The Hacker News | #1 Trusted Cybersecurity News Site — Index Page

A forensic analysis of a graph dataset containing transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain has revealed clusters associated with illicit activity and money laundering, including detecting criminal proceeds sent to a crypto exchange and previously unknown wallets belonging to a Russian darknet market. The  findings  come from Elliptic in collaboration with researchers from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. The 26 GB dataset, dubbed  Elliptic2 , is a "large graph dataset containing 122K labeled subgraphs of Bitcoin clusters within a background graph consisting of 49M node clusters and 196M edge transactions," the co-authors  said  in a paper shared with The Hacker News. Elliptic2 builds on the  Elliptic Data Set  (aka Elliptic1), a transaction graph that was made public in July 2019 with the goal of  combating financial crime  using graph convolutional neural networks ( GCNs ). The idea, in a nutshell, is to uncover illicit activity and money laundering patterns by taking advantag

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