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The threat actor known as Patchwork likely used romance scam lures to trap victims in Pakistan and India, and infect their Android devices with a remote access trojan called  VajraSpy . Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET said it uncovered 12 espionage apps, six of which were available for download from the official Google Play Store and were collectively downloaded more than 1,400 times between April 2021 and March 2023. "VajraSpy has a range of espionage functionalities that can be expanded based on the permissions granted to the app bundled with its code," security researcher Lukáš Štefanko  said . "It steals contacts, files, call logs, and SMS messages, but some of its implementations can even extract WhatsApp and Signal messages, record phone calls, and take pictures with the camera." As many as 148 devices in Pakistan and India are estimated to have been compromised in the wild. The malicious apps distributed via Google Play and elsewhere primarily masqueraded

A new analysis of the sophisticated commercial spyware called Predator has revealed that its ability to persist between reboots is offered as an "add-on feature" and that it depends on the licensing options opted by a customer. "In 2021, Predator spyware couldn't survive a reboot on the infected Android system (it had it on iOS)," Cisco Talos researchers Mike Gentile, Asheer Malhotra, and Vitor Ventura  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "However, by April 2022, that capability was being offered to their customers." Predator is the product of a consortium called the Intellexa Alliance, which includes Cytrox (subsequently acquired by WiSpear), Nexa Technologies, and Senpai Technologies. Both Cytrox and Intellexa were  added  to the Entity List by the U.S. in July 2023 for "trafficking in cyber exploits used to gain access to information systems." The latest findings come more than six months after the cybersecurity vendor detai

In today's digital world, where connectivity is rules all, endpoints serve as the gateway to a business's digital kingdom. And because of this, endpoints are one of hackers' favorite targets.  According to the IDC,  70% of successful breaches start at the endpoint . Unprotected endpoints provide vulnerable entry points to launch devastating cyberattacks. With IT teams needing to protect more endpoints—and more kinds of endpoints—than ever before, that perimeter has become more challenging to defend. You need to improve your endpoint security, but where do you start? That's where this guide comes in.  We've curated the top 10 must-know endpoint security tips that every IT and security professional should have in their arsenal. From identifying entry points to implementing EDR solutions, we'll dive into the insights you need to defend your endpoints with confidence.  1. Know Thy Endpoints: Identifying and Understanding Your Entry Points Understanding your network's

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an updated version of an Android banking malware called Chameleon that has expanded its targeting to include users in the U.K. and Italy. "Representing a restructured and enhanced iteration of its predecessor, this evolved Chameleon variant excels in executing Device Takeover (DTO) using the accessibility service, all while expanding its targeted region," Dutch mobile security firm ThreatFabric  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Chameleon was  previously documented  by Cyble in April 2023, noting that it had been used to single out users in Australia and Poland since at least January. Like other banking malware, it's known to abuse its permissions to Android's accessibility service to harvest sensitive data and conduct overlay attacks. The rogue apps containing the earlier version were hosted on phishing pages and found to impersonate genuine institutions in the countries, such as the Australian Taxation Offic

A new piece of JavaScript malware has been observed attempting to steal users' online banking account credentials as part of a campaign that has targeted more than 40 financial institutions across the world. The activity cluster, which employs JavaScript web injections, is estimated to have led to at least 50,000 infected user sessions spanning North America, South America, Europe, and Japan. IBM Security Trusteer said it detected the campaign in March 2023. "Threat actors' intention with the web injection module is likely to compromise popular banking applications and, once the malware is installed, intercept the users' credentials in order to then access and likely monetize their banking information," security researcher Tal Langus  said . Attack chains are characterized by the use of scripts loaded from the threat actor-controlled server ("jscdnpack[.]com"), specifically targeting a page structure that's common to several banks. It's susp

A collection of security flaws in the firmware implementation of 5G mobile network modems from major chipset vendors such as MediaTek and Qualcomm impact USB and IoT modems as well as hundreds of smartphone models running Android and iOS. Of the 14 flaws – collectively called  5Ghoul  (a combination of "5G" and "Ghoul") – 10 affect 5G modems from the two companies, out of which three have been classified as high-severity vulnerabilities. "5Ghoul vulnerabilities may be exploited to continuously launch attacks to drop the connections, freeze the connection that involve manual reboot or downgrade the 5G connectivity to 4G," the researchers  said  in a study published today. As many as 714 smartphones from 24 brands are impacted, including those from Vivo, Xiaomi, OPPO, Samsung, Honor, Motorola, realme, OnePlus, Huawei, ZTE, Asus, Sony, Meizu, Nokia, Apple, and Google. The vulnerabilities were disclosed by a team of researchers from the ASSET (Automated

