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A Russian computer hacker wanted by the FBI on hacking allegations was arrested and jailed in Spain earlier this week, while a decision on his extradition to the United States has yet to be made. The Guardia Civil, Spanish law enforcement agency officers, have detained 32-year-old Stanislav Lisov at Barcelona–El Prat Airport based on an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol at the request of the FBI. Lisov is arrested on suspicion of creating and operating the NeverQuest Banking Trojan , a nasty malware that targeted financial institutions across the world and caused an estimated damage of $5 Million. The arrest was made after U.S. intelligence agencies found that Russian hackers were behind the November 2016 election hacks that possibly influenced the presidential election in Donald Trump's favor. However, Spanish police made an official statement, saying that the FBI had requested the arrest of Lisov after an investigation that started in 2014. NeverQues

Carbanak – One of the most successful cybercriminal gangs ever that's known for the theft of one billion dollars from over 100 banks across 30 countries back in 2015 – is back with a BANG! The Carbanak cyber gang has been found abusing various Google services to issue command and control (C&C) communications for monitoring and controlling the machines of unsuspecting malware victims. Forcepoint Security Labs researchers said Tuesday that while investigating an active exploit sent in phishing messages as an RTF attachment, they discovered that the Carbanak group has been hiding in plain site by using Google services for command and control. "The Carbanak actors continue to look for stealth techniques to evade detection," Forcepoint's senior security researcher Nicholas Griffin said in a blog post . "Using Google as an independent C&C channel is likely to be more successful than using newly created domains or domains with no reputation." Th

Super Low RPO with Continuous Data Protection: Dial Back to Just Seconds Before an Attack Zerto , a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, can help you detect and recover from ransomware in near real-time. This solution leverages continuous data protection (CDP) to ensure all workloads have the lowest recovery point objective (RPO) possible. The most valuable thing about CDP is that it does not use snapshots, agents, or any other periodic data protection methodology. Zerto has no impact on production workloads and can achieve RPOs in the region of 5-15 seconds across thousands of virtual machines simultaneously. For example, the environment in the image below has nearly 1,000 VMs being protected with an average RPO of just six seconds! Application-Centric Protection: Group Your VMs to Gain Application-Level Control   You can protect your VMs with the Zerto application-centric approach using Virtual Protection Groups (VPGs). This logical grouping of VMs ensures that your whole applica

A vulnerability in Chrome for Android is actively being exploited in the wild that allows hackers to quietly download banking trojan apps (.apk) onto victim's' device without their confirmation. You might have encountered a pop-up advertisement that appears out of nowhere and surprise you that your mobile device has been infected with a dangerous virus and instructs you to install a security app to remove it immediately. This malicious advertising web page automatically downloads an Android app installation (.apk) file to your device without requiring any approval. Citing malware threats on your mobile device, attackers trick you to change your device's settings to allow installation of the third-party apps from stores other than Google Play Store and install the banking trojan app on your device. Kaspersky researchers Mikhail Kuzin and Nikita Buchka discovered one such widespread malicious advertising campaign across Russian news sites and popular websites. Since

While some payment card companies like Mastercard have switched to selfies as an alternative to passwords when verifying IDs for online payments, hackers have already started taking advantage of this new security verification methods. Researchers have discovered a new Android banking Trojan that masquerades primarily as a video plugin, like Adobe Flash Player, pornographic app, or video codec, and asks victims to send a selfie holding their ID card, according to a blog post published by McAfee. The Trojan is the most recent version of Acecard that has been labeled as one of the most dangerous Android banking Trojans known today, according to Kaspersky Lab Anti-malware Research Team. Once successfully installed, the trojan asks users for a number of device's permissions to execute the malicious code and then waits for victims to open apps, specifically those where it would make sense to request payment card information. Acecard Steals your Payment Card and Real ID det

A Russian man who spent about 3 years behind bars in the United States has been spared further prison time but ordered to pay $7 Million to cover damages he caused to banks using a vicious computer virus. Nikita Vladimirovich Kuzmin was arrested in 2010 and imprisoned in August 2011 for developing a sophisticated computer malware called Gozi and infecting more than 1 million computers worldwide, causing tens of millions of dollars in losses. Kuzmin was sentenced Monday to the 37 months he has already served in custody, and ordered to pay $6,934,979 that authorities have identified as the damages experienced by two major Banks, one located in the U.S. and the other in Europe, Department of Justice says . Kuzmin received a lighter sentence due to his "substantial assistance" in the investigation that resulted in the conviction of Latvian national Deniss Calovskis as well as the arrest of Romanian Mihai Ionut Paunescu, who is awaiting extradition to the United States.

