point of sale | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A Brazilian threat actor known as  Prilex  has resurfaced after a year-long operational hiatus with an advanced and complex malware to steal money by means of fraudulent transactions. "The Prilex group has shown a high level of knowledge about credit and debit card transactions, and how software used for payment processing works," Kaspersky researchers  said . "This enables the attackers to keep updating their tools in order to find a way to circumvent the authorization policies, allowing them to perform their attacks." The cybercrime group emerged on the scene with ATM-focused malware attacks in the South American nation, providing it the ability to break into ATM machines to perform jackpotting – a type of attack aiming to dispense cash illegitimately – and clone thousands of credit cards to steal funds from the targeted bank's customers. Prilex's modus operandi over the years has since evolved to take advantage of processes relating to point-of-sale ...

The notorious cybercrime group known as FIN7 has diversified its initial access vectors to incorporate software supply chain compromise and the use of stolen credentials, new research has revealed. "Data theft extortion or ransomware deployment following FIN7-attributed activity at multiple organizations, as well as technical overlaps, suggests that FIN7 actors have been associated with various ransomware operations over time," incident response firm Mandiant  said  in a Monday analysis. The cybercriminal group, since its emergence in the mid-2010s, has gained notoriety for large-scale malware campaigns targeting the point-of-sale (POS) systems aimed at restaurant, gambling, and hospitality industries with credit card-stealing malware. FIN7's shift in monetization strategy towards ransomware follows an October 2021 report from Recorded Future's Gemini Advisory unit, which  found  the adversary setting up a fake front company named Bastion Secure to recruit unwit...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

Have you stopped at any Wawa convenience store and used your payment card to buy gas or snacks in the last nine months? If yes, your credit and debit card details may have been stolen by cybercriminals. Wawa, the Philadelphia-based gas and convenience store chain, disclosed a data breach incident that may have exposed payment card information of thousands of customers who used their cards at about any of its 850 stores since March 2019. What happened? According to a press release published on the company's website, on 4th March, attackers managed to install malware on its point-of-sale servers used to process customers' payments. By the time it was discovered by the Wawa information security team on 10th December, the malware had already infected in-store payment processing systems at "potentially all Wawa locations." That means attackers were potentially stealing Wawa customers' payment card information until the malware was entirely removed by its ...

Cybercriminals are becoming more adept, innovative, and stealthy with each passing day. They are now adopting more clandestine techniques that come with limitless attack vectors and are harder to detect. A new strain of malware has now been discovered that relies on a unique technique to steal payment card information from point-of-sale (PoS) systems. Since the new POS malware relies upon User Datagram Protocol (UDP) DNS traffic for the exfiltration of credit card information, security researchers at Forcepoint Labs, who have uncovered the malware, dubbed it UDPoS . Yes, UDPoS uses Domain Name System (DNS) queries to exfiltrate stolen data, instead of HTTP that has been used by most POS malware in the past. This malware is also thought to be first of its kind. Besides using 'unusual' DNS requests to exfiltrate data, the UDPoS malware disguises itself as an update from LogMeIn —a legitimate remote desktop control service used to manage computers and other systems remo...

Oracle has released a security patch update to address a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability that affects its MICROS point-of-sale (POS) business solutions for the hospitality industry. The fix has been released as part of Oracle's January 2018 update that patches a total of 238 security vulnerabilities in its various products. According to public disclosure by ERPScan, the security firm which discovered and reported this issue to the company, Oracle's MICROS EGateway Application Service, deployed by over 300,000 small retailers and business worldwide, is vulnerable to directory traversal attack. If exploited, the vulnerability ( CVE-2018-2636 ) could allow attackers to read sensitive data and receive information about various services from vulnerable MICROS workstations without any authentication. Using directory traversal flaw, an unauthorized insider with access to the vulnerable application could read sensitive files from the MICROS workstation, includi...