Chipmaker Qualcomm has released more information about three high-severity security flaws that it said came under "limited, targeted exploitation" back in October 2023. The  vulnerabilities  are as follows - CVE-2023-33063  (CVSS score: 7.8) - Memory corruption in DSP Services during a remote call from HLOS to DSP. CVE-2023-33106  (CVSS score: 8.4) - Memory corruption in Graphics while submitting a large list of sync points in an AUX command to the IOCTL_KGSL_GPU_AUX_COMMAND. CVE-2023-33107  (CVSS score: 8.4) - Memory corruption in Graphics Linux while assigning shared virtual memory region during IOCTL call. Google's Threat Analysis Group and Google Project Zero  revealed  back in October 2023 that the three flaws, along with  CVE-2022-22071  (CVSS score: 8.4), have been exploited in the wild as part of limited, targeted attacks. A security researcher named luckyrb, the Google Android Security team, and TAG researcher Benoît Sevens and Jann Horn of Google Proje

A new "post-exploitation tampering technique" can be abused by malicious actors to visually deceive a target into believing that their Apple iPhone is running in Lockdown Mode when it's actually not and carry out covert attacks. The novel method, detailed by Jamf Threat Labs in a  report  shared with The Hacker News, "shows that if a hacker has already infiltrated your device, they can cause Lockdown Mode to be 'bypassed' when you trigger its activation." In other words, the goal is to implement Fake Lockdown Mode on a device that's compromised by an attacker through other means, such as  unpatched security flaws  that can trigger execution of arbitrary code. Lockdown Mode , introduced by Apple last year with iOS 16, is an  enhanced security measure  that aims to safeguard high-risk individuals from sophisticated digital threats such as mercenary spyware by  minimizing the attack surface . What it doesn't do is prevent the execution of mali

An Android malware campaign targeting Iranian banks has expanded its capabilities and incorporated additional evasion tactics to fly under the radar. That's according to a new report from Zimperium, which discovered more than 200 malicious apps associated with the malicious operation, with the threat actor also observed carrying out phishing attacks against the targeted financial institutions. The campaign first came to light in late July 2023 when Sophos detailed a cluster of 40 credential-harvesting apps targeting customers of Bank Mellat, Bank Saderat, Resalat Bank, and Central Bank of Iran. The primary goal of the bogus apps is to trick victims into granting them extensive permissions as well as harvest banking login credentials and credit card details by abusing Android's accessibility services . "The corresponding legitimate versions of the malicious apps are available at Cafe Bazaar, an Iranian Android marketplace, and have millions of downloads," Sophos

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is adopting new rules that aim to protect consumers from cell phone account scams that make it possible for malicious actors to orchestrate SIM-swapping attacks and port-out fraud. "The rules will help protect consumers from scammers who target data and personal information by covertly swapping SIM cards to a new device or porting phone numbers to a new carrier without ever gaining physical control of a consumer's phone," FCC  said  this week. While SIM swapping refers to transferring a user's account to a SIM card controlled by the scammer by convincing the victim's wireless carrier,  port-out fraud  occurs when the bad actor, posing as the victim, transfers their phone number from one service provider to another without their knowledge. The new rules,  first proposed in July 2023 , mandate wireless providers to adopt secure methods of authenticating a customer before redirecting a customer's phone number to a new device or provide

Meta-owned WhatsApp is officially rolling out a  new privacy feature  in its messaging service called "Protect IP Address in Calls" that masks users' IP addresses to other parties by relaying the calls through its servers. "Calls are end-to-end encrypted, so even if a call is relayed through WhatsApp servers, WhatsApp cannot listen to your calls," the company said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. The core idea is to make it harder for bad actors in the call to infer a user's location by securely relaying the connection through WhatsApp servers. However, a tradeoff to enabling the privacy option is a slight dip in call quality. Viewed in that light, it's akin to Apple's  iCloud Private Relay , which adds an anonymity layer by  routing users' Safari browsing sessions  through two secure internet relays. It's worth noting that the "Protect IP Address in Calls" feature has been under development since at least late Augu

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new dropper-as-a-service (DaaS) for Android called  SecuriDropper  that bypasses new security restrictions imposed by Google and delivers the malware. Dropper malware on Android is designed to function as a conduit to install a payload on a compromised device, making it a lucrative business model for threat actors, who can advertise the capabilities to other criminal groups. What's more, doing so also allows adversaries to separate the development and execution of an attack from the installation of the malware. "Droppers and the actors behind them are in a constant state of evolution as they strive to outwit evolving security measures," Dutch cybersecurity firm ThreatFabric  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. One such security measure introduced by Google with Android 13 is what's called the Restricted Settings, which prevents sideloaded applications from obtaining Accessibility and Notification Listener

