists stored on compromised phones. A concerted campaign aimed at the U.S. is yet to be detected. FluBot, a nascent entry in the banking trojan landscape, began its operations late last year, with campaigns leveraging the malware infecting more than 60,000 users in Spain, according to an analysis published b

The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) of the District of Columbia has become the latest high-profile government agency to fall victim to a ransomware attack. The Babuk Locker gang claimed in a post on the dark web that they had compromised the DC Police's networks and stolen 250 GB of unencrypted files. Screenshots shared by the group, and seen by The Hacker News, include various folders containing what appears to be investigation reports, arrests, disciplinary actions, and other intelligence briefings. Also called the DC Police, the MPD is the primary law enforcement agency for the District of Columbia in the U.S. The ransomware gang has given the department three days to heed to their ransom demand or risk leaking sensitive files that could expose police informants to criminal gangs. "Hello! Even an institution such as DC can be threatened, we have downloaded a sufficient amount of information from your internal networks, and we advise you to contact us as soon as p

Follow this real-life network attack simulation, covering 6 steps from Initial Access to Data Exfiltration. See how attackers remain undetected with the simplest tools and why you need multiple choke points in your defense strategy. Surprisingly, most network attacks are not exceptionally sophisticated, technologically advanced, or reliant on zero-day tools that exploit edge-case vulnerabilities. Instead, they often use commonly available tools and exploit multiple vulnerability points. By simulating a real-world network attack, security teams can test their detection systems, ensure they have multiple choke points in place, and demonstrate the value of networking security to leadership. In this article, we demonstrate a real-life attack that could easily occur in many systems. The attack simulation was developed based on the MITRE ATT&CK framework, Atomic Red Team,  Cato Networks ' experience in the field, and public threat intel. In the end, we explain why a holistic secur

Security is only as strong as the weakest link. As further proof of this, Apple released an update to macOS operating systems to address an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability that could circumvent all security protections, thus permitting unapproved software to run on Macs. The macOS flaw, identified as  CVE-2021-30657 , was discovered and reported to Apple by security engineer Cedric Owens on March 25, 2021. "An unsigned, unnotarized, script-based proof of concept application [...] could trivially and reliably sidestep all of macOS's relevant security mechanisms (File Quarantine, Gatekeeper, and Notarization Requirements), even on a fully patched M1 macOS system," security researcher Patrick Wardle  explained  in a write-up. "Armed with such a capability macOS malware authors could (and are) returning to their proven methods of targeting and infecting macOS users." Apple's macOS comes with a feature called  Gatekeeper , which allows only  truste

Emotet, the notorious email-based Windows malware behind several botnet-driven spam campaigns and ransomware attacks, was automatically wiped from infected computers en masse following a European law enforcement operation. The development comes three months after a coordinated disruption of Emotet as part of " Operation Ladybird " to seize control of servers used to run and maintain the malware network. The orchestrated effort saw at least 700 servers associated with the botnet's infrastructure neutered from the inside, thus preventing further exploitation. Law enforcement authorities from the Netherlands, Germany, the U.S., U.K., France, Lithuania, Canada, and Ukraine were involved in the international action. Previously, the Dutch police, which seized two central servers located in the country, said it had deployed a software update to counter the threat posed by Emotet effectively. "All infected computer systems will automatically retrieve the update there, a

Click Studios, the Australian software company behind the Passwordstate password management application, has notified customers to reset their passwords following a supply chain attack. The Adelaide-based firm said a bad actor used sophisticated techniques to compromise the software's update mechanism and used it to drop malware on user computers. The breach is said to have occurred between April 20, 8:33 PM UTC, and April 22, 0:30 AM UTC, for a total period of about 28 hours. "Only customers that performed In-Place Upgrades between the times stated above are believed to be affected," the company  said  in an advisory. "Manual Upgrades of Passwordstate are not compromised. Affected customers password records may have been harvested." The development was first reported by the Polish tech news site  Niebezpiecznik . It's not immediately clear who the attackers are or how they compromised the password manager's update feature. Click Studios said an i

A new ransomware strain called " Qlocker " is targeting QNAP network attached storage (NAS) devices as part of an ongoing campaign and encrypting files in password-protected 7zip archives. First reports of the  infections   emerged on April 20, with the adversaries behind the operations demanding a bitcoin payment (0.01 bitcoins or about $500.57) to receive the decryption key. In response to the ongoing attacks, the Taiwanese company has released an advisory prompting users to apply updates to QNAP NAS running Multimedia Console, Media Streaming Add-on, and HBS 3 Hybrid Backup Sync to secure the devices from any attacks. "QNAP strongly urges that all users immediately install the latest Malware Remover version and run a malware scan on QNAP NAS," the company  said . "The Multimedia Console, Media Streaming Add-on, and Hybrid Backup Sync apps need to be updated to the latest available version as well to further secure QNAP NAS from ransomware attacks."

