phishing attack | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

From past few years, spammers and cyber criminals were buying web extensions from their developers and then updating them without informing their users to inject bulk advertisements into every website user visits in order to generate large revenue. But now they have shifted their business model—instead of investing, spammers have started a new wave of phishing attacks aimed at hijacking popular browser extensions. Just two days ago, we reported how cyber criminals managed to compromise the Chrome Web Store account of a German developer team and hijacked Copyfish extension , and then modified it with ad-injection capabilities to distribute spam correspondence to users. Now just yesterday, another popular Chrome extension ' Web Developer ' was hijacked by some unknown attackers, who updated the software to directly inject advertisements into the web browser of over its 1 million users. Chris Pederick , the creator of Web Developer Chrome extension that offers various w

Phishers have recently hacked an extension for Google Chrome after compromising the Chrome Web Store account of German developer team a9t9 software and abused to distribute spam messages to unsuspecting users. Dubbed Copyfish, the extension allows users to extract text from images, PDF documents and video, and has more than 37,500 users. Unfortunately, the Chrome extension of Copyfish has been hijacked and compromised by some unknown attacker, who equipped the extension with advertisement injection capabilities. However, its Firefox counterpart was not affected by the attack. The attackers even moved the extension to their developer account, preventing its developers from removing the infected extension from the store, even after being spotted that the extension has been compromised. "So far, the update looks like standard adware hack, but, as we still have no control over Copyfish, the thieves might update the extension another time… until we get it back," the de

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on a larger role in software development is one of the big uncertainties related to this brave new world. In an era where AI promises to revolutionize how we live and work, the conversation about its security implications cannot be sidelined. As we increasingly rely on AI for tasks ranging from mundane to mission-critical, the question is no longer just, "Can AI  boost cybersecurity ?" (sure!), but also "Can AI  be hacked? " (yes!), "Can one use AI  to hack? " (of course!), and "Will AI  produce secure software ?" (well…). This thought leadership article is about the latter. Cydrill  (a

Cybercrime has continued to evolve and today exists in a highly organised form. Cybercrime has increasingly been commercialised, and itself become big business by renting out an expanded range of hacking tools and technologies, from exploit kits to ransomware, to help anyone build threats and launch attacks. In past few years, we have witnessed the increase in the popularity of malware-as-a-service (MaaS), which is today a prosperous business on the underground black market that offers an array of services, including ransomware-as-a-service , DDoS-as-a-service , phishing-as-a-service, and much more. Two such services have recently been spotted by two separate group of researchers, which we have detailed in this article. Ovidiy Stealer — $7 Password-Stealing Malware For Everyone A new credential stealing malware that targets primarily web browsers is being marketed at Russian-speaking web forums for as cheap as $7, allowing anyone with even little technical knowledge to h

We came across so many revelations of sensitive government and corporate data on the Internet these days, but what's the accuracy of that information leaked by unknown actors? Security researchers have discovered new evidence of one such sophisticated global espionage and disinformation campaign with suspected ties to the Russian government that's been aimed to discredit enemies of the state. Although there is no definitive proof of Russian government's involvement in the campaign, there is "overlap" with previously reported cyber espionage activities tied to a Russia-backed hacking group well known as APT28 . APT28 — also known as Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Sednit, and Pawn Storm — is the same group which was responsible for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) breach. The group has been operating since at least 2007 and has alleged tied to the Russian government. A new report, titled Tainted Leaks , published this week by the Citizen Lab at the Univers

While we all were busy in the WannaCry ransomware menace, two separate data breaches have been reported, one in DocuSign, a major provider of electronic signature technology, and another in BELL , Canada's largest telecommunications company. In a notice on its website on Tuesday, DocuSign confirmed a breach at one of its email systems when investigating the cause of an increase in DocuSign-impersonating phishing emails. "A malicious third party had gained temporary access to a separate, non-core system that allows us to communicate service-related announcements to users via email," DocuSign said in the announcement. What Happened? An unknown hacker or group of hackers managed to breach one of the electronic signature technology provider's email systems and steal a database containing the email addresses of DocuSign customers. The attackers then used the stolen data to conduct an extensive phishing campaign to target the DocuSign's users over the past w

