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Shamoon is back… one of the most destructive malware families that caused damage to Saudi Arabia's largest oil producer in 2012 and this time it has targeted energy sector organizations primarily operating in the Middle East. Earlier this week, Italian oil drilling company Saipem was attacked and sensitive files on about 10 percent of its servers were destroyed, mainly in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, but also in India and Scotland. Saipem admitted Wednesday that the computer virus used in the latest cyber attack against its servers is a variant Shamoon—a disk wiping malware that was used in the most damaging cyber attacks in history against Saudi Aramco and RasGas Co Ltd and destroyed data on more than 30,000 systems. The cyber attack against Saudi Aramco, who is the biggest customer of Saipem, was attributed to Iran, but it is unclear who is behind the latest cyber attacks against Saipem. Meanwhile, Chronicle, Google'

A new piece of ransomware is spreading rapidly across China that has already infected more than 100,000 computers in the last four days as a result of a supply-chain attack... and the number of infected users is continuously increasing every hour. What's Interesting? Unlike almost every ransomware malware, the new virus doesn't demand ransom payments in Bitcoin. Instead, the attacker is asking victims to pay 110 yuan (nearly USD 16) in ransom through WeChat Pay—the payment feature offered by China's most popular messaging app. Ransomware + Password Stealer — Unlike WannaCry and NotPetya ransomware outbreaks that caused worldwide chaos last year, the new Chinese ransomware has been targeting only Chinese users. It also includes an additional ability to steal users' account passwords for Alipay, NetEase 163 email service, Baidu Cloud Disk, Jingdong (JD.com), Taobao, Tmall , AliWangWang, and QQ websites. A Supply Chain Attack — According to Chinese cybers

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—the world's largest makers of semiconductors and processors—was forced to shut down several of its chip-fabrication factories over the weekend after being hit by a computer virus. Now, it turns out that the computer virus outbreak at Taiwan chipmaker was the result of a variant of WannaCry —a massive ransomware attack that wreaked havoc across the world by shutting down hospitals, telecom providers, and many businesses in May 2017. TSMC shut down an entire day of production this weekend after several of its factories systems were halted by a computer virus in the middle of the ramp-up for chips to be used by Apple's future lines of iPhones, which could impact revenue by approx $256 million. According to the semiconductor manufacturer, its computer systems were not direct attacked by any hacker, but instead, were exposed to the malware "when a supplier installed tainted software without a virus scan" to TSMC&

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—Apple's sole supplier of SoC components for iPhones and iPads, and Qualcomm's major manufacturing partner—shut down several of its chip-fabrication factories Friday night after being hit by a computer virus. The world's largest makers of semiconductors and processors TSMC lost an entire day of production after several of its factories systems were halted by a computer virus in the middle of the ramp-up for chips to be used by Apple's future lines of iPhones. Though the popular chip maker has been attacked by viruses in the past, this is the first time a virus has affected TSMC's production lines, making the incident a real big deal. Without revealing many details, TSMC said a number of its computer systems and fabrication tools were infected by the virus on Friday night, but since then it has recovered 80% of its impacted equipment, though others will be recovered by tomorrow. According to TSMC, the comput

Botnets, like Mirai , that are capable of infecting Linux-based internet-of-things (IoT) devices are constantly increasing and are mainly designed to conduct Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, but researchers have discovered that cybercriminals are using botnets for mass spam mailings. New research conducted by Russian security firm Doctor Web has revealed that a Linux Trojan, dubbed Linux.ProxyM that cybercriminals use to ensure their online anonymity has recently been updated to add mas spam sending capabilities to earn money. The Linux.ProxyM Linux Trojan, initially discovered by the security firm in February this year, runs a SOCKS proxy server on an infected IoT device and is capable of detecting honeypots in order to hide from malware researchers. Linux.ProxyM can operate on almost all Linux device, including routers, set-top boxes, and other equipment having the following architectures: x86, MIPS, PowerPC, MIPSEL, ARM, Motorola 68000, Superh and SPARC.

