macro malware | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Security researchers have tracked down activities of a new group of financially-motivated hackers that are targeting several businesses and organizations in Germany, Italy, and the United States in an attempt to infect them with backdoor, banking Trojan, or ransomware malware. Though the new malware campaigns are not customized for each organization, the threat actors appear to be more interested in businesses, IT services, manufacturing, and healthcare industries who possess critical data and can likely afford high ransom payouts. According to a report ProofPoint shared with The Hacker News, the newly discovered threat actors are sending out low-volume emails impersonating finance-related government entities with tax assessment and refund lured emails to targeted organizations. "Tax-themed Email Campaigns Target 2019 Filers, finance-related lures have been used seasonally with upticks in tax-related malware and phishing campaigns leading up to the annual tax filing deadlines in...

Earlier this month a cybersecurity researcher shared details of a security loophole with The Hacker News that affects all versions of Microsoft Office, allowing malicious actors to create and spread macro-based self-replicating malware. Macro-based self-replicating malware, which basically allows a macro to write more macros, is not new among hackers, but to prevent such threats, Microsoft has already introduced a security mechanism in MS Office that by default limits this functionality. Lino Antonio Buono, an Italian security researcher who works at InTheCyber , reported a simple technique (detailed below) that could allow anyone to bypass the security control put in place by Microsoft and create self-replicating malware hidden behind innocent-looking MS Word documents. What's Worse? Microsoft refused to consider this issue a security loophole when contacted by the researcher in October this year, saying it's a feature intended to work this way only—just like MS Offic...

" Disable macros and always be extra careful when you manually enable it while opening Microsoft Office Word documents. " You might have heard of above-mentioned security warning multiple times on the Internet as hackers usually leverage this decade old macros-based hacking technique to hack computers through specially crafted Microsoft Office files, particularly Word, attached to spam emails. But a new social engineering attack has been discovered in the wild, which doesn't require users to enable macros ; instead it executes malware on a targeted system using PowerShell commands embedded inside a PowerPoint (PPT) file. Moreover, the malicious PowerShell code hidden inside the document triggers as soon as the victim moves/hovers a mouse over a link (as shown), which downloads an additional payload on the compromised machine -- even without clicking it. Researchers at Security firm SentinelOne have discovered that a group of hackers is using malicious PowerPoi...

A massive malicious email campaign that stems from the Necurs botnet is spreading a new ransomware at the rate of 5 million emails per hour and hitting computers across the globe. Dubbed "Jaff," the new file-encrypting ransomware is very similar to the infamous Locky ransomware in many ways, but it is demanding 1.79 Bitcoins (approx $3,150), which much higher than Locky, to unlock the encrypted files on an infected computer. According to security researchers at Forcepoint Security Lab, Jaff ransomware, written in C programming language, is being distributed with the help of Necurs botnet that currently controls over 6 million infected computers worldwide. Necurs botnet is sending emails to millions of users with an attached PDF document, which if clicked, opens up an embedded Word document with a malicious macro script to downloads and execute the Jaff ransomware, Malwarebytes says . Jaff is Spreading at the Rate of 5 Million per Hour The malicious email camp...

After targeting Windows-based computers over the past few years, hackers are now shifting their interest to Macs as well. The emergence of the first macro-based Word document attack against Apple's macOS platform is the latest example to prove this. The concept of Macros dates back to 1990s. You might be familiar with the message that reads: " Warning: This document contains macros. " Macro is a series of commands and actions that help automate some tasks. Microsoft Office programs support Macros written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), but they can also be used for malicious activities like installing malware. Until now, hackers were cleverly using this technique to target Windows. However, security researchers have now detected the first in-the-wild instance of hackers are making use of malicious macros in Word documents to install malware on Mac computers and steal your data – an old Windows technique. The hack tricks victims into opening infected W...