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We'll TL;DR the FUDdy introduction: we all know that phishing attacks are on the rise in scale and complexity, that AI is enabling more sophisticated attacks that evade traditional defenses, and the never-ending cybersecurity talent gap means we're all struggling to keep security teams fully staffed.  Given that reality, security teams need to be able to monitor and respond to threats effectively and efficiently. You obviously can't let real threats slip past unnoticed, but you also can't afford to waste time chasing false positives.  In this post, we're going to look at some of the ways Material Security 's unique approach to email security and data protection can dramatically–and quantifiably–save your security teams hours each week while improving the effectiveness of your security program.  What's Your Alert Budget? Before we dive into the "how," let's take a moment to look at why efficiency is critical in security operations. To do that, let's think about how m...

A new malicious campaign has been observed making use of malicious Android apps to steal users' SMS messages since at least February 2022 as part of a large-scale campaign. The malicious apps, spanning over 107,000 unique samples, are designed to intercept one-time passwords (OTPs) used for online account verification to commit identity fraud. "Of those 107,000 malware samples, over 99,000 of these applications are/were unknown and unavailable in generally available repositories," mobile security firm Zimperium said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This malware was monitoring one-time password messages across over 600 global brands, with some brands having user counts in the hundreds of millions of users." Victims of the campaign have been detected in 113 countries, with India and Russia topping the list, followed by Brazil, Mexico, the U.S., Ukraine, Spain, and Turkey. The starting point of the attack is the installation of a malicious app that...

Companies in Russia and Moldova have been the target of a phishing campaign orchestrated by a little-known cyber espionage group known as XDSpy . The findings come from cybersecurity firm F.A.C.C.T., which said the infection chains lead to the deployment of a malware called DSDownloader. The activity was observed this month, it added. XDSpy is a threat actor of indeterminate origin that was first uncovered by the Belarusian Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT.BY, in February 2020. A subsequent analysis by ESET attributed the group to information-stealing attacks aimed at government agencies in Eastern Europe and the Balkans since 2011. Attack chains mounted by the adversary are known to leverage spear-phishing emails in order to infiltrate their targets with a main malware module known as XDDown that, in turn, drops additional plugins for gathering system information, enumerating C: drive, monitoring external drives, exfiltrating local files, and gathering passwords. Ove...

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, agreed to a record $1.4 billion settlement with the U.S. state of Texas over allegations that it illegally collected biometric data of millions of users without their permission, marking one of the largest penalties levied by regulators against the tech giant. "This historic settlement demonstrates our commitment to standing up to the world's biggest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating Texans' privacy rights," Attorney General Ken Paxton said . "Any abuse of Texans' sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law." The development arrived more than two years after the social media behemoth was sued for unlawfully capturing facial data belonging to Texas without their informed consent as is required by the law. The Menlo Park-based company, however, did not admit to any wrongdoing. Tag Suggestions, as the feature was originally c...

A new iteration of a sophisticated Android spyware called Mandrake has been discovered in five applications that were available for download from the Google Play Store and remained undetected for two years. The applications attracted a total of more than 32,000 installations before being pulled from the app storefront, Kaspersky said in a Monday write-up. A majority of the downloads originated from Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Peru, and the U.K. "The new samples included new layers of obfuscation and evasion techniques, such as moving malicious functionality to obfuscated native libraries, using certificate pinning for C2 communications, and performing a wide array of tests to check if Mandrake was running on a rooted device or in an emulated environment," researchers Tatyana Shishkova and Igor Golovin said . Mandrake was first documented by Romanian cybersecurity vendor Bitdefender in May 2020, describing its deliberate approach to infect a handful of devices...

As more people work remotely, IT departments must manage devices distributed over different cities and countries relying on VPNs and remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools for system administration.  However, like any new technology, RMM tools can also be used maliciously. Threat actors can establish connections to a victim's device and run commands, exfiltrate data, and stay undetected.  This article will cover real-world examples of RMM exploits and show you how to protect your organization from these attacks.  What are RMM tools?  RMM software simplifies network management, allowing IT professionals to remotely solve problems, install software, and upload or download files to or from devices.  Unfortunately, this connection is not always secure, and attackers can use malicious software to connect their servers to a victim's device. As these connections become easier to detect, however,  ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) groups have had to adjus...

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed widespread phishing campaigns targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Poland during May 2024 that led to the deployment of several malware families like Agent Tesla , Formbook , and Remcos RAT . Some of the other regions targeted by the campaigns include Italy and Romania, according to cybersecurity firm ESET. "Attackers used previously compromised email accounts and company servers, not only to spread malicious emails but also to host malware and collect stolen data," ESET researcher Jakub Kaloč said in a report published today. These campaigns, spread across nine waves, are notable for the use of a malware loader called DBatLoader (aka ModiLoader and NatsoLoader) to deliver the final payloads. This, the Slovakian cybersecurity company said, marks a departure from previous attacks observed in the second half of 2023 that leveraged a cryptors-as-a-service (CaaS) dubbed AceCryptor to propagate Remcos RAT (aka Resc...