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A new piece of JavaScript malware has been observed attempting to steal users' online banking account credentials as part of a campaign that has targeted more than 40 financial institutions across the world. The activity cluster, which employs JavaScript web injections, is estimated to have led to at least 50,000 infected user sessions spanning North America, South America, Europe, and Japan. IBM Security Trusteer said it detected the campaign in March 2023. "Threat actors' intention with the web injection module is likely to compromise popular banking applications and, once the malware is installed, intercept the users' credentials in order to then access and likely monetize their banking information," security researcher Tal Langus  said . Attack chains are characterized by the use of scripts loaded from the threat actor-controlled server ("jscdnpack[.]com"), specifically targeting a page structure that's common to several banks. It's susp

Posing as IT support staff, criminals are picking up the phone in order to push Rogue anti-Virus software onto the system's of unsuspecting U.K. Internet users. The news comes from GetSafeOnline.org, who is using it to kickoff a week of events supporting Internet safety. These fly-by-night boiler room operations sometimes employ up to 400 people, who use a mix of sales and social engineering to scam their victims into believing that their system is in desperate need of repair. The end goal is to walk away with credit card information, verified when the Rogue anti-Virus is purchased, or remote access to the victim's system for future use. A typical call likely comes out of the blue. On the other end of the line, a person claiming to be an IT Helpdesk technician begins the process of forming a rapport with the mark. Like any other cold calling scam, the idea is to form an instant bond. The caller starts by representing themselves to the mark in a position of authority and trust, by f

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

The major tech companies including Google, Facebook, and Yahoo! have joined their hands to launch a new program meant to block fake web traffic by blacklisting flagged IP addresses. Today, majority of data center traffic is non-human or illegitimate, so to fight against this issue the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) has announced a program that will tap into Google's internal data-center blacklist to filter bots. The new pilot program will reject traffic from web robots or bots by making use of a blacklist, cutting a significant portion of web traffic from within data centers, said Google Ad Manager Vegard Johnsen. Google or any other big tech firm maintains a Blacklist that lists suspicious IP addresses of computer systems in data centers that may be trying to trick the human into clicking on advertisements. Google's DoubleClick blacklist alone blocked some 8.9% of data-center traffic back in May. Facebook and Yahoo to Contribute Apart from Goo

China Police has arrested nearly 15,000 people on suspicion of cyber crimes as part of an operation dubbed " Cleaning the Internet ," according to reports. According to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the suspects have been arrested for their involvement in cyber crimes that " jeopardized Internet security ." In July, China launched a six-month campaign codenamed " Cleaning the Internet " to fight online criminal activities. Under the program, the police investigated 7,400 cases, including hacking, online fraud and the illegal sale of personal information, spread over 66,000 websites, the official website of the ministry stated . "For the next step, the public security organs will continue to increase their investigation and crackdown on cyber crimes," according to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. The MPS did not clear exactly when the arrests took place but said the program also took down major online

After the Heartbleed bug that exposed half of the Internet vulnerable to hackers thereby marking as one of the largest Internet vulnerability in recent history, the critical flaw in the implementation of the DNS protocol could also represent a serious menace to the Internet security. A Serious security vulnerability has been discovered in the algorithms of DNS software – BIND by the two Israeli students ' Roee Hay ' and ' Jonathan Kalechstein ', who are working under a project out at the Laboratory of Computer Communication & Networking in the Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion , which was led by Dr. Gabi Nakibly from Rafael (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.). Although, Technion students have not provided any detail explanation about the vulnerability , but indicated that by exploiting the DNS protocol flaw an attacker could redirect the users who are trying to visit a legitimate website to a fake and bogus website which the attacker con

Google has unveiled a new pilot program in Singapore that aims to prevent users from sideloading certain apps that abuse Android app permissions to read one-time passwords and gather sensitive data. "This enhanced fraud protection will analyze and automatically block the installation of apps that may use sensitive runtime permissions frequently abused for financial fraud when the user attempts to install the app from an Internet-sideloading source (web browsers, messaging apps or file managers)," the company  said . The feature is designed to examine the permissions declared by a third-party app in real-time and look for those that seek to gain access to sensitive permissions associated with reading SMS messages, deciphering or dismissing notifications from legitimate apps, and accessibility services that have been  routinely   abused  by Android-based malware for  extracting valuable information . As part of the test, users in Singapore who attempt to sideload such apps

China has long been known for its strict censorship which makes it difficult for foreign technology companies to do business in the world's most populous country of over 1.35 billion people. Now, the new law issued by the Chinese government will expand its strict Internet monitoring efforts into mobile apps, targeting operators including Apple. However, Google currently doesn't operate its app store in China. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has imposed new regulation on distributors of mobile apps that requires both app stores and app developers keep a close eye on users and maintain a record of their activities for at least 60 days . The Chinese internet regulator has introduced the new legislation with the intent to fight issues like terrorism, pornography, violence, money fraud and distribution of malicious contents. However, this new move by the Chinese government will tighten its control over the Internet, especially the mobile apps used for private encry

ISPA to launch cyber security code of practice in SA South Africa's Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) has teamed with Australia's Internet Industry Association to develop a new voluntary industry code of practice to improve cybersecurity for end users. Known as the ' icode ', and developed in conjunction with Australia's Internet Industry Association, the code will provide a consistent approach for South African ISPs to help inform, educate and protect their customers in relation to cyber security. " The increasing threat of zombied computers - computers which have been essentially hijacked and are under the control of criminals or other third parties - presents a real risk to users. Identity theft, fraud, and increases in spam are all possible consequences of compromised computers. " By following the code, ISPs will contribute to reducing the number of compromised computers in South Africa and enhance the overall security of the South African and internation

