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The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned of a new set of cyber attacks that it said were aimed at defense companies in the country as well as its security and defense forces. The phishing attacks have been attributed to a Russia-linked threat actor called UAC-0185 (aka UNC4221), which has been active since at least 2022. "The phishing emails mimicked official messages from the Ukrainian League of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs," CERT-UA said . "The emails advertised a conference held on December 5th in Kyiv, aimed at aligning the products of domestic defense industry companies with NATO standards." The email messages come embedded with a malicious URL that urges the recipients to click on it to view "important information" related to their participation in the conference. But in reality, doing so results in the download of a Windows shortcut file that, upon opening, is designed to execute an HTML Application, which, in t...

Ukraine has restricted the use of the Telegram messaging app by government officials, military personnel, and other defense and critical infrastructure workers, citing national security concerns. The ban was announced by the National Coordination Centre for Cybersecurity (NCCC) in a post shared on Facebook. "I have always advocated and advocate for freedom of speech, but the issue of Telegram is not a question of freedom of speech, it is a matter of national security," Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency, said . Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) said that Telegram is "actively used by the enemy" to launch cyber attacks, spread phishing messages and malicious software, track users' whereabouts, and gather intelligence to help the Russian military target Ukraine's facilities with drones and missiles. To that end, the use of Telegram has been proscribed on official devices of employees of state ...

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The GSM Association (GSMA), the governing body that oversees the development of the Rich Communications Services (RCS) protocol, on Tuesday, said it's working towards implementing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to secure messages sent between the Android and iOS ecosystems. "The next major milestone is for the RCS Universal Profile to add important user protections such as interoperable end-to-end encryption," Tom Van Pelt, technical director of GSMA, said . "This will be the first deployment of standardized, interoperable messaging encryption between different computing platforms, addressing significant technical challenges such as key federation and cryptographically-enforced group membership." The development comes a day after Apple officially rolled out iOS 18 with support for RCS in its Messages app, which comes with advanced features like message reactions, typing indications, read receipts, and high-quality media sharing, among others. RCS, an impro...

Pavel Durov, founder and chief executive of the popular messaging app Telegram, was arrested in France on Saturday, according to French television network TF1. Durov is believed to have been apprehended pursuant to a warrant issued in connection with a preliminary police investigation. TF1 said the probe was focused on a lack of content moderation on the instant messaging service, which the authorities took issue with, turning the app into a haven for various kinds of criminal activity, including drug trafficking, child pornography, money laundering, and fraud. The hands-off approach to moderation on Telegram has been a point of contention , fueling cybercrime and turning the platform into a hub for threat actors to organize their operations, distribute malware, and peddle stolen data and other illegal goods  "This messaging app has transformed into a bustling hub where seasoned cybercriminals and newcomers alike exchange illicit tools and insights creating a dark and well-...

Chinese-speaking users have been targeted by malicious Google ads for restricted messaging apps like Telegram as part of an ongoing malvertising campaign. "The threat actor is abusing Google advertiser accounts to create malicious ads and pointing them to pages where unsuspecting users will download Remote Administration Trojan (RATs) instead," Malwarebytes' Jérôme Segura  said  in a Thursday report. "Such programs give an attacker full control of a victim's machine and the ability to drop additional malware." It's worth noting that the activity, codenamed  FakeAPP , is a continuation of a  prior attack wave  that targeted Hong Kong users searching for messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram on search engines in late October 2023. The latest iteration of the campaign also adds messaging app LINE to the list of messaging apps, redirecting users to bogus websites hosted on Google Docs or Google Sites. The Google infrastructure is used to embed link...