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Law enforcement agencies in Italy and Spain have dismantled an organized crime group linked to the Italian Mafia that was involved in online fraud, money laundering, drug trafficking, and property crime, netting the gang about €10 million ($11.7 million) in illegal proceeds in just a year. "The suspects defrauded hundreds of victims through phishing attacks and other types of online fraud such as SIM swapping and business email compromise before laundering the money through a wide network of money mules and shell companies," Europol  said  in a statement published today.  The group operated out of Tenerife, located in Spain's Canary Islands. The development comes following a year-long sting operation that saw as many as 16 house searches in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Turin, and Isernia, resulting in 106 arrests — mostly in Spain and Italy — and seizure of electronic devices, 224 credit cards, SIM cards, point-of-sale terminals, a marijuana plantation, and equipment used...

A spam campaign delivering spear-phishing emails aimed at South American organizations has retooled its techniques to include a wide range of commodity remote access trojans (RATs) and geolocation filtering to avoid detection, according to new research. Cybersecurity firm Trend Micro attributed the attacks to an advanced persistent threat (APT) tracked as  APT-C-36  (aka Blind Eagle), a suspected South America espionage group that has been active since at least 2018 and  previously known  for setting its sights on Colombian government institutions and corporations spanning financial, petroleum, and manufacturing sectors. Primarily spread via fraudulent emails by masquerading as Colombian government agencies, such as the National Directorate of Taxes and Customs (DIAN), the infection chain commences when the message recipients open a decoy PDF or Word document that claims to be a seizure order tied to their bank accounts and click on a link that's been generated f...

Google on Friday said it's bringing an Android 11 feature that auto-resets permissions granted to apps that haven't been used in months, to devices running Android versions 6 and above. The expansion is expected to go live later this year in December 2021 and enabled on Android phones with Google Play services running Android 6.0 (API level 23) or higher, which the company said should cover "billions more devices." Google officially released Android 6.0 Marshmallow on October 5, 2015. With Android 11 that came out last year, the internet giant introduced a permission auto-reset option that helps improve user privacy by automatically resetting an app's permissions to access sensitive features like storage or camera if the app in question is left unopened for a few months. "Some apps and permissions are automatically exempted from revocation, like active Device Administrator apps used by enterprises, and permissions fixed by enterprise policy," Google...

A newly spotted banking trojan has been caught leveraging legitimate platforms like YouTube and Pastebin to store its encrypted, remote configuration and commandeer infected Windows systems, making it the latest to join the  long list of malware  targeting Latin America (LATAM) after Guildma, Javali, Melcoz, Grandoreiro, Mekotio, Casbaneiro, Amavaldo, Vadokrist, and Janeleiro. The threat actor behind this malware family — dubbed " Numando " — is believed to have been active since at least 2018. "[Numando brings] interesting new techniques to the pool of Latin American banking trojans' tricks, like using seemingly useless ZIP archives or bundling payloads with decoy BMP images," ESET researchers  said  in a technical analysis published on Friday. "Geographically, it focuses almost exclusively on Brazil with rare campaigns in Mexico and Spain." Written in Delphi, the malware comes with an array of backdoor capabilities that allow it to control compr...

A number of malicious samples have been created for the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) with the goal of compromising Windows machines, highlighting a sneaky method that allows the operators to stay under the radar and thwart detection by popular anti-malware engines. The "distinct tradecraft" marks the first instance where a threat actor has been found abusing WSL to install subsequent payloads. "These files acted as loaders running a payload that was either embedded within the sample or retrieved from a remote server and was then injected into a running process using Windows API calls," researchers from Lumen Black Lotus Labs  said  in a report published on Thursday. Windows Subsystem for Linux, launched in August 2016, is a  compatibility layer  that's designed to run Linux binary executables (in ELF format) natively on the Windows platform without the overhead of a traditional virtual machine or dual-boot setup. The earliest artifacts date back to M...

A targeted phishing campaign aimed at the aviation industry for two years may be spearheaded by a threat actor operating out of Nigeria, highlighting how attackers can carry out small-scale cyber offensives for extended periods of time while staying under the radar. Cisco Talos dubbed the malware attacks "Operation Layover," building on  previous research  from the Microsoft Security Intelligence team in May 2021 that delved into a "dynamic campaign targeting the aerospace and travel sectors with spear-phishing emails that distribute an actively developed loader, which then delivers RevengeRAT or AsyncRAT." "The actor […] doesn't seem to be technically sophisticated, using off-the-shelf malware since the beginning of its activities without developing its own malware," researchers Tiago Pereira and Vitor Ventura  said . "The actor also buys the crypters that allow the usage of such malware without being detected, throughout the years it has use...