Did someone just share a random Google Doc with you? First of all — Do not click on that Google Doc link you might have just received in your email and delete it immediately — even if it's from someone you know. I, my colleagues at The Hacker News, and even people all around the Internet, especially journalists, are receiving a very convincing OAuth phishing email, which says that the person [sender] " has shared a document on Google Docs with you. " Once you clicked the link, you will be redirected to a page which says, " Google Docs would like to read, send and delete emails, as well access to your contacts, " asking your permission to "allow" access. If you allow the access, the hackers would immediately get permission to manage your Gmail account with access to all your emails and contacts, without requiring your Gmail password. Beware! New GoogleDocs Phishing Email Scam Spreading Across the World — Here's Everything You Need to K

A Chinese infosec researcher has reported about an "almost impossible to detect" phishing attack that can be used to trick even the most careful users on the Internet. He warned, hackers can use a known vulnerability in the Chrome, Firefox and Opera web browsers to display their fake domain names as the websites of legitimate services, like Apple, Google, or Amazon to steal login or financial credentials and other sensitive information from users. What is the best defence against phishing attack? Generally, checking the address bar after the page has loaded and if it is being served over a valid HTTPS connection. Right? Okay, then before going to the in-depth details, first have a look at this demo web page  ( note: you may experience downtime due to high traffic on demo server ), set up by Chinese security researcher Xudong Zheng, who discovered the attack. " It becomes impossible to identify the site as fraudulent without carefully inspecting the site's URL o

Open source developers who use the popular code-sharing site GitHub were put on alert after the discovery of a phishing email campaign that attempts to infect their computers with an advanced malware trojan. Dubbed Dimnie , the reconnaissance and espionage trojan has the ability to harvest credentials, download sensitive files, take screenshots, log keystrokes on 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, download additional malware on infected systems, and self-destruct when ordered to. The malware has largely flown under the radar for the past three years – Thanks to its stealthy command and control methods. The threat was discovered in the mid of January this year when it was targeting multiple owners of Github repositories via phishing emails, but cyber-security firm Palo Alto, who reported the campaign on Tuesday, says the attacks started a few weeks before. Here's How the Attack Works: The attack starts by spamming the email inboxes of active GitHub users with booby-trap

In the digital world, it just takes one click to get the keys to the kingdom. Do you know spear-phishing was the only secret weapon behind the biggest data breach in the history? It's true, as one of the Yahoo employees fell victim to a simple phishing attack and clicked one wrong link that let the hackers gain a foothold in the company's internal networks. You may be familiar with phishing attacks — an attempt to steal user credentials or financial data — while, Spear-phishing is a targeted form of phishing in which attackers trick employees or vendors into providing remote-access credentials or opening a malicious attachment containing an exploit or payload. Here's how the Yahoo's massive data breach was traced back to human error and who were the alleged masterminds behind this hack. On Wednesday, the US government charged two Russian spies (Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin) and two criminal hackers (Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov) in connection with the 20

Security researchers have discovered a new phishing campaign targeting Gmail users, which is so convincing and highly effective that even tech-savvy people can be tricked into giving away their Google credentials to hackers. The attackers first compromise a victim's Gmail account, and once they are in, they start rifling through inboxes to launch secondary attacks in order to pass on the attack. The hackers first look for an attachment that victims have previously sent to their contacts and a relevant subject from an actual sent email. Then the criminals will start gathering up contact email addresses, who become the new targets of the attackers. After finding one, the hackers create an image (screenshot) of that attachment and include it in reply to the sender with the same or similar subject for the email, invoking recognition and automatic trust. What makes this attack so effective is that the phishing emails come from someone the victim knows. This new Gmail phishi

Just like most of you, I too really hate filling out web forms, especially on mobile devices. To help make this whole process faster, Google Chrome and other major browsers offer "Autofill" feature that automatically fills out web form based on data you have previously entered in similar fields. However, it turns out that an attacker can use this autofill feature against you and trick you into spilling your private information to hackers or malicious third parties. Finnish web developer and whitehat hacker Viljami Kuosmanen published a demo on GitHub that shows how an attacker could take advantage of the autofill feature provided by most browsers, plugins, and tools such as Password Managers. Although, this trick was first discovered by Ricardo Martin Rodriguez , Security Analyst at ElevenPaths, in the year 2013, but it seems Google haven't done anything to address weakness in Autofill feature. The proof-of-concept demo website consists of a simple online

