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A previously undocumented Windows malware has infected over 222,000 systems worldwide since at least June 2018, yielding its developer no less than 9,000 Moneros ($2 million) in illegal profits. Dubbed " Crackonosh ," the malware is distributed via illegal, cracked copies of popular software, only to disable antivirus programs installed in the machine and install a coin miner package called XMRig for stealthily exploiting the infected host's resources to mine Monero. At least 30 different versions of the malware executable have been discovered between Jan. 1, 2018, and Nov. 23, 2020, Czech cybersecurity software company Avast  said  on Thursday, with a majority of the victims located in the U.S., Brazil, India, Poland, and the Philippines. Crackonosh works by replacing critical Windows system files such as "serviceinstaller.msi" and "maintenance.vbs" to cover its tracks and abuses the  safe mode , which prevents antivirus software from working, to...

A Ukrainian national and a mid-​level supervisor of the hacking group known as FIN7 has been sentenced to seven years in prison for his role as a "pen tester" and perpetuating a criminal scheme that enabled the gang to compromise millions of customers debit and credit cards. Andrii Kolpakov , 33, was arrested in Spain on June 28, 2018, and subsequently extradited to the U.S. the following year on June 1, 2019. In June 2020, Kolpakov pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking. The Western District of Washington also ordered Kolpakov to pay $2.5 million in restitution. The defendant, who was involved with the group from April 2016 until his arrest, managed other hackers who were tasked with breaching the point-of-sale systems of companies, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, to deploy malware capable of stealing financial information. FIN7 , also called Anunak, Carbanak Group , and the Navigator Group,...

The cybercrime ring that was apprehended last week in connection with Clop (aka Cl0p) ransomware attacks against dozens of companies in the last few months helped launder money totaling $500 million for several malicious actors through a plethora of illegal activities. "The group — also known as FANCYCAT — has been running multiple criminal activities: distributing cyber attacks; operating a high-risk exchanger; and laundering money from dark web operations and high-profile cyber attacks such as Cl0p and Petya ransomware," popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance  said  Thursday. On June 16, the Ukraine Cyber Police  nabbed six individuals  in the city of Kyiv, describing the arrests as resulting from an international operation involving law enforcement authorities from Korea, the U.S., and Interpol. While the bust was seen as a major blow to the operations of the Clop gang, the hackers published earlier this week a fresh batch of confidential employee records st...

SaaS Adoption is Skyrocketing, Resilience Hasn't Kept Pace SaaS platforms have revolutionized how businesses operate. They simplify collaboration, accelerate deployment, and reduce the overhead of managing infrastructure. But with their rise comes a subtle, dangerous assumption: that the convenience of SaaS extends to resilience. It doesn't. These platforms weren't built with full-scale data protection in mind . Most follow a shared responsibility model — wherein the provider ensures uptime and application security, but the data inside is your responsibility. In a world of hybrid architectures, global teams, and relentless cyber threats, that responsibility is harder than ever to manage. Modern organizations are being stretched across: Hybrid and multi-cloud environments with decentralized data sprawl Complex integration layers between IaaS, SaaS, and legacy systems Expanding regulatory pressure with steeper penalties for noncompliance Escalating ransomware threats and inside...

Cybersecurity researchers on Thursday disclosed a chain of vulnerabilities affecting the BIOSConnect feature within Dell Client BIOS that could be abused by a privileged network adversary to gain arbitrary code execution at the BIOS/UEFI level of the affected device. "As the attacker has the ability to remotely execute code in the pre-boot environment, this can be used to subvert the operating system and undermine fundamental trust in the device," researchers from enterprise device security firm Eclypsium said . "The virtually unlimited control over a device that this attack can provide makes the fruit of the labor well worth it for the attacker." In all, the flaws affect 128 Dell models spanning across consumer and business laptops, desktops, and tablets, totalling an estimated 30 million individual devices. Worse, the weaknesses also impact computers that have  Secure Boot  enabled, a security feature designed to prevent  rootkits from being installed  at boot...

Enterprise applications used to live securely in data centers and office employees connected to internal networks using company-managed laptops or desktops. And data was encircled by a walled perimeter to keep everything safe. All that changed in the last 18 months. Businesses and employees had to adapt quickly to cloud technology and remote work. The cloud gave businesses the agility to respond faster to change and the scale to accommodate rapid growth. Remote work boosted productivity by letting employees access cloud data from anywhere on any device. This is not business as usual. The data center and the perimeter security are no longer the center of the universe. Now remote workers, personal mobile devices, applications, and data are in the middle. Although employees, applications, and data have left the building, IT security teams still shoulder the responsibility for protecting confidential data and ensuring compliance with strict privacy regulations. The risk of not doing so...

Cybersecurity researchers on Wednesday disclosed critical flaws in the Atlassian project and software development platform that could be exploited to take over an account and control some of the apps connected through its single sign-on ( SSO ) capability. "With just one click, an attacker could have used the flaws to get access to Atlassian's publish Jira system and get sensitive information, such as security issues on Atlassian cloud, Bitbucket and on premise products," Check Point Research said in an analysis shared with The Hacker News. After the issues were reported to Atlassian on Jan. 8, 2021, the Australian company deployed a fix as part of its  updates  rolled out on  May 18 . The sub-domains affected by the flaws include -  jira.atlassian.com confluence.atlassian.com getsupport.atlassian.com partners.atlassian.com developer.atlassian.com support.atlassian.com training.atlassian.com Successful exploitation of these flaws could result in a supp...

VMware has rolled out security updates to resolve a critical flaw affecting Carbon Black App Control that could be exploited to bypass authentication and take control of vulnerable systems. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2021-21998, is rated 9.4 out of 10 in severity by the industry-standard Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and affects App Control (AppC) versions 8.0.x, 8.1.x, 8.5.x, and 8.6.x. Carbon Black App Control  is a security solution designed to lock down critical systems and servers to prevent unauthorized changes in the face of cyber-attacks and ensure compliance with regulatory mandates such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, SOX, FISMA, and NERC. "A malicious actor with network access to the VMware Carbon Black App Control management server might be able to obtain administrative access to the product without the need to authenticate," the California-based cloud computing and virtualization technology company  said  in an advisory. CVE-2021-21998 i...