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Image Credit: Pixelbay Blockchain startups are cropping up left and right aiming to disrupt existing services and business models. These range from the trivial to potentially game-changing solutions that can revolutionize the internet as we know it. Among those that promise to change the world, most are attempting to reconstruct the entire internet infrastructure into something that is decentralized, secure, scalable, and tokenized. There are also those that aim to solve the most significant problems plaguing the digital world, particularly potentially costly and tedious security issues. We do not lack for dangers, ranging from data breaches to denial-of-service attacks, and other hacks. For the most part, there are capable SaaS and software-defined services that are capable enough in addressing the threats that involve malware and DDoS. However, blockchains offer much much more. The plague of DDoS Distributed denial-of-service or DDoS attacks involve a malicious hacke

It seems like the world has declared war against the Cyber Criminals. In a recent update, we reported that FBI is offering $3 Million in Reward for the arrest of GameOver Zeus botnet mastermind, and meanwhile British cyber-police has taken down widely-spread RAMNIT botnet . The National Crime Agency (NCA) in a joint operation with Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and law enforcement agencies from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom has taken down the Ramnit "botnet", which has infected over 3.2 million computers worldwide, including 33,000 in the UK. Alike GameOver Zeus, RAMNIT is also a ' botnet ' - a network of zombie computers which operate under criminal control for malicious purposes like spreading viruses, sending out spam containing malicious links, and carrying out distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) in order to bring down target websites. RAMNIT believes to spread malware via trustworthy links se

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Interpol have allegedly seized proxy servers used in connection with Blockchain-based domains belonging to Joker's Stash, a notorious fraud bazaar known for selling compromised payment card data in underground forums. The takedown  happened  last week on December 17. The operators of Joker's Stash operate several versions of the platform, including  Blockchain proxy server domains  — .bazar, .lib, .emc, and .coin — that are responsible for redirecting users to the actual website and two other Tor (.onion) variants. Joker's Stash implemented the use of  Blockchain DNS  via a  Chrome browser extension  in 2017. These Blockchain websites make use of a decentralized DNS where the top-level domains (e.g., .bazar) are not owned by a single central authority, with the lookup records shared over a peer-to-peer network as opposed to a DNS provider, thus bringing in significant advantages like  bulletproof hosting . This also m

Staying Sharp: Cybersecurity CPEs Explained Perhaps even more so than in other professional domains, cybersecurity professionals constantly face new threats. To ensure you stay on top of your game, many certification programs require earning Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits. CPEs are essentially units of measurement used to quantify the time and effort professionals spend on maintaining and enhancing skills and knowledge in the field of cybersecurity, and they act as points that demonstrate a commitment to staying current. CPEs are best understood in terms of other professions: just like medical, legal and even CPA certifications require continuing education to stay up-to-date on advancements and industry changes, cybersecurity professionals need CPEs to stay informed about the latest hacking tactics and defense strategies. CPE credits are crucial for maintaining certifications issued by various cybersecurity credentialing organizations, such as (ISC)², ISACA, and C

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned of cyber attacks targeting defense forces in the country with a malware called SPECTR as part of an espionage campaign dubbed SickSync. The agency attributed the attacks to a threat actor it tracks under the moniker UAC-0020, which is also called Vermin and is assessed to be associated with security agencies of the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). LPR was declared a sovereign state by Russia days prior to its military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Attack chains commence with spear-phishing emails containing a RAR self-extracting archive file containing a decoy PDF file, a trojanized version of the SyncThing application that incorporates the SPECTR payload, and a batch script that activates the infection by launching the executable. SPECTR serves as an information stealer by grabbing screenshots every 10 seconds, harvesting files, gathering data from removable USB drives, and stealing credentials and

A new research has demonstrated a technique that allows an attacker to bypass firewall protection and remotely access any TCP/UDP service on a victim machine. Called  NAT Slipstreaming , the method involves sending the target a link to a malicious site (or a legitimate site loaded with malicious ads) that, when visited, ultimately triggers the gateway to open any TCP/UDP port on the victim, thereby circumventing browser-based port restrictions. The findings were revealed by privacy and security researcher Samy Kamkar over the weekend. "NAT Slipstreaming exploits the user's browser in conjunction with the Application Level Gateway (ALG) connection tracking mechanism built into NATs, routers, and firewalls by chaining internal IP extraction via timing attack or WebRTC, automated remote MTU and IP fragmentation discovery, TCP packet size massaging, TURN authentication misuse, precise packet boundary control, and protocol confusion through browser abuse," Kamkar said in