First notified in November of a data breach incident, popular clothing retailer Forever 21 has now confirmed that hackers stole credit card information from its stores throughout the country for several months during 2017. Although the company did not yet specify the total number of its customers affected by the breach, it did confirm that malware was installed on some point of sale (POS) systems in stores across the U.S. at varying times between April 3, 2017, and November 18, 2017. According to the company's investigation, which is still ongoing, the malware was designed to search for and likely steal sensitive customer credit card data, including credit card numbers, expiration dates, verification codes and, in some cases, cardholder names. Forever 21 has been using encryption technology since 2015 to protect its payment processing systems, but during the investigation, the company found that some POS terminals at certain stores had their encryption switched off, whic...

Security researchers have uncovered a previously undetected group of Russian-speaking hackers that has silently been targeting Banks, financial institutions, and legal firms, primarily in the United States, UK, and Russia. Moscow-based security firm Group-IB published a 36-page report on Monday, providing details about the newly-disclosed hacking group, dubbed MoneyTaker , which has been operating since at least May 2016. In the past 18 months, the hacking group is believed to have conducted more than 20 attacks against various financial organisations—stolen more than $11 Million and sensitive documents that could be used for next attacks. According to the security firm, the group has primarily been targeting card processing systems, including the AWS CBR (Russian Interbank System) and SWIFT international bank messaging service (United States). " Criminals stole documentation for OceanSystems' FedLink card processing system, which is used by 200 banks in Latin America...

Hyatt Hotels Corporation is notifying its customers that credit card numbers and other sensitive information may have been stolen after it found malware on the computers that process customer payments. "We recently identified malware on computers that operate the payment processing systems for Hyatt-managed locations," the company announced on Wednesday. "As soon as we discovered the activity, we launched an investigation and engaged leading third-party cyber security experts." What type of information? The company didn't confirm whether the attackers succeeded in stealing payment card numbers, neither it say how long its network was infected or how many hotel chains were affected in the malware attack. But as the payment processing system was infected with credit-card-stealing malware, there is a possibility that hackers may have stolen credit card numbers and other sensitive information. What happened? Hyatt spokeswoman Stephanie Sheppard ...

The point of Sale systems are the most tempting target for cyber crooks to steal your credit card information and with this Christmas, you need to be more careful while using your credit cards at retailers and grocery stores. Here's why… Cyber criminals are now selling a new powerful strain of Point of Sale (PoS) malware through underground forums. Like several POS malware families discovered last year, including vSkimmer and BlackPOS , the new malware is also designed to steal payment card data from the infected POS systems and support TOR to hide its C&C (Command and Control) servers. Pro PoS – Light Weight, Yet Powerful Malware However, the new malware, dubbed " Pro PoS ," packs more than just a PoS malware. Pro PoS weighs only 76KB, implements rootkit functionalities, as well as mechanisms to avoid antivirus detection, according to threat intelligence firm InfoArmor. What's even more interesting about this malware is… Pro P...

In past few months, the malware developers are more focusing on proliferating and upgrading malicious malwares to target Point-of-Sale (POS) machines. Due to the lack of concern and security measures, point-of-sale (POS) systems have become an attractive target for cybercriminals and malware writers. BlackPOS malware caused massive data breaches in various US retailers targeting POS machines and the largest one is TARGET data breach occurred during the last Christmas holidays. The third-largest U.S. Retailer in which over 40 million Credit & Debit cards were stolen, used to pay for purchases at its 1500 stores nationwide in the U.S. Neiman Marcus, Michaels Store were also targeted involving the heist of possibly 110 million Credit-Debit cards, and personal information. BlackPOS malware was embedded in point-of-sale (POS) equipment at the checkout counters to collect secure data as the credit cards were swiped during transactions. Now the latest one is the ' Nemanj...