If you came across any Facebook message with a video link sent by anyone, even your friend — just don't click on it. Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have spotted an ongoing cross-platform campaign on Facebook Messenger, where users receive a video link that redirects them to a fake website, luring them to install malicious software. Although it is still unclear how the malware spreads, researchers believe spammers are using compromised accounts, hijacked browsers, or clickjacking techniques to spread the malicious link. The attackers make use of social engineering to trick users into clicking the video link, which purports to be from one of their Facebook friends, with the message that reads "< your friend name > Video" followed by a bit.ly link, as shown. Here's How this Cross-Platform Malware Works: The URL redirects victims to a Google doc that displays a dynamically generated video thumbnail, like a playable movie, based on the sender'

Ukrainian authorities have arrested a 51-year-old man accused of distributing the infamous Petya ransomware (Petya.A, also known as NotPetya) — the same computer virus that massively hit numerous businesses, organisations and banks in Ukraine as well as different parts of Europe around 45 days ago. However, the story is not as simple as it seems, which portrayed this man as a criminal. I recommend you to read complete article to understand the case better and then have an opinion accordingly. Sergey Neverov (Сергей Неверов), father of two sons and the resident of the southern city of Nikopol, is a video blogger and computer enthusiast who was arrested by the Ukrainian police on Monday, August 7 from his home. What Neverov Did? According to a press release published on Thursday by the Ukrainian cyber police department, Neverov uploaded a video, showing how to infect a computer with Petya.A ransomware—and also shared a download link for NotPetya malware to his social media

Yes, even Mac could also get viruses that could silently spy on its users. So, if you own a Mac and think you are immune to malware, you are wrong. An unusual piece of malware that can remotely take control of webcams, screen, mouse, keyboards, and install additional malicious software has been infecting hundreds of Mac computers for more than five years—and it was detected just a few months back. Dubbed FruitFly , the Mac malware was initially detected earlier this year by Malwarebytes researcher Thomas Reed, and Apple quickly released security patches to address the dangerous malware. Now months later, Patrick Wardle, an ex-NSA hacker and now chief security researcher at security firm Synack, discovered around 400 Mac computers infected with the newer strain of the FruitFly malware (FruitFly 2) in the wild. Wardle believes the number of infected Macs with FruitFly 2 would likely be much higher, as he only had access to some servers used to control FruitFly. Although it i

As part of its ongoing Vault 7 leaks , the whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks today revealed about a CIA contractor responsible for analysing advanced malware and hacking techniques being used in the wild by cyber criminals. According to the documents leaked by WikiLeaks, Raytheon Blackbird Technologies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contractor, submitted nearly five such reports to CIA as part of UMBRAGE Component Library (UCL) project between November 2014 and September 2015. These reports contain brief analysis about proof-of-concept ideas and malware attack vectors — publically presented by security researchers and secretly developed by cyber espionage hacking groups. Reports submitted by Raytheon were allegedly helping CIA's Remote Development Branch (RDB) to collect ideas for developing their own advanced malware projects. It was also revealed in previous Vault 7 leaks that CIA's UMBRAGE malware development teams also borrow codes from publicly avail

Japanese authorities have arrested a 14-year-old boy in Osaka, a prefecture and large port city, for allegedly creating and distributing a ransomware malware . This is the first such arrest in Japan which involves a Ransomware-related crime. Ransomware is a piece of malware that encrypts files on a victim's computer and makes them inaccessible until the victim pays a ransom, usually in Bitcoins, in order to get the decryption keys for the encrypted files. Ransomware has been around for a few years, but currently, it has become a major cyber threat for businesses and users across the world. Just last month, the WannaCry ransomware hit over 300,000 PCs within just 72 hours, wreaking havoc worldwide. The recent arrest came after the teenager, who is a third-year junior high school student, created a ransomware virus and uploaded its source code on the Internet, according to multiple Japanese media. The student, who admitted to the allegations, combined free encryption