You're fully aware of the need to stop threats at the front door and then hunt any that got through that first gate, so your company installed an EPP/ EDR solution. But like most companies, you've already come across its shortcoming – and these are amplified since you have a small security team. More than likely, you noticed that it has its share of detection blind spots and limitations for which you need to tack on more detection technologies.  Remediation requires manual effort, and in terms of operation, it's become too much of an investment on your already resource-constrained staff. Deployment took you ages, so you're somewhat wary of introducing new technology and going through that process again.  What should you do – fight for more resources, flight from the EDR/ EPP combo to other technological solutions, or freeze by accepting this painful situation and updating the board that your risk levels remain high?  When fight and freeze are typically the directio

Over the past few weeks, the use of Zoom video conferencing software has exploded ever since it emerged the platform of choice to host everything from cabinet meetings to yoga classes amidst the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and work from home became the new normal. The app has skyrocketed to 200 million daily users from an average of 10 million in December — along with a 535 percent increase in daily traffic to its download page in the last month — but it's also seen a massive uptick in Zoom's problems, all of which stem from sloppy design practices and security implementations. Zoom may never have designed its product beyond enterprise chat initially, but with the app now being used in a myriad number of ways and by regular consumers, the company's full scope of gaffes have come into sharp focus — something it was able to avoid all this time. But if this public scrutiny can make it a more secure product, it can only be a good thing in the long run. A Laundry

File transfer services such as FTP or HTTP has been the most common way of file transfer for business requirements. Typically what a file transfer means is that a file transfer protocol such as FTP or HTTP is used to send the stream of bits stored as a single unit in a file system including file name, file size, timestamp and other metadata from one host to another host over a TCP-based network such as the Internet. But this process is not foolproof. FTP, by itself, is not a secure file transfer protocol and it has a lot of security vulnerabilities. It's a known fact that FTP doesn't provide any encryption for data transfer. Most of the times, the requirement in any business is pretty simple: to transfer files between two endpoints in different locations, and the parties involved do not think much about how secure the file transfer process is going to be. Using FTP for official file transfer can leave your data transmission exposed to many security attacks: FTP Bounce Attack Gener

A dark web drugs kingpin who was arrested last year when he arrived in the United States to compete in the World Beard and Mustache Championships has now been sentenced to 20 years in prison. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola sentenced 36-year-old French national Gal Vallerius, aka "OxyMonster," after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to launder money in June this year. According to a press release published by the U.S. Department of Justice, Vallerius was an administrator, senior moderator and vendor on Dream Market —one of the largest dark web marketplaces for illegal narcotics and drug paraphernalia. Launched in November 2013, Dream Market began operating on the TOR "dark web" network and was designed to make it easier for people to anonymously buy and sell illegal items and services in exchange for Bitcoin and other peer-to-peer cryptocurrencies. Vallerius initi

Cybersecurity researchers disclosed details of what they say is the "largest botnet" observed in the wild in the last six years, infecting over 1.6 million devices primarily located in China, with the goal of launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and inserting advertisements into HTTP websites visited by unsuspecting users. Qihoo 360's Netlab security team dubbed the botnet " Pink " based on a sample obtained on November 21, 2019, owing to a large number of function names starting with "pink." Mainly targeting MIPS-based fiber routers, the botnet leverages a combination of third-party services such as GitHub, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, and central command-and-control (C2) servers for its bots to controller communications, not to mention completely encrypting the transmission channels to prevent the victimized devices from being taken over. "Pink raced with the vendor to retain control over the infected devices, while vendor

With revelations of NSA spying and some of the most jaw-dropping surveillance leaks, many people feel unencrypted and central-server service is bad in most of the cases, but end-to-end encryption can be used to reduce this problem. Worldwide Government surveillance raises privacy concerns and acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook also made us think about the security concern with chat applications as well; though it was not so secure previously. People who care about having their SMS and Instant messages protected from prying eyes, now they can use end-to-end encrypted services, like  TextSecure .  It is a free Android-based messaging app, completly open-source , easy to use and designed with privacy in mind. Encrypting the stored data on the servers is as important as transferring data over an encrypted connection, but the most important factor of the encryption is that ' who has the decryption key '. If the company has the keys, then Government could snoop through your fi

