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Cybercrime groups are distributing malicious PHP web shells disguised as a favicon to maintain remote access to the compromised servers and inject JavaScript skimmers into online shopping platforms with an aim to steal financial information from their users. "These web shells known as Smilodon or Megalodon are used to dynamically load JavaScript skimming code via server-side requests into online stores," Malwarebytes Jérôme Segura  said  in a Thursday write-up. "This technique is interesting as most client-side security tools will not be able to detect or block the skimmer." Injecting web skimmers on e-commerce websites to steal credit card details is a tried-and-tested modus operandi of Magecart, a consortium of different hacker groups who target online shopping cart systems. Also known as formjacking attacks, the skimmers take the form of JavaScript code that the operators stealthily insert into an e-commerce website, often on payment pages, with an intent to c...

As the total number of people working from home has grown dramatically in the last year or two, so has the number of individuals who use all of their own technology for their jobs. If you're a remote worker who relies on your own PC to get your work done, then you may be at a heightened risk for some of the major threats that are impacting the computer industry as a whole. Relatively few people take all of the recommended precautions when using their own technology. While it's unlikely that people are engaged in any riskier behaviors than they were before, the fact that few people have the time to follow all the relevant pieces of cybersecurity news means some people might be unaware of certain active threats. That may explain how a password manager was  used to install malicious code  on a large number of client machines. Though you might not want to follow all of the news that comes out about security issues on a daily basis, you might find it helpful to pay close attenti...

Colonial Pipeline on Thursday restored operations to its entire pipeline system nearly a week following a ransomware infection targeting its IT systems, forcing it to reportedly shell out nearly $5 million to regain control of its computer networks. "Following this restart, it will take several days for the product delivery supply chain to return to normal," the company said in a statement on Thursday evening. "Some markets served by Colonial Pipeline may experience, or continue to experience, intermittent service interruptions during this start-up period. Colonial will move as much gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel as is safely possible and will continue to do so until markets return to normal." The company's official website , however, has been taken offline as of writing with an access denied message "This request was blocked by the security rules." Bloomberg, citing "two people familiar with the transaction," said the company made th...

Cybersecurity company Rapid7 on Thursday revealed that unidentified actors improperly managed to get hold of a small portion of its source code repositories in the aftermath of the software supply chain compromise targeting Codecov earlier this year. "A small subset of our source code repositories for internal tooling for our [Managed Detection and Response] service was accessed by an unauthorized party outside of Rapid7," the Boston-based firm  said  in a disclosure. "These repositories contained some internal credentials, which have all been rotated, and alert-related data for a subset of our MDR customers." On April 15, software auditing startup Codecov alerted customers that its Bash Uploader utility had been infected with a backdoor as early as January 31 by unknown parties to gain access to authentication tokens for various internal software accounts used by developers. The incident didn't come to light until April 1. "The actor gained access bec...

Protection against insider risks works when the process involves controlling the data transfer channels or examining data sources. One approach involves preventing USB flash drives from being copied or sending them over email. The second one concerns preventing leakage or fraud in which an insider accesses files or databases with harmful intentions. What's the best way to protect your data? It seems obvious that prevention is the best way to solve any problem. In most cases, DCAP (data-centric audit and protection) and DAM (database activity monitoring) is sufficient. Both serve the purpose of protecting data at rest. The following example illustrates the approach we found in the Russian legal system. An employee of the Federal Migration Service in one of the Russian regions was approached by his friend, who asked him to hide information about two offenses in his file in the migrant database. The employee knew that this could be done remotely, accessed the database from home,...

Bogus COVID-19 test results, fraudulent vaccination cards, and questionable vaccines are emerging a hot commodity on the dark web in what's the latest in a long list of cybercrimes  capitalizing  on the  coronavirus  pandemic. "A new and troubling phenomenon is that consumers are buying COVID-19 vaccines on the black market due to the increased demand around the world,"  said  Anne An, a senior security researcher at McAfee's Advanced Programs Group (APG). "As a result, illegal COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination records are in high demand on darknet marketplaces." The growing demand and the race towards achieving herd immunity means at least a dozen underground marketplaces are peddling COVID-19 related merchandise, with Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines purchasable for $500 per dose from top-selling vendors who rely on services like Wickr, Telegram, WhatsApp, and Gmail for advertising and communications. Darknet listings for the supposed vaccines are being sold...