Security researchers have discovered a massive malware campaign that has already infected more than 250 million computers across the world, including Windows and Mac OS. Dubbed Fireball , the malware is an adware package that takes complete control of victim's web browsers and turns them into zombies, potentially allowing attackers to spy on victim's web traffic and potentially steal their data. Check Point researchers, who discovered this massive malware campaign, linked the operation to Rafotech, a Chinese company which claims to offer digital marketing and game apps to 300 million customers. While the company is currently using Fireball for generating revenue by injecting advertisements onto the browsers, the malware can be quickly turned into a massive destroyer to cause a significant cyber security incident worldwide. Fireball comes bundled with other free software programs that you download off of the Internet. Once installed, the malware installs browser plug

When the world was dealing with the threat of the self-spreading WannaCry ransomware , WikiLeaks released a new batch of CIA Vault 7 leaks , detailing two apparent CIA malware frameworks for the Microsoft Windows platform. Dubbed " AfterMidnight " and " Assassin ," both malware programs are designed to monitor and report back actions on the infected remote host computer running the Windows operating system and execute malicious actions specified by the CIA. Since March, WikiLeaks has published hundreds of thousands of documents and secret hacking tools that the group claims came from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This latest batch is the 8th release in the whistleblowing organization's 'Vault 7' series. 'AfterMidnight' Malware Framework According to a statement from WikiLeaks, 'AfterMidnight' allows its operators to dynamically load and execute malicious payload on a target system. The main controller of the ma

It is no secret that cybercriminals are becoming dramatically more adept, innovative, and stealthy with each passing day. While new forms of cybercrime are on the rise, traditional activities seem to be shifting towards more clandestine techniques that involve the exploitation of standard system tools and protocols, which are not always monitored. The latest example of such attack is DNSMessenger – a new Remote Access Trojan (RAT) that uses DNS queries to conduct malicious PowerShell commands on compromised computers – a technique that makes the RAT difficult to detect onto targeted systems. The Trojan came to the attention of Cisco's Talos threat research group by a security researcher named Simpo, who highlighted a tweet that encoded text in a PowerShell script that said 'SourceFireSux.' SourceFire is one of Cisco's corporate security products. DNSMessenger Attack Is Completely Fileless Further analysis of the malware ultimately led Talos researchers to

Ransomware has risen dramatically since last few years, so rapidly that it might have already hit you or someone you know. With hundred of thousands of ransomware variants emerging every day, it is quite difficult for traditional signature-based antivirus tools to keep their signature database up-to-date. So, if signature-based techniques are not enough to detect ransomware infection, then what else can we do? The solution is RansomFree . Boston-based cyber security firm Cybereason has released RansomFree — a real-time ransomware detection and response software that can spot most strains of Ransomware before it starts encrypting files and alert the user to take action. RansomFree is a free standalone product and is compatible with PCs running Windows 7, 8 and 10, as well as Windows Server 2010 R2 and 2008 R2. Instead of regularly updated malware signatures to fight the bad programs, RansomFree uses "behavioral and proprietary deception" techniques to detect ne

Is your PC infected with Ransomware? Either pay the ransom amount to the attacker or spread the infection further to get the decryption keys. Yes, this new technique has been employed by cyber criminals with the latest round of ransomware threat, dubbed Popcorn Time. Initially discovered by MalwareHunterTeam , the new Popcorn Time Ransomware has been designed to give the victim's a criminal way of getting a free decryption key for their encrypted files and folders. Popcorn Time works similar to other popular ransomware threats, such as the Crysis Ransomware and TeslaCrypt, that encrypt various data stored on the infected computer and ask victims to pay a ransom amount to recover their data. But to get their important files back, Popcorn Time gives victims option to pay a ransom to the cyber criminal or infect two other people and have them pay the ransom to get a free decryption key. What's even worse? The victims are encouraged to pay the ransom of 1 Bitcoin (~$75