Point-of-sale (POS) is the hottest topic in payment structures and its one of the most popular technology topics as well. A Point-of-sale (POS) machine is a computerized replacement for a cash register. It has ability to quickly process a customer's transaction, accurately keep the records, process credit and debit cards , connect to other systems in a network, and manage inventory. A basic POS system would consist of a computer as its core part provided with application specific programs for the particular environment in which it will serve, along with a cash drawer, barcode scanner, receipt printer and the appropriate POS software. Point-of-sale (POS) terminals are used in most industries that have a point of sale such as a service desk, including restaurants, lodging, entertainment, and museums. Due to the better track inventory and accuracy of records, the Point-of-sale (POS) machine is used worldwide and it can be easily set-up, depending on the nature of the busi...

After the massive data breaches at U.S retailers Target and Neiman Marcus in which financial credentials of more than 110 million and 1.1 million customers were compromised respectively, shows that the Point of Sale (POS) system has become a new target for the cyber criminals. Despite the BlackPOS malware of Point of Sale (POS) system that comes out as the major cause of these data breaches, malware writers are upgrading and developing more Trojans to target POS system. In December, the security researchers at anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab discovered a Tor-based banking trojan , dubbed " ChewBacca ", that was initially categorized as a Financial trojan, but recently security researchers at RSA have uncovered that 'ChewBacca' is also capable of stealing credit card details from point of sale systems. ' ChewBacca ', a relatively new and private Trojan, used in the 11 countries as a POS malware is behind the electronic theft. ChewBacca communicat...

In the previous reports of Cyber Intelligence firm ' IntelCrawler ' named Sergey Tarasov , a 17-year-old teenager behind the nickname " ree[4] ", as the developer of BlackPOS malware. BlackPOS also known as "reedum" or 'Kaptoxa' is an effective crimeware kit, used in the massive heist of possibly 110 million consumers' Credit-Debit cards, and personal information from the TARGET . Later Researchers's investigation revealed that the original coder of BlackPOS Malware was actually a 23-year-old young hacker named Rinat Shabayev and the teen, Sergey Taraspov is the incharge for the technical support department. In an interview with Russian channel ' LifeNews ', Rinat Shabayev admitted that he had developed the BlackPOS crimeware kit. He clarified that the program developed by him was not meant for any kind of data theft, instead the program was written for the security testing. He developed the malware with the he...

Security experts at IntelCrawler provided a new interesting update on BlackPOS malware author , that he forgot to delete his Social networking profile even after the last exposure from the investigators. As we have reported a few days before that the Intelligence firm IntelCrawler  has identified a 17 year old teenager, known as " Ree [4] " in the underground market, as the author of the BlackPOS /Kaptoxa malware used in the attack against Target and Neiman Marcus retailers. The teenager is not directly responsible for the Target attack, but he sold the BlackPOS to other Cyber Gangs, including the admin's of underground credit cards market places, " . rescator ", " Track2 . name ", " Privateservices.biz " and many others were his clients. Who is Ree [ 4]? IntelCrawler exposed REE [ 4]'s original profile as Sergey Taraspov,  a 17 year old Russian programmer, based in St . Petersburg and Nizhniy Novgorod (Russian Federation). Before both brea...

The Holiday data breach at TARGET appeared to be part of a broad and highly sophisticated international hacking campaign against multiple retailers, involving the heist of possibly 110 million Credit-Debit cards, and personal information. Target confirmed last weekend that a malicious software was embedded in point-of-sale (POS) equipment at its checkout counters to collect secure data as the credit cards were swiped during transactions. The Malware called ' BlackPOS ' also known as " reedum " or ' Kaptoxa ' is an effective crimeware  kit, that was created in March 2013 and available in underground sites for $1800-$2000. Investigators from IntelCrawler found a 17-years old hacker who actually developed the BlackPOS crimeware kit. His nickname is ' ree4 ' and original name: ' Sergey Taraspov ' from  St . Petersburg  and  Nizhniy Novgorod ( Russian Federation). IntelCrawler's sources mentioned that the BlackPOS malware was created i...