Tor is a web service that allows users to surf the Internet, use IM, and other services while keeping themselves completely anonymous, but  Japan's National Police Agency wants ISPs to block access to Tor if users are found to have abused it. The push by Japanese authorities is because they're worried about an inability to tackle cyber crime enabled in part by anonymizing services such as Tor.  Japanese police is having a hard time when it comes to crimes in the cyberspace. Just last year a hacker, going by the name Demon Killer, took remote control of systems across the country and posted death threats on public message boards. The panel claimed it has been used in the past to commit internet fraud, help paedophiles groom kids online and, tellingly, enabled leaks from Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department. Tor has proven to be an invaluable tool for pro-democracy campaigners in the Middle East while censorious regimes such as the Chinese authorities have atte

Two widely used Adblocker Google Chrome extensions , posing as the original — AdBlock and uBlock Origin — extensions on Chrome Web Store, have been caught stuffing cookies in the web browser of millions of users to generate affiliate income from referral schemes fraudulently. There's no doubt web extensions add a lot of useful features to web browsers, making your online experience great and aiding productivity, but at the same time, they also pose huge threats to both your privacy and security. Being the most over-sighted weakest link in the browser security model, extensions sit between the browser application and the Internet — from where they look for the websites you visit and subsequently can intercept, modify, and block any requests, based on the functionalities they have been designed for. Apart from the extensions which are purposely created with malicious intent , in recent years we have also seen some of the most popular legitimate Chrome and Firefox extensions g

Can you imagine your world without the Internet? I know it's hard to imagine your life without the Internet, and the same was the case of two Ohio prisoners who built personal computers from parts from e-waste, hid them in the ceiling, and connected those PCs to the Internet via the prison's network. The incident occurred in 2015 but has now been made public by the State of Ohio's Office of the Inspector General, which published a 50-page report [ PDF ] on Tuesday, following almost a year-long investigation. According to the report, a prison work program has backfired two inmates of Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio, Florida, who smuggled computer parts from an e-waste recycling workshop and built two clandestine computers out of them. The unsupervised inmates later hid the computers behind a plywood board in the ceiling of a training room, and then connected those working PCs to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) network to access

The Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman ' Patrick Leahy ' reintroduced a revamped version of the " Personal Data Privacy and Security Act " for tough criminal penalties for hackers, that he originally authored in 2005. During last Christmas Holidays, a massive data breach had occurred at the shopping giant  Target,  involving hack of 40 million credit & debit cards, used to pay for purchases at its 1500 stores nationwide in the U.S. Reason: "Target Data Breach? Seriously"?  In a statement, as published below, the Senator wrote: "The recent data breach at Target involving the debit and credit card data of as many as 40 million customers during the Christmas holidays is a reminder that developing a comprehensive national strategy to protect data privacy and cybersecurity remains one of the most challenging and important issues facing our Nation" It seems that the  TARGET Breach  was scheduled, as the best opportunity to ramp up the cyber secu

With Facebook playing a starring role in the revolts that toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt, you might think the company's top executives would use this historic moment to highlight its role as the platform for democratic change. Instead, they really do not want to talk about it. The social media giant finds itself under countervailing pressures after the uprisings in the Middle East. While it has become one of the primary tools for activists to mobilize protests and share information, Facebook does not want to be seen as picking sides for fear that some countries — like Syria, where it just gained a foothold — would impose restrictions on its use or more closely monitor users, according to some company executives who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal business. And Facebook does not want to alter its firm policy requiring users to sign up with their real identities. The company says this requirement protects its users from fraud. Howev

A systematic analysis of attacks against Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) servers has revealed as many as 14 malware families, 10 of them newly documented, indicating that the Windows-based web server software continues to be a hotbed for  natively developed malware  for close to eight years. The findings were presented today by ESET malware researcher Zuzana Hromcova at the  Black Hat USA security conference . "The various kinds of native IIS malware identified are server-side malware and the two things it can do best is, first, see and intercept all communications to the server, and second, affect how the requests are processed," Hromcova told in an interview with The Hacker News. "Their motivations range from cybercrime to espionage, and a technique called SEO fraud." Government institutions in three Southeast Asian countries, a major telecommunications company in Cambodia, and a research institution in Vietnam, as well as dozens of private

Cybersecurity researchers today took the wraps off an on-going cyber fraud operation led by hackers in Gaza, West Bank, and Egypt to compromise VoIP servers of more than 1,200 organizations across 60 countries over the past 12 months. According to findings published by Check Point Research, the threat actors — believed to be located in the Palestinian Gaza Strip — have targeted Sangoma PBX, an open-sourced user interface that's used to manage and control Asterisk VoIP phone systems, particularly the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) servers. "Hacking SIP servers and gaining control allows hackers to abuse them in several ways," the cybersecurity firm noted in its analysis. "One of the more complex and interesting ways is abusing the servers to make outgoing phone calls, which are also used to generate profits. Making calls is a legitimate feature, therefore it's hard to detect when a server has been exploited." By selling phone numbers, call plans, and

Do you support WikiLeaks? Are you mad at critics trying to snuff it out? Maybe you're thinking about joining the online protests aimed at shutting down the Web sites of its opponents. Don't. A loosely organized group of vigilantes under the name Anonymous have turned the botnet guns of their Operation Payback campaign, which previously targeted antipiracy organizations, on PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, Senator Joe Lieberman, Sarah Palin, and others who have criticized WikiLeaks or stopped doing business with the document-sharing project. The WikiLeaks fallout has hit a frenzy since the site began releasing diplomatic cables last month that have proved embarrassing for the U.S. government's diplomatic efforts. The modern-day equivalent of walking the picket line with a sign is launching denial-of-service attacks against target Web sites in order to send a message and try to interfere with their business. But the electronic version is illegal. "Participating in a botnet