Tanvir Hassan Zoha , a 34-year-old security researcher, who spoke to media on the $81 Million Bangladesh Bank cyber theft , has gone missing since Wednesday night, just days after accusing Bangladesh's central bank officials of negligence. Zoha was investigating a recent cyber attack on Bangladesh's central bank that let hackers stole $81 Million from the banks' Federal Reserve bank account. Though the hackers tried to steal $1 Billion from the bank, a simple typo prevented the full heist. During his investigation, Zoha believed the Hackers, who are still unknown, had installed Malware on the bank's computer systems few weeks before the heist that allowed them to obtain credentials needed for payment transfers. With the help of those credentials, the unknown hackers transferred large sums from Bangladesh's United States account to fraudulent accounts based in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. However, at the same time, Zoha accused senior offic

The recent cyber attack on Bangladesh's central bank that let hackers stole over $80 Million from the institutes' Federal Reserve bank account was reportedly caused due to the Malware installed on the Bank's computer systems. Few days ago, reports emerged of a group of unknown hackers that broke into Bangladesh's central bank, obtained credentials needed for payment transfers from Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then transferred large sums to fraudulent accounts based in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The criminal group was able to steal a total value of about $81 Million from the Federal Reserve's Bangladesh account through a series of fraudulent transactions, but a typo in some transaction prevented a further $850 Million Heist . However, the question was still there: How the Hackers managed to transfer $80 Million without leaving any Trace? Security researchers from FireEye's Mandiant forensics are helping the Dhaka investigat

The source code of a recently discovered Android banking Trojan that has the capability to gain administrator access on your smartphone and completely erase your phone's storage has been LEAKED online. The banking Trojan family is known by several names; Security researchers from FireEye dubbed it SlemBunk, Symantec dubbed it Bankosy, and last week when Heimdal Security uncovered it, they dubbed it MazarBot . All the above wave of Android banking Trojans originated from a common threat family, dubbed GM Bot, which IBM has been tracking since 2014. GM Bot emerged on the Russian cybercrime underground forums, sold for $500 / €450, but it appears someone who bought the code leaked it on a forum in December 2015, the IBM X-Force team reported. What is GM Bot and Why Should You Worry about it? The recent version of GM Bot ( dubbed MazarBOT ) has the capability to display phishing pages on the top of mobile banking applications in an effort to trick Android users

The world's most notorious financial hacking operation disrupted by Russian authorities in November, when they raided the offices associated with a Moscow-based film and production company named 25th Floor . According to the Russian authorities, 25th Floor was allegedly involved in distributing the notorious password-stealing malware known as Dyre Banking Trojan . Malware Costs Hundreds of $$$ Millions in Losses The Dyre banking Trojan was typically distributed via spam campaigns and was responsible for over hundreds of millions of dollars in losses at banking and financial institutions, including Bank of America Corp, PayPal, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Dyre , also known as Dyreza , first appeared in July 2014 and updated to target Windows 10 systems and its newest Edge browser. However, Dyre has not been in use since the November raid, according to cyber security experts, who said the raid represents Russia's biggest effort up to date in cracking down

The Dridex banking trojan that is widely being used by cyber criminals to distribute malware onto users' machines has now been found distributing a security software. A portion of the Dridex banking Trojan botnet may have been hacked or compromised by an unknown Whitehat Hacker, who replaced the malicious links with  Avira Antivirus  installers. What is Dridex Banking Trojan? How it Works? Dridex malware – also known as Bugat and Cridex – is believed to have been created by cyber criminals in Eastern Europe in an effort to harvest online banking details. Even after a high-profile takedown operation in late 2015, the Dridex botnet seems to be active again. The Dridex virus typically distributes itself through spam messages or emails that include malicious attachments, most often a Microsoft Office file or Word document integrated with malicious macros. Once the malicious file has been clicked, the macros download and install the main payload of the virus – th

Another day, another stunning Malware – this time targeting banks, payment card processors, and other financial services. Security researchers have uncovered a sophisticated payment card malware that executes before the operating system boots, making the malware very difficult to detect and much less remove. The malware in question is part of " Nemesis " – a malware suite that includes all software programs for capturing screens, transferring files, injecting processes, logging keystrokes, and carrying out other malicious activities on the infected computers. Nemesis malware family has been seen in the past, targeting banks, ATMs, financial transaction processing, credit unions, and financial business service companies. Nemesis Bootkit Malware – Reappears even after Re-installation of the OS The malware with bootkit functionality has been in operation since early this year and has the ability to modify the legitimate VBR ( Volume Boot Record ) that ma

Security firm Trend Micro has identified a 20-year-old Brazilian college student responsible for developing and distributing over 100 Banking Trojans selling each for around US$300 . Known online as ' Lordfenix ', ' Hacker's Son ' and ' Filho de Hacker ', the computer science student first began his career by posting in forums, asking for programming help for a Trojan he was developing, researchers said. Developed More than 100 Trojans However, Lordfenix has "grown quite confident in his skills" and began developing and distributing malware tailored to pilfer financial information since at least 2013. "Based on our research, Lordfenix has created more than 100 different banking Trojans , not including his other malicious tools, since April 2013," Trend Micro says . "With each Trojan costing around R$1,000 (roughly $320), this young cybercriminal channeled his talent in programming into a lucrative, illegal venture." Trend Mi

