drive-by download | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have spotted a phishing attack distributing the More_eggs malware by masquerading it as a resume, a technique originally detected more than two years ago. The attack, which was unsuccessful, targeted an unnamed company in the industrial services industry in May 2024, Canadian cybersecurity firm eSentire disclosed last week. "Specifically, the targeted individual was a recruiter that was deceived by the threat actor into thinking they were a job applicant and lured them to their website to download the loader," it said. More_eggs, believed to be the work of a threat actor known as the Golden Chickens (aka Venom Spider), is a modular backdoor that's capable of harvesting sensitive information. It's offered to other criminal actors under a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) model. Last year, eSentire unmasked the real-world identities of two individuals – Chuck from Montreal and Jack – who are said to be running the operation. The latest atta

We don't really know the pain and cost of a downtime event unless we are directly touched. Be it a flood, electrical failure, ransomware attack or other broad geographic events; we don't know what it is really like to have to restore IT infrastructure unless we have had to do it ourselves. We look at other people's backup and recovery issues and hope we are smarter or clever enough to keep it from happening to us. Recovery from a downtime event includes inconvenience, extra work, embarrassment and yes, real pain. A ransomware attack is a good example. Unitrends—an American company specialised in backup and business continuity solutions—recently shared with us a real cyber-attack incident happened with one of their customers to describe the required steps they took to recover functionality following a CryptoLocker attack against a US city. Also, how it cost city's Governance team days of production and hundreds of man-hours to recover. The Challenge

Since its emergence, Generative AI has revolutionized enterprise productivity. GenAI tools enable faster and more effective software development, financial analysis, business planning, and customer engagement. However, this business agility comes with significant risks, particularly the potential for sensitive data leakage. As organizations attempt to balance productivity gains with security concerns, many have been forced to choose between unrestricted GenAI usage to banning it altogether. A new e-guide by LayerX titled 5 Actionable Measures to Prevent Data Leakage Through Generative AI Tools is designed to help organizations navigate the challenges of GenAI usage in the workplace. The guide offers practical steps for security managers to protect sensitive corporate data while still reaping the productivity benefits of GenAI tools like ChatGPT. This approach is intended to allow companies to strike the right balance between innovation and security. Why Worry About ChatGPT? The e

The official website of the popular cross-platform JavaScript library jQuery (jquery.com) has been compromised and redirecting its visitors to a third-party website hosting the RIG exploit kit , in order to distribute information-stealing malware. JQuery is a free and open source JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML. It is used to build AJAX applications and other dynamic content easily. The popular JavaScript library is used by 30 percent of websites, including 70 percent of the top 10,000 most visited websites. James Pleger , Director of Research at Risk management software company RiskIQ , reported yesterday that the attack against jQuery.com web servers launched for a short period of time on the afternoon of September 18th. So, the users who visited the website on September 18th may have infected their system with data-stealing malware by redirecting users to the website hosting RIG. Pleger urged those who visited the site durin

Tor has always been a tough target for law enforcement for years, but the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) has found a way to successfully track users across the network. Just a few days back, Tor made a difficult announcement that an attack on its system likely exposed its users of anonymity. Now, a new report from Wired suggests that the FBI has been running a malware campaign to identify Tor users by infecting their computers for years on a large scale. FBI USES DRIVE-BY HACKING TO TRACK USERS Tor is generally thought to be a place where users come online to hide their activities and remain anonymous, but a court case has revealed an opposite story. FBI has been using a tactic called drive-by hacking to track computers using the Tor anonymous computing system. Security researchers call the tactic a " drive-by download " in which a hacker infiltrates a high-traffic website to deliver the malware to large swaths of visitors. That simply means t

Hackers are using a zero day vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) web browser and targeting US military personnels in an active attack campaign, dubbed as ' Operation Snowman' . FireEye Researchers have discovered that a U.S. veterans website was compromised to serve a zero day exploit, known as CVE-2014-0322 , which typically involves the compromise of a specific website in order to target a group of visitors known to frequent it. FireEye identified drive-by-download attack which has altered HTML code of the website and introduced JavaScript which creates malicious iFrame. " A zero-day exploit (CVE-2014-0322) being served up from the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars' website (VFW[.]org). We believe the attack is a strategic Web compromise targeting American military personnel, amid a paralyzing snowstorm at the U.S. " According to FireEye, the zero day CVE-2014-0322 ' vulnerability is a previously unknown use-after-free bug in Microsof

Ransomware , a t hreat to internet users that continues to grow in popularity with cyber criminals due to its success and monetary potential. This is nothing new and to be expected. I have noticed many discussions on underground hacking forums about " How to create Ransomware like Cryptolocker malware " or " Malware - hacking tool-kit with ransomware features ". Security intelligence provider,  IntelCrawler has discovered  a new ransomware variant called Locker that demands $150 (£92) to restore files that it has encrypted. Like Cryptolocker , this new ransomware is also nasty because infected users are in danger of losing their personal files forever. Locker mainly spreads by drive-by downloads from compromised websites, disguised itself as MP3 files and use system software vulnerabilities to infect the end user. Once it has infected a system, malware first checks the infected machine has an internet connection or not. Then it deletes any original files from t

Rootkit named as "Necurs" infect 83,427 unique machines during the month of November 2012. It is a multi-purpose rootkits capable of posing a threat to both 32 and 64-bit Windows systems. Distributed via drive-by download on the websites that host the BlackHole exploit kit. Like other rootkits it is able to hide itself from detection and also capable of downloading additional malware from outside. Attackers can maintain remote access to a machine this way in order to monitor activity, send spam or install scareware. Rootkit also stop security applications from functioning and hence no detection. Microsoft list this as  Trojan:Win32/Necurs . Trojan:Win32/Necurs is a family of malware that work together to download additional malware and enable backdoor access and control of your computer. The malware can be installed on its own or alongside rogue security software, such as Rogue:Win32/Winwebsec. The malware downloads itself into the folder " %windi

You can get a ZeuS infection through a drive-by download from a malicious website or a hacked legitimate site. Clicking a link in an innocent-looking email can also open your system to attack. This past week, there was a surge of fake LinkedIn connection requests linked to ZeuS. While savvy users avoid clicking links from strangers, even links from friends can be dangerous, as a virus might have infected their system. But being cautious isn't enough. You might think a Trojan or virus attack affects only your computer, but this is far from the truth. The threat known as ZeuS or ZBot is a tool used by an international cybercrime ring with a single goal: to steal your money. While several criminals were charged recently, many remain free, and the malicious code continues to spread. To protect against all potential infection sources, you must install a security suite on any internet-connected computer. Because cybercriminals frequently release new ZeuS variants, you need a suite with