Attackers are exploiting the ProxyLogon Microsoft Exchange Server flaws to co-opt vulnerable machines to a cryptocurrency botnet named Prometei, according to new research. "Prometei exploits the recently disclosed Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities associated with the HAFNIUM attacks to penetrate the network for malware deployment, credential harvesting and more," Boston-based cybersecurity firm Cybereason  said  in an analysis summarizing its findings. First documented by Cisco Talos in July 2020,  Prometei  is a multi-modular botnet, with the actor behind the operation employing a wide range of specially-crafted tools and known exploits such as EternalBlue and BlueKeep to harvest credentials, laterally propagate across the network and "increase the amount of systems participating in its Monero-mining pool." "Prometei has both Windows-based and Linux-Unix based versions, and it adjusts its payload based on the detected operating system, on the targeted in

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has disclosed details of a new advanced persistent threat (APT) that's leveraging the Supernova backdoor to compromise SolarWinds Orion installations after gaining access to the network through a connection to a Pulse Secure VPN device. "The threat actor connected to the entity's network via a Pulse Secure virtual private network (VPN) appliance, moved laterally to its SolarWinds Orion server, installed malware referred to by security researchers as SUPERNOVA (a .NET web shell), and collected credentials," the agency  said  on Thursday. CISA said it identified the threat actor during an incident response engagement at an unnamed organization and found that the attacker had access to the enterprise's network for nearly a year through the use of the VPN credentials between March 2020 and February 2021. Interestingly, the adversary is said to have used valid accounts that had multi-factor authent

Adversaries are increasingly abusing Telegram as a "command-and-control" system to distribute malware into organizations that could then be used to capture sensitive information from targeted systems. "Even when Telegram is not installed or being used, the system allows hackers to send malicious commands and operations remotely via the instant messaging app," said researchers from cybersecurity firm Check Point , who have identified no fewer than 130 attacks over the past three months that make use of a new multi-functional remote access trojan (RAT) called "ToxicEye." The use of Telegram for facilitating malicious activities is not new. In September 2019, an information stealer dubbed  Masad Stealer  was found to plunder information and cryptocurrency wallet data from infected computers using Telegram as an exfiltration channel. Then last year,  Magecart groups  embraced the same tactic to send stolen payment details from compromised websites back to

Researchers have uncovered a new set of fraudulent Android apps in the Google Play store that were found to hijack SMS message notifications for carrying out billing fraud. The apps in question primarily targeted users in Southwest Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, attracting a total of 700,000 downloads before they were discovered and removed from the platform. The findings were reported independently by cybersecurity firms  Trend Micro  and  McAfee . "Posing as photo editors, wallpapers, puzzles, keyboard skins, and other camera-related apps, the malware embedded in these fraudulent apps hijack SMS message notifications and then make unauthorized purchases," researchers from McAfee said in a Monday write-up. The fraudulent apps belong to the so-called " Joker " (aka Bread) malware, which has been found to repeatedly sneak past Google Play defenses over the past four years, resulting in Google removing no fewer than 1,700 infected apps from the Play Store as of

An ongoing malvertising campaign tracked as "Tag Barnakle" has been behind the breach of more than 120 ad servers over the past year to sneakily inject code in an attempt to serve malicious advertisements that redirect users to rogue websites, thus exposing victims to scamware or malware. Unlike other operators who set about their task by infiltrating the ad-tech ecosystem using "convincing personas" to buy space on legitimate websites for running the malicious ads, Tag Barnakle is "able to bypass this initial hurdle completely by going straight for the jugular — mass compromise of ad serving infrastructure,"  said  Confiant security researcher Eliya Stein in a Monday write-up. The development follows a year after the Tag Barnakle actor was found to have  compromised nearly 60 ad servers  in April 2020, with the infections primarily targeting an open-source advertising server called Revive. The latest slew of attacks is no different, although the adve

A spear-phishing attack operated by a North Korean threat actor targeting its southern counterpart has been found to conceal its malicious code within a bitmap (.BMP) image file to drop a remote access trojan (RAT) capable of stealing sensitive information. Attributing the attack to the  Lazarus Group  based on similarities to prior tactics adopted by the adversary, researchers from Malwarebytes said the phishing campaign started by distributing emails laced with a malicious document that it identified on April 13. "The actor has used a clever method to bypass security mechanisms in which it has embedded its malicious  HTA  file as a compressed  zlib  file within a PNG file that then has been decompressed during run time by converting itself to the BMP format," Malwarebytes researchers  said .  "The dropped payload was a loader that decoded and decrypted the second stage payload into memory. The second stage payload has the capability to receive and execute commands

A Mac malware campaign targeting Xcode developers has been retooled to add support for Apple's new M1 chips and expand its features to steal confidential information from cryptocurrency apps. XCSSET came into the spotlight in  August 2020  after it was found to spread via modified Xcode IDE projects, which, upon the building, were configured to execute the payload. The malware repackages payload modules to imitate legitimate Mac apps, which are ultimately responsible for infecting local Xcode projects and injecting the main payload to execute when the compromised project builds. XCSSET modules come with the capabilities to steal credentials, capture screenshots, inject malicious JavaScript into websites, plunder user data from different apps, and even encrypt files for a ransom.  Then in March 2021, Kaspersky researchers  uncovered  XCSSET samples compiled for the new Apple M1 chips, suggesting that the malware campaign was not only ongoing but also that adversaries are  activ