The Law enforcement agencies from six different European countries have taken down a major Ukrainian-based cyber criminals gang suspected of developing, distributing and deploying Zeus and SpyEye banking malware . According to the report on the official website of Europol, authorities have arrested five suspects between June 18 and 19. All the five suspects are the members of an alleged gang that has been accused of infecting tens of thousands of computers worldwide with malware and banking Trojans. The alleged cybercriminal group distributed and used Zeus and SpyEye malware to steal money from several major banks in Europe and outside. The gang constantly modified its malware Trojans to defeat the security protocols of banks and used " mule networks " to launder money. "On the underground digital forums, they actively traded stolen credentials, compromised bank account information and malware," Europol said in a statement on Thursday, "

Security researchers have uncovered an active cyber attack campaign that has successfully stolen more than $1 Million from a variety of targeted enterprise organizations using spear phishing emails, malware and social engineering tricks. The campaign, dubbed " The Dyre Wolf " by researchers from IBM's Security Intelligence division, targets businesses and organizations that use wire transfers to transfer large sums of money, even if the transaction is protected by 2-factor authentication. A MIXTURE OF MALWARE, SOCIAL ENGINEERING & DDoS Nowadays, cybercriminals not only rely on banking Trojans to harvest financial credentials, but also using sophisticated social engineering tactics to attack big corporations that frequently conduct wire transfers to move large sums. " An experienced and resource-backed [cyber criminal] gang operates Dyre ," John Kuhn, Senior Threat Researcher at IBM Managed Security Service, wrote in a blog post published Th

Despite increased online and mobile banking security, banks are more often being targeted by hackers. A hacker group has infiltrated a number of banks and financial institutions in several countries, stealing hundreds of Millions of dollars in possibly the biggest bank heist the world has ever seen. According to a report published by the New York Times on Saturday, hackers have stolen as much as $1 Billion from more than 100 banks and other financial companies in almost 30 nations, making it " the most sophisticated attack the world has seen to date. " In late 2013 , banks in Russia, Japan, Europe, the United States and other countries fell victim to a massive, sophisticated malware hack that allowed the hackers to spy on bank officials in order to mimic their behavior, according to an upcoming report by Kaspersky Labs received by the NY Times. CARBANAK BANKING MALWARE IN THE WILD In order to infect bank staffs, the hacker group sent malicious emails to hun

A new Spam email campaign making the rounds in Germany are delivering a new variant of a powerful banking malware , a financial threat designed to steal users' online banking credentials, according to security researchers from Microsoft. The malware, identified as Emotet , was first spotted last June by security vendors at Trend Micro. The most standout features of Emotet is its network sniffing ability , which enables it to capture data sent over secured HTTPS connections by hooking into eight network APIs, according to Trend Micro. Microsoft has been monitoring a new variant of Emotet banking malware , Trojan:Win32/Emotet.C , since November last year. This new variant was sent out as part of a spam email campaign that peaked in November. Emotet has been distributed through spam messages, which either contain a link to a website hosting the malware or a PDF document icon that is actually the malware. HeungSoo Kang of Microsoft's Malware Protection Center identifi

" The Interview ", the controversial North Korean-baiting film which appeared to be the root cause of the cyber mishap occurred at Sony Pictures Entertainment that threatened terror attack at theaters showing the movie, now threatens to expose users of Android phones to a malware attack. Since its release, everyone is talking about "The Interview" — the Seth Rogen and James Franco-starring comedy centered around a TV host and his producer assassinating North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Because cybercriminals are known to take advantage of major events where there is a high level of public interest, The Interview became their target. In a joint investigation, Security researchers of McAfee and Technische Universität Darmstadt and the Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt (CASED) has discovered an Android app claiming to download 'The Interview' comedy on their smartphone devices actually infects users' devices with banking trojan in

One of the oldest active malware families, Pushdo, is again making its way onto the Internet and has recently infected more than 11,000 computers in just 24 hours. Pushdo, a multipurpose Trojan, is primarily known for delivering financial malware such as ZeuS and SpyEye onto infected computers or to deliver spam campaigns through a commonly associated components called Cutwail that are frequently installed on compromised PCs. Pushdo was first seen over 7 years ago and was a very prolific virus in 2007. Now, a new variant of the malware is being updated to leverage a new domain-generation algorithm (DGA) as a fallback mechanism to its normal command-and-control (C&C) communication methods. DGAs are used to dynamically generating a list of domain names based on an algorithm and only making one live at a time, blocking on 'seen' Command & Control domain names becomes nearly impossible. With the help of a DGA, cyber criminals could have a series of advantages