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Alert: Chinese-Speaking Hackers Pose as UAE Authority in Latest Smishing Wave

Alert: Chinese-Speaking Hackers Pose as UAE Authority in Latest Smishing Wave

Dec 20, 2023 Identity Theft / SMS Phishing
The Chinese-speaking threat actors behind  Smishing Triad  have been observed masquerading as the United Arab Emirates Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship to send malicious SMS messages with the ultimate goal of gathering sensitive information from residents and foreigners in the country. "These criminals send malicious links to their victims' mobile devices through SMS or iMessage and use URL-shortening services like Bit.ly to randomize the links they send," Resecurity  said  in a report published this week. "This helps them protect the fake website's domain and hosting location." Smishing Triad was  first documented  by the cybersecurity company in September 2023, highlighting the group's use of compromised Apple iCloud accounts to send smishing messages for carrying out identity theft and financial fraud.  The threat actor is also known to offer ready-to-use smishing kits for sale to other cybercriminals for $200 a month, alongside eng
Mexico-Based Hacker Targets Global Banks with Android Malware

Mexico-Based Hacker Targets Global Banks with Android Malware

Jul 04, 2023 Cyber Crime / Mobile Security
An e-crime actor of Mexican provenance has been linked to an Android mobile malware campaign targeting financial institutions globally, but with a specific focus on Spanish and Chilean banks, from June 2021 to April 2023. The activity is being attributed to an actor codenamed  Neo_Net , according to security researcher Pol Thill. The findings were published by SentinelOne following a Malware Research Challenge in collaboration with vx-underground. "Despite using relatively unsophisticated tools, Neo_Net has achieved a high success rate by tailoring their infrastructure to specific targets, resulting in the theft of over 350,000 EUR from victims' bank accounts and compromising Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of thousands of victims," Thill  said . Some of the major targets include banks such as Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank, Deutsche Bank, Crédit Agricole, and ING. Neo_Net, linked to a Spanish-speaking actor residing in Mexico, has established themselves as a
Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu
 Spanish Police Takes Down Massive Cybercrime Ring, 40 Arrested

Spanish Police Takes Down Massive Cybercrime Ring, 40 Arrested

May 11, 2023 Cyber Crime / Phishing
The National Police of Spain said it arrested 40 individuals for their alleged involvement in an organized crime gang called Trinitarians . Among those apprehended include two hackers who carried out bank scams through phishing and smishing techniques and 15 other members of the crime syndicate, who have all been charged with a number of offenses such as bank fraud, document forgery, identity theft, and money laundering. In all, the nefarious scheme is believed to have defrauded more than 300,000 victims, resulting in losses of over €700,000. "The criminal organization used hacking tools and business logistics to carry out computer scams," officials  said . To pull off the attacks, the cybercriminals sent bogus links via SMS that, when clicked, redirected users to a phishing panel masquerading as legitimate financial institutions. These SMS messages sought to induce a false sense of urgency and increase the actors' chance of success by urging the recipients to clic
cyber security

Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
Hackers Behind Twilio Breach Also Targeted Cloudflare Employees

Hackers Behind Twilio Breach Also Targeted Cloudflare Employees

Aug 10, 2022
Web infrastructure company Cloudflare on Tuesday disclosed at least 76 employees and their family members received text messages on their personal and work phones bearing similar characteristics as that of the sophisticated  phishing attack against Twilio . The attack, which transpired around the same time Twilio was targeted, came from four phone numbers associated with T-Mobile-issued SIM cards and was ultimately unsuccessful. The text messages pointed to a seemingly legitimate domain containing the keywords "Cloudflare" and "Okta" in an attempt to deceive the employees into handing over their credentials. The wave of over 100 smishing messages commenced less than 40 minutes after the rogue domain was registered via Porkbun, the company noted, adding the phishing page was designed to relay the credentials entered by unsuspecting users to the attacker via Telegram in real-time. This also meant that the attack could defeat 2FA roadblocks, as the Time-based On
Twilio Suffers Data Breach After Employees Fall Victim to SMS Phishing Attack

Twilio Suffers Data Breach After Employees Fall Victim to SMS Phishing Attack

Aug 09, 2022
Customer engagement platform Twilio on Monday disclosed that a "sophisticated" threat actor gained "unauthorized access" using an SMS-based phishing campaign aimed at its staff to gain information on a "limited number" of accounts. The social-engineering attack was bent on stealing employee credentials, the company said, calling the as-yet-unidentified adversary "well-organized" and "methodical in their actions." The incident came to light on August 4. "This broad based attack against our employee base succeeded in fooling some employees into providing their credentials," it  said  in a notice. "The attackers then used the stolen credentials to gain access to some of our internal systems, where they were able to access certain customer data." The communications giant has  268,000 active customer accounts , and counts companies like Airbnb, Box, Dell, DoorDash, eBay, Glassdoor, Lyft, Salesforce, Stripe, Twitter,
Overview of Top Mobile Security Threats in 2022

Overview of Top Mobile Security Threats in 2022

Jun 28, 2022
Your smartphone is your daily companion. The chances are that most of our activities rely on them, from ordering food to booking medical appointments. However, the threat landscape always reminds us how vulnerable smartphones can be.  Consider the recent  discovery by Oversecured , a security startup. These experts observed the dynamic code loading and its potential dangers. Why is this a problem? Well, the Google app uses code that does not come integrated with the app itself. Okay, this might sound confusing, but it all works in favor of optimizing certain processes. Thus, Google exploits code libraries pre-installed on Android phones to reduce their download size. In fact, many Android apps use this trick to optimize the storage space needed to run.  As revealed by Oversecured, perpetrators could compromise this retrieval of code from libraries. Instead of Google obtaining code from a reliable source, it could be tricked into taking code from malicious apps operating on the devic
FluBot Android Spyware Taken Down in Global Law Enforcement Operation

FluBot Android Spyware Taken Down in Global Law Enforcement Operation

Jun 01, 2022
An international law enforcement operation involving 11 countries has culminated in the takedown of a notorious mobile malware threat called  FluBot . "This Android malware has been spreading aggressively through SMS, stealing passwords, online banking details and other sensitive information from infected smartphones across the world," Europol  said  in a statement. The "complex investigation" included authorities from Australia, Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the U.S. FluBot , also called Cabassous, emerged in the wild in December 2020, masking its insidious intent behind the veneer of seemingly innocuous package tracking applications such as FedEx, DHL, and Correos.  It primarily spreads via smishing (aka SMS-based phishing) messages that trick unsuspecting recipients into clicking on a link to download the malware-laced apps. Once launched, the app would proceed to request access to Android
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