A high-level manager and systems administrator associated with the FIN7 threat actor has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday. Fedir Hladyr , a 35-year-old Ukrainian national, is said to have played a crucial role in a criminal scheme that compromised tens of millions of debit and credit cards, in addition to aggregating the stolen information, supervising other members of the group, and maintaining the server infrastructure that FIN7 used to attack and control victims' machines. The development comes after Hladyr pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking in September 2019. He was arrested in Dresden, Germany, in 2018 and extradited to the U.S. city of Seattle. Hladyr has also been ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution. "This criminal organization had more than 70 people organized into business units and teams. Some were hackers, others developed the malwa

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday issued an  advisory  warning of multiple vulnerabilities in the OpENer  EtherNet/IP  stack that could expose industrial systems to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, data leaks, and remote code execution. All OpENer commits and versions prior to February 10, 2021, are affected, although there are no known public exploits that specifically target these vulnerabilities. The four security flaws were discovered and reported to CISA by researchers Tal Keren and Sharon Brizinov from operational technology security company Claroty. Additionally, a fifth security issue identified by Claroty was previously disclosed by Cisco Talos ( CVE-2020-13556 ) on December 2, 2020. "An attacker would only need to send crafted ENIP/CIP packets to the device in order to exploit these vulnerabilities," the researchers  said . CVE-2020-13556 concerns an out-of-bounds write vulnerability in the Ethernet/IP server that cou

A malicious program intended to cause havoc with IT systems—malware—is becoming more and more sophisticated every year. The year 2021 is no exception, as recent trends indicate that several  new variants of malware  are making their way into the world of cybersecurity. While smarter security solutions are popping up, modern malware still eludes and challenges cybersecurity experts.  The evolution of malware has infected everything from personal computers to industrial units since the 70s. Cybersecurity firm  FireEye's network was attacked  in 2020 by hackers with the most sophisticated form of hacking i.e., supply chain. This hacking team demonstrated world-class capabilities to disregard security tools and forensic examination, proving that anybody can be hacked. Also, the year 2021 is already witnessing a bump in  COVID-19 vaccine-related phishing attacks .  Let's take a look at the trends that forecast an increase in malware attacks: COVID-19 and Work-from-Home (WFH) 

Security researchers have uncovered nine vulnerabilities affecting four TCP/IP stacks impacting more than 100 million consumer and enterprise devices that could be exploited by an attacker to take control of a vulnerable system. Dubbed " NAME:WRECK " by Forescout and JSOF, the flaws are the latest in series of studies undertaken as part of an initiative called Project Memoria to study the security of widely-used TCP/IP stacks that are incorporated by various vendors in their firmware to offer internet and network connectivity features. "These vulnerabilities relate to Domain Name System (DNS) implementations, causing either Denial of Service (DoS) or Remote Code Execution (RCE), allowing attackers to take target devices offline or to take control over them," the researchers said. The name comes from the fact that parsing of domain names can break (i.e., "wreck") DNS implementations in TCP/IP stacks, adding to a recent uptick in vulnerabilities such as 

A new set of malicious Android apps have been caught posing as app security scanners on the official Play Store to distribute a backdoor capable of gathering sensitive information. "These malicious apps urge users to update Chrome, WhatsApp, or a PDF reader, yet instead of updating the app in question, they take full control of the device by abusing accessibility services," cybersecurity firm McAfee  said  in an analysis published on Monday. The apps in question were designed to target users in Brazil, Spain, and the U.S., with most of them accruing anywhere between 1,000 to 5,000 installs. Another app named DefenseScreen racked up 10,000 installs before it was removed from the Play Store last year. First documented by Kaspersky in August 2019,  BRATA  (short for "Brazilian Remote Access Tool Android") emerged as an Android malware with screen recording abilities before steadily morphing into a banking trojan. "It combines full device control capabilitie

A previously undocumented malware downloader has been spotted in the wild in phishing attacks to deploy credential stealers and other malicious payloads. Dubbed " Saint Bot ," the malware is said to have first appeared on the scene in January 2021, with indications that it's under active development. "Saint Bot is a downloader that appeared quite recently, and slowly is getting momentum. It was seen dropping stealers (i.e.  Taurus  Stealer) or further loaders ( example ), yet its design allows [it] to utilize it for distributing any kind of malware," said Aleksandra "Hasherezade" Doniec, a threat intelligence analyst at Malwarebytes . "Furthermore, Saint Bot employs a wide variety of techniques which, although not novel, indicate some level of sophistication considering its relatively new appearance." The infection chain analyzed by the cybersecurity firm begins with a phishing email containing an embedded ZIP file ("bitcoin.zip&qu