Just a few hours after Donald Trump won the 2016 US Presidential Election, a hacking group launched a wave of cyber attacks targeting U.S.-based policy think-tanks with a new spear phishing campaign designed to fool victims into installing malware. The group of nation-state hackers, also known as Cozy Bear , APT29 , and CozyDuke , is the one of those involved in the recent data breach of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and is allegedly tied to the Russian government. On Wednesday, the hackers sent a series of phishing emails to dozens of targets associated with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), policy think tanks in the US and even inside the US government, said security firm Volexity. Phishing Attacks Powered by 'PowerDuke' Malware The phishing emails were sent from purpose-built Gmail accounts and other compromised email accounts at Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), trying to trick victims into opening tainted attachments

Although over three months remaining, Google has planned a New Year gift for the Internet users, who're concerned about their privacy and security. Starting in January of 2017, the world's most popular web browser Chrome will begin labeling HTTP sites that transmit passwords or ask for credit card details as " Not Secure " — the first step in Google's plan to discourage the use of sites that don't use encryption. The change will take effect with the release of Chrome 56 in January 2017 and affect certain unsecured web pages that feature entry fields for sensitive data, like passwords and payment card numbers, according to a post today on the Google Security Blog . Unencrypted HTTP has been considered dangerous particularly for login pages and payment forms, as it could allow a man-in-the-middle attacker to intercept passwords, login session, cookies and credit card data as they travel across the network. In the following release, Chrome will flag

Do you know that you can access your WeChat, Line and WhatsApp chats on your desktop as well using an entirely different, but fastest authentication system? It's SQRL , or Secure Quick Response Login, a QR-code-based authentication system that allows users to quickly sign into a website without having to memorize or type in any username or password. QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes that contain a significant amount of information such as a shared key or session cookie. A website that implements QR-code-based authentication system would display a QR code on a computer screen and anyone who wants to log-in would scan that code with a mobile phone app. Once scanned, the site would log the user in without typing in any username or password. Since passwords can be stolen using a keylogger, a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack, or even brute force attack, QR codes have been considered secure as it randomly generates a secret code, which is never revealed to anybody else.

Smart hackers could exploit a loophole that could allow them to steal a significant amount of cash from Google, Microsoft and Instagram using a Premium rate phone number. Security researcher Arne Swinnen from Belgium has discovered an ingenious way to steal money from big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Instagram using their two-factor authentication (2FA) voice-based token distribution systems. Swinnen argues that any attacker with malicious intent could create fake Google, Microsoft or Instagram accounts, as well as premium phone services, and then link them together. The attacker could then request 2FA voice-based tokens for all fake accounts using an automated scripts, placing legitimate phone calls to his service to earn him quite a nice profit. Swinnen created accounts on Google, Microsoft Office 365 and Instagram and then tied them to a premium phone number instead of a regular one. As a result, whenever one of these three services would call the account'

To make the configuration of routers easier, hardware vendors instruct users to browse to a domain name rather than numeric IP addresses. Networking equipment vendor TP-LINK uses either tplinklogin.net or tplinkextender.net for its routers configuration. Although users can also access their router administration panel through local IP address (i.e. 192.168.1.1). The first domain offered by the company is used to configure TP-LINK routers and the second is used for TP-LINK Wi-Fi extenders. Here's the Blunder: TP-Link has reportedly " forgotten " to renew both domains that are used to configure its routers and access administrative panels of its devices. Both domains have now been re-registered using an anonymous registration service by an unknown entity and are being offered for sale online at US$2.5 Million each. This latest TP-Link oversight, which was first spotted by Cybermoon CEO Amitay Dan, could lead its users to potential problems. However, it

Almost one and a half years ago after the massive leakage of celebrities' photographs — famous as " The Fappening " or "Celebgate" scandal — a man had been charged with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, facing up to 5 years in prison as a result. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Tuesday that it charged Ryan Collins, 36, of Pennsylvania for illegally accessing the Gmail and iCloud accounts of various celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence and Kim Kardashian , and leaked their photos onto 4chan. Social Engineering Helped Hacker Stole Celebs' Pics Collins was trapped by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and in the process of the trial, the hacker revealed that… The Fappening did not involve Apple's iCloud services being compromised through password cracking or brute-forcing, but rather it was the result of simple Social Engineering , in the form of Phishing Attacks. Yes, The Fappening scandal was the re