Continuous integration vendor Travis CI has patched a serious security flaw that exposed API keys, access tokens, and credentials, potentially putting organizations that use public source code repositories at risk of further attacks. The issue — tracked as  CVE-2021-41077  — concerns unauthorized access and plunder of secret environment data associated with a public open-source project during the software build process. The problem is said to have lasted during an eight-day window between September 3 and September 10. Felix Lange of Ethereum has been credited with discovering the leakage on September 7, with the company's Péter Szilágyi  pointing out  that "anyone could exfiltrate these and gain lateral movement into 1000s of [organizations]." Travis CI is a hosted CI/CD (short for continuous integration and continuous deployment) solution used to build and test software projects hosted on source code repository systems like GitHub and Bitbucket. "The desired b...

New details have been revealed about a recently remediated critical vulnerability in Netgear smart switches that could be leveraged by an attacker to potentially execute malicious code and take control of vulnerable devices. The flaw — dubbed " Seventh Inferno " (CVSS score: 9.8) — is part of a trio of security weaknesses, called Demon's Cries (CVSS score: 9.8) and Draconian Fear (CVSS score: 7.8), that Google security engineer Gynvael Coldwind reported to the networking, storage, and security solutions provider. The disclosure comes weeks after Netgear  released patches  to address the vulnerabilities earlier this month, on September 3. Successful exploitation of  Demon's Cries and Draconian Fear  could grant a malicious party the ability to change the administrator password without actually having to know the previous password or hijack the session bootstrapping information, resulting in a full compromise of the device. Now, in a new post sharing technical sp...

Microsoft on Wednesday disclosed details of a targeted phishing campaign that leveraged a now-patched zero-day flaw in its MSHTML platform using specially-crafted Office documents to deploy Cobalt Strike Beacon on compromised Windows systems. "These attacks used the vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2021-40444 , as part of an initial access campaign that distributed custom Cobalt Strike Beacon loaders," Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center  said  in a technical write-up. "These loaders communicated with an infrastructure that Microsoft associates with multiple cybercriminal campaigns, including human-operated ransomware." Details about CVE-2021-40444 (CVSS score: 8.8) first  emerged  on September 7 after researchers from EXPMON alerted the Windows maker about a "highly sophisticated zero-day attack" aimed at Microsoft Office users by taking advantage of a remote code execution vulnerability in MSHTML (aka Trident), a proprietary browser engine for the now...

Microsoft on Wednesday announced a new passwordless mechanism that allows users to access their accounts without a password by using Microsoft Authenticator, Windows Hello, a security key, or a verification code sent via SMS or email. The change is expected to be rolled out in the coming weeks. "Except for auto-generated passwords that are nearly impossible to remember, we largely create our own passwords,"  said  Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft's corporate vice president for Security, Compliance, and Identity. "But, given the vulnerability of passwords, requirements for them have gotten increasingly complex in recent years, including multiple symbols, numbers, case sensitivity, and disallowing previous passwords." "Passwords are incredibly inconvenient to create, remember, and manage across all the accounts in our lives," Jakkal added. Over the years, weak passwords have emerged as the entry point for a vast majority of attacks across enterprise and cons...

Microsoft on Tuesday addressed a quartet of security flaws as part of its  Patch Tuesday updates  that could be abused by adversaries to target Azure cloud customers and elevate privileges as well as allow for remote takeover of vulnerable systems. The list of flaws, collectively called OMIGOD by researchers from Wiz, affect a little-known software agent called Open Management Infrastructure that's automatically deployed in many Azure services - CVE-2021-38647  (CVSS score: 9.8) - Open Management Infrastructure Remote Code Execution Vulnerability CVE-2021-38648  (CVSS score: 7.8) - Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2021-38645  (CVSS score: 7.8) - Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2021-38649  (CVSS score: 7.0) - Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Open Management Infrastructure ( OMI ) is an open-source  analogous equivalent  of Win...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday disclosed it fined three intelligence community and military personnel $1.68 million in penalties for their role as cyber-mercenaries working on behalf of a U.A.E.-based cybersecurity company. The trio in question — Marc Baier, 49, Ryan Adams, 34, and Daniel Gericke, 40 — are accused of "knowingly and willfully combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with each other to commit offenses, "furnishing defense services to persons and entities in the country over a three year period beginning around December 2015 and continuing through November 2019, including developing invasive spyware capable of breaking into mobile devices without any action by the targets. "The defendants worked as senior managers at a United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.)-based company (U.A.E. CO) that supported and carried out computer network exploitation (CNE) operations (i.e., 'hacking') for the benefit of the U.A.E. government," the DoJ  said...

In the classic children's movie 'The Princess Bride,' one of the characters utters the phrase, " You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means ." It's freely used as a response to someone's misuse or misunderstanding of a word or phrase. "Response Automation" is another one of those phrases that have different meanings to different people. It's bantered around by the security vendor community so much that its precise meaning, when used, is unclear. Many vendors throw the term out without explaining exactly what they mean by the phrase. One vendor's response automation might, and often do, perform very differently from another vendor's response automation capabilities. But, hey, they have "response automation!" A recently published guide is meant to make sense of Response Automation ( Download here ). It discusses the evolution of response automation and distinguishes five increasingly capabl...