Google is rolling out a new banner to highlight the "Independent security review" badge in the Play Store's Data safety section for Android VPN apps that have undergone a Mobile Application Security Assessment ( MASA ) audit. "We've launched this banner beginning with VPN apps due to the sensitive and significant amount of user data these apps handle," Nataliya Stanetsky of the Android Security and Privacy Team  said . MASA allows developers to have their apps independently validated against a global security standard such as the Mobile Application Security Verification Standard ( MASVS ), thereby providing more transparency and enabling users to make informed choices prior to downloading them. The efforts are part of Google's broader push to make the Data safety section a  one-stop   shop  that presents a "unified view of app safety," offering details about the kind of data that's being collected, for what purpose, and if it's be

The Android banking trojan known as  SpyNote  has been dissected to reveal its diverse information-gathering features. Typically spread via SMS phishing campaigns, attack chains involving the spyware trick potential victims into installing the app by clicking on the embedded link, according to F-Secure. Besides requesting invasive permissions to access call logs, camera, SMS messages, and external storage, SpyNote is known for hiding its presence from the Android home screen and the  Recents screen  in a bid to make it difficult to avoid detection. "The SpyNote malware app can be launched via an external trigger," F-Secure researcher Amit Tambe  said  in an analysis published last week. "Upon receiving the intent, the malware app launches the main activity." But most importantly, it seeks accessibility permissions, subsequently leveraging it to grant itself additional permissions to record audio and phone calls, log keystrokes, as well as capture screenshots o

A Syrian threat actor named  EVLF  has been outed as the creator of malware families CypherRAT and CraxsRAT. "These RATs are designed to allow an attacker to remotely perform real-time actions and control the victim device's camera, location, and microphone," Cybersecurity firm Cyfirma  said  in a report published last week. CypherRAT and CraxsRAT are said to be offered to other cybercriminals as part of a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) scheme. As many as 100 unique threat actors are estimated to have purchased the twin tools on a lifetime license over the past three years. EVLF is said to be operating a web shop to advertise their warez since at least September 2022. CraxsRAT is billed as an Android trojan that enables a threat actor to remote control an infected device from a Windows computer, with the developer consistently releasing new updates based on feedback from the customers. The malicious package is generated using a builder, which comes with options to cus

Google has introduced a new security feature in Android 14 that allows IT administrators to disable support for 2G cellular networks in their managed device fleet. The search giant said it's introducing a second user setting to turn off support, at the model level, for  null-ciphered cellular connections . "The Android Security Model assumes that all networks are hostile to keep users safe from network packet injection, tampering, or eavesdropping on user traffic," Roger Piqueras Jover, Yomna Nasser, and Sudhi Herle  said . "Android does not rely on link-layer encryption to address this threat model. Instead, Android establishes that all network traffic should be end-to-end encrypted (E2EE)." 2G networks, in particular, employ weak encryption and lack mutual authentication,  rendering  them  susceptible  to over-the-air interception and traffic decryption attacks by impersonating a real 2G tower. The  threat posed by rogue cellular base stations  means th

Apple has announced plans to require developers to submit reasons to use certain APIs in their apps starting later this year with the release of iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS Sonoma, tvOS 17, and watchOS 10 to prevent their abuse for data collection. "This will help ensure that apps only use these APIs for their intended purpose," the company  said  in a statement. "As part of this process, you'll need to select one or more approved reasons that accurately reflect how your app uses the API, and your app can only use the API for the reasons you've selected." The APIs that  require  reasons for use relate to the following - File timestamp APIs System boot time APIs Disk space APIs Active keyboard APIs, and User defaults APIs The iPhone maker said it's making the move to ensure that such APIs are not abused by app developers to collect device signals to carry out  fingerprinting , which could be employed to  uniquely identify users  across different a

The prolific China-linked nation-state actor known as APT41 has been linked to two previously undocumented strains of Android spyware called WyrmSpy and DragonEgg. "Known for its exploitation of web-facing applications and infiltration of traditional endpoint devices, an established threat actor like APT 41 including mobile in its arsenal of malware shows how mobile endpoints are high-value targets with coveted corporate and personal data," Lookout  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. APT41, also tracked under the names Axiom, Blackfly, Brass Typhoon (formerly Barium), Bronze Atlas, HOODOO, Wicked Panda, and Winnti, is known to be operational since at least 2007, targeting a wide range of industries to conduct intellectual property theft. Recent attacks mounted by the adversarial collective have  leveraged  an open-source red teaming tool known as Google Command and Control (GC2) as part of attacks aimed at media and job platforms in Taiwan and Italy. The init