Since its return over a month ago, The Pirate Bay — the infamous peer-to-peer file sharing website that has provided only the finest in illegal torrents for more than a decade — has suffered a lot to keep the ship afloat. But, now TPB is experiencing yet more downtime. The Pirate Bay (TPB) torrent search website was down this morning, and users visiting the websites were redirected to the "mobile-friendly" version of its notorious website called The Mobile Bay , but the website wasn't working either. Both the websites displayed identical ' 403 Forbidden ' error messages. The outage was first spotted by TorrentFreak, which noted that The Pirate Bay has been struggling to keep the website online since it returned late January after going dark from the Internet following a raid in Sweden late last year in which several servers and other equipment were seized by the police in Stockholm. The actual cause of the latest downtime wasn't clear that

Just to enhance the services being rendered. The popular peer-to-peer file sharing software application is aiming to achieve new heights by making their software be a paid scheme . uTorrent is one of the clients of BitTorrent Inc. (the parent company) which implements a BitTorrent protocol. Where each client is capable of creating, publishing, and transmitting any computer file over a network, using the protocol. μTorrent is a free piece of software and to support it, the company uses bundled software to offset the cost that would "otherwise be paid directly by the user." "This is a familiar revenue model that is commonly used by software companies," the μTorrent team wrote. "It allows us to fund the costs associated with software development, as well as other projects and innovations." However, the team says it's never satisfied with this revenue model approach , as it requires compromises and reduces a premium user experience,

An active financially motivated campaign is targeting vulnerable SSH servers to covertly ensnare them into a proxy network. "This is an active campaign in which the attacker leverages SSH for remote access, running malicious scripts that stealthily enlist victim servers into a peer-to-peer (P2P) proxy network, such as Peer2Profit or Honeygain," Akamai researcher Allen West said in a Thursday report. Unlike cryptojacking, in which a compromised system's resources are used to illicitly mine cryptocurrency, proxyjacking offers the ability for threat actors to leverage the victim's unused bandwidth to clandestinely run different services as a P2P node. This offers two-fold benefits: It not only enables the attacker to monetize the extra bandwidth with a significantly reduced resource load that would be necessary to carry out cryptojacking, it also reduces the chances of discovery. "It is a stealthier alternative to cryptojacking and has serious implications th

A federal judge ordered the FBI to disclose more information about its " Going Dark "  surveillance program, an initiative to extend its ability to wiretap virtually all forms of electronic communications. Why shocking ? because a federal judge just ruled that police can place surveillance cameras on private property without a search warrant and another federal judge quickly overturned a previous decision blocking the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012. The EFF ( Electronic Frontier Foundation)   has filed filed two freedom of information requests, in response to which they received damned little. Judge Richard Seeborg says the feds need to go back and try again. FBI's wiretapping system is robust and advanced, so request sought documents concerning limitations that hamper the DOJ's ability to conduct surveillance on communication networks including encrypted services like BlackBerry, social-networking sites like

BitTorrent, the company which owns the popular file-sharing client uTorrent, has quietly been sold for $140 million in cash to Justin Sun, the founder of blockchain-focused startup TRON. TRON is a decentralized entertainment and content-sharing platform that uses blockchain and distributed storage technology. It allows users to publish content without having to use third-party platforms such as YouTube or Facebook, and trades in Tronix (TRX) cryptocurrency. Since BitTorrent is one of the most recognizable brands in the world for decentralized computing and peer-to-peer (P2P) networking, and TRON aims to establish a truly decentralized Internet, BitTorrent would be of great use for Sun to help achieve that goal. There were reports that the two were in negotiations for at least a month, and just yesterday, Variety reported that BitTorrent Inc. was sold to Sun last week, but the report did not disclose the deal price. Now, TechCrunch is reporting that TRON's founder has

Two weeks ago, we reported how a serious flaw in the popular peer-to-peer BitTorrent file sharing protocols could be exploited to carry out a devastating distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, allowing lone hackers with limited resources to take down large websites. Good news is that the developers of BitTorrent have fixed the security issue in its service that is being used by hundreds of Millions of users worldwide. In a blog post published Thursday, BitTorrent announced that the flaw was resided in a reference implementation of the Micro Transport Protocol (uTP) called libuTP , which is used by many widely used BitTorrent clients such as μTorrent , Vuze and Mainline . The San Francisco company also announced that it has rolled out a patch for its libuTP software that will stop miscreants from abusing the p2p protocol to conduct Distributed Reflective Denial-of-Service (DRDoS) attacks. DRDoS attack is a more sophisticated form of conventional DDoS att