A day after  Apple  and  Google  rolled out urgent security updates, Microsoft has  pushed software fixes  as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday release cycle to plug 66 security holes affecting Windows and other components such as Azure, Office, BitLocker, and Visual Studio, including an  actively exploited zero-day  in its MSHTML Platform that came to light last week.  Of the 66 flaws, three are rated Critical, 62 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. This is aside from the  20 vulnerabilities  in the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser that the company addressed since the start of the month. The most important of the updates concerns a patch for  CVE-2021-40444  (CVSS score: 8.8), an actively exploited remote code execution vulnerability in MSHTML that leverages malware-laced Microsoft Office documents, with EXPMON researchers noting "the exploit uses logical flaws so the exploitation is perfe...

Users searching for TeamViewer remote desktop software on search engines like Google are being redirected to malicious links that drop  ZLoader  malware onto their systems while simultaneously embracing a stealthier infection chain that allows it to linger on infected devices and evade detection by security solutions. "The malware is downloaded from a Google advertisement published through Google Adwords," researchers from SentinelOne  said  in a report published on Monday. "In this campaign, the attackers use an indirect way to compromise victims instead of using the classic approach of compromising the victims directly, such as by phishing." First discovered in 2016, ZLoader (aka Silent Night and ZBot) is a  fully-featured banking trojan  and a fork of another banking malware called ZeuS, with newer versions implementing a VNC module that grants adversaries remote access to victim systems. The malware is in active development, with criminal actors spa...

Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed details about a high-severity flaw in the HP OMEN driver software that impacts millions of gaming computers worldwide, leaving them open to an array of attacks. Tracked as  CVE-2021-3437  (CVSS score: 7.8), the vulnerabilities could allow threat actors to escalate privileges to kernel mode without requiring administrator permissions, allowing them to disable security products, overwrite system components, and even corrupt the operating system. Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, which discovered and reported the shortcoming to HP on February 17, said it found no evidence of in-the-wild exploitation. The computer hardware company has since released a security update to its customers to address these vulnerabilities. The issues themselves are rooted in a component called  OMEN Command Center  that comes pre-installed on HP OMEN-branded laptops and desktops and can also be downloaded from the Microsoft Store. The software,...

Every once in a while, an industry term will get overused by marketing to the point of becoming a cliche. "Zero Trust" may have reached this threshold. In some ways, we understand why this is happening. Security perimeters have become obsolete as people use mobile devices and cloud applications to work from anywhere. Zero Trust deployment — moving all your apps and data to the cloud and assuming no user or device is trustworthy until proven otherwise in order to gain access — has been rapidly introduced as a result of the pandemic. However, most attempts at achieving Zero Trust access today are a patchwork of disparate products from different vendors connected to virtual private networks (VPN), with rudimentary on-off access controls based on limited visibility. Cloud security company,  Lookout , believes a modern approach to Zero Trust needs to take into account the fact that data has moved to the cloud and users are working from anywhere, on any device, and connecting o...

Apple has released  iOS 14.8, iPadOS 14.8 ,  watchOS 7.6.2 ,  macOS Big Sur 11.6 , and  Safari 14.1.2  to fix two actively exploited vulnerabilities, one of which defeated extra security protections built into the operating system. The list of two flaws is as follows - CVE-2021-30858  (WebKit) - A use after free issue that could result in arbitrary code execution when processing maliciously crafted web content. The flaw has been addressed with improved memory management. CVE-2021-30860  (CoreGraphics) - An integer overflow vulnerability that could lead to arbitrary code execution when processing a maliciously crafted PDF document. The bug has been remediated with improved input validation. "Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited," the iPhone maker noted in its advisory. The updates arrive weeks after researchers from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab revealed details of a zero-day exploit called " FOR...

Google on Monday released security updates for Chrome web browser to address a total of 11 security issues, two of which it says are actively exploited zero-days in the wild. Tracked as  CVE-2021-30632  and  CVE-2021-30633 , the  vulnerabilities  concern an out of bounds write in V8 JavaScript engine and a use after free flaw in Indexed DB API respectively, with the internet giant crediting anonymous researchers for reporting the bugs on September 8. As is typically the case, the company said it's "aware that exploits for CVE-2021-30632 and CVE-2021-30633 exist in the wild" without sharing additional specifics about how, when, and where the vulnerabilities were exploited, or the threat actors that may be abusing them. With these two security shortcomings, Google has addressed a total of 11 zero-day vulnerabilities in Chrome since the start of the year — CVE-2021-21148  - Heap buffer overflow in V8 CVE-2021-21166  - Object recycle issue in audi...