Three design and multiple implementation flaws have been disclosed in IEEE 802.11 technical standard that undergirds Wi-Fi, potentially enabling an adversary to take control over a system and plunder confidential data. Called  FragAttacks  (short for FRgmentation and AGgregation Attacks), the weaknesses impact all Wi-Fi security protocols, from Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) all the way to Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3), thus virtually putting almost every wireless-enabled device at risk of attack. "An adversary that is within radio range of a victim can abuse these vulnerabilities to steal user information or attack devices," Mathy Vanhoef, a security academic at New York University Abu Dhabi, said. "Experiments indicate that every Wi-Fi product is affected by at least one vulnerability and that most products are affected by several vulnerabilities." IEEE 802.11 provides the basis for all modern devices using the Wi-Fi family of network protocols, allowing lap...

Microsoft on Tuesday rolled out its scheduled  monthly security update  with patches for 55 security flaws affecting Windows, Exchange Server, Internet Explorer, Office, Hyper-V, Visual Studio, and Skype for Business. Of these 55 bugs, four are rated as Critical, 50 are rated as Important, and one is listed as Moderate in severity. Three of the vulnerabilities are publicly known, although, unlike  last month , none of them are under active exploitation at the time of release. The most critical of the flaws addressed is  CVE-2021-31166 , a wormable remote code execution vulnerability in the HTTP protocol stack. The issue, which could allow an unauthenticated attacker to send a specially crafted packet to a targeted server, is rated 9.8 out of a maximum of 10 on the CVSS scale. Another vulnerability of note is a remote code execution flaw in Hyper-V ( CVE-2021-28476 ), which also scores the highest severity among all flaws patched this month with a CVSS rating of...

The cybercrime syndicate behind Babuk ransomware has leaked more personal files belonging to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) after negotiations with the DC Police broke down, warning that they intend to publish all data if their ransom demands are not met. "The negotiations reached a dead end, the amount we were offered does not suit us, we are posting 20 more personal files on officers, you can download this archive, the password will be released tomorrow. if during tomorrow they do not raise the price, we will release all the data," the gang said in a statement on their data leak site. "You still have the ability to stop it," it added. The Babuk group is said to have  stolen 250GB of data , including investigation reports, arrests, disciplinary actions, and other intelligence briefings. Like other ransomware platforms, DarkSide adheres to a practice called double extortion, which involves demanding money in return for unlocking files and servers en...

Adobe has released  Patch Tuesday updates  for the month of May with fixes for multiple vulnerabilities spanning 12 different products, including a zero-day flaw affecting Adobe Reader that's actively exploited in the wild. The list of updated applications includes Adobe Experience Manager , Adobe InDesign , Adobe Illustrator , Adobe InCopy , Adobe Genuine Service , Adobe Acrobat and Reader, Magento , Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application, Adobe Media Encoder , Adobe After Effects , Adobe Medium, and Adobe Animate. In a security bulletin, the company  acknowledged  it received reports that the flaw "has been exploited in the wild in limited attacks targeting Adobe Reader users on Windows." Tracked as CVE-2021-28550, the zero-day concerns an arbitrary code execution flaw that could allow adversaries to execute virtually any command on target systems. While the targeted attacks took aim at Windows users of Adobe Reader, the issue affects both Windows and macO...

The concept of automation has taken on a life of its own in recent years. The idea is nothing new, but the current interest in automation is a mix of both hype and innovation. On the one hand, it's much easier today to automate everything from small processes to massive-scale tasks than it's ever been before. On the other hand, are we really prepared to hand the reins over to completely automated systems, and should we? There are areas in security operations where automation is already a critical component. In terms of analytics and parsing through ever-expanding data flows, it's impossible for most teams to keep up without impacting other areas of their jobs. Automated systems help us make sense of threats much faster and more reliably. However, automation isn't a cure-all (just yet). A new live webinar from XDR provider Cynet dives into the topic more in depth ( register here ). The webinar explores automation as it exists today in the cybersecurity industry. Led ...

Inadequate implementation of telecom standards, supply chain threats, and weaknesses in systems architecture could pose major cybersecurity risks to 5G networks, potentially making them a lucrative target for cybercriminals and nation-state adversaries to exploit for valuable intelligence. The analysis, which aims to identify and assess risks and vulnerabilities introduced by 5G adoption, was published on Monday by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), in partnership with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). "As new 5G policies and standards are released, there remains the potential for threats that impact the end-user," the report  said . "For example, nation states may attempt to exert undue influence on standards that benefit their proprietary technologies and limit customers' choices to use other equipment or software." S...

Cybersecurity researchers on Monday disclosed a new Android trojan that hijacks users' credentials and SMS messages to facilitate fraudulent activities against banks in Spain, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Called " TeaBot " (or Anatsa), the malware is said to be in its early stages of development, with malicious attacks targeting financial apps commencing in late March 2021, followed by a rash of infections in the first week of May against Belgium and Netherlands banks. The first signs of TeaBot activity emerged in January. "The main goal of TeaBot is stealing victim's credentials and SMS messages for enabling frauds scenarios against a predefined list of banks," Italian cybersecurity and online fraud prevention firm Cleafy said in a Monday write-up. "Once TeaBot is successfully installed in the victim's device, attackers can obtain a live streaming of the device screen (on demand) and also interact with it via Accessibility Serv...

The ransomware attack  against Colonial Pipeline's networks has prompted the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to issue a  regional emergency declaration  in 17 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.). The declaration provides a temporary exemption to Parts 390 through 399 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations ( FMCSRs ), allowing alternate transportation of gasoline, diesel, and refined petroleum products to address supply shortages stemming from the attack. "Such [an] emergency is in response to the unanticipated shutdown of the Colonial pipeline system due to network issues that affect the supply of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other refined petroleum products throughout the Affected States," the directive said. "This Declaration addresses the emergency conditions creating a need for immediate transportation of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other refined petroleum products and provides necessary relief." The states...

An unknown threat actor managed to control more than 27% of the entire Tor network exit capacity in early February 2021, a new study on the dark web infrastructure revealed. "The entity attacking Tor users is actively exploiting tor users since over a year and expanded the scale of their attacks to a new record level," an independent security researcher who goes by the name nusenu  said  in a write-up published on Sunday. "The average exit fraction this entity controlled was above 14% throughout the past 12 months." It's the latest in a series of efforts undertaken to bring to light malicious Tor activity perpetrated by the actor since  December 2019 . The attacks, which are said to have begun in January 2020, were first  documented and exposed  by the same researcher in August 2020. Tor is open-source software for enabling anonymous communication on the Internet. It obfuscates the source and destination of a web request by directing network traffic through...

For as long as corporate IT has been in existence, users have been required to change their passwords periodically. In fact, the need for scheduled password changes may be one of the most long-standing of all IT best practices. Recently, however, things have started to change. Microsoft has reversed course on the best practices that it has had in place for decades and  no longer recommends that organizations require users to change passwords periodically . Organizations are being forced to consider, perhaps for the first time, whether or not requiring periodic password changes is a good idea. Microsoft password reset recommendations According to Microsoft, requiring users to change their passwords frequently does more harm than good.  Humans are notoriously resistant to change. When a user is forced to change their password, they will often come up with a new password that is based on their previous password. A user might, for example, append a number to the end of their ...

Four Eastern European nationals face 20 years in prison for Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO) charges after pleading guilty to providing bulletproof hosting services between 2008 and 2015, which were used by cybercriminals to distribute malware to financial entities across the U.S. The individuals, Aleksandr Grichishkin, 34, and Andrei Skvortsov, 34, of Russia; Aleksandr Skorodumov, 33, of Lithuania; and Pavel Stassi, 30, of Estonia, have been accused of renting their wares to cybercriminal clients, who used the infrastructure to disseminate malware such as Zeus, SpyEye, Citadel, and the Blackhole Exploit Kit that were capable of co-opting victim machines into a botnet, and stealing sensitive information. The deployment of malware caused or attempted to cause millions of dollars in losses to U.S. victims, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said in a statement on Friday. "A key service provided by the defendants was helping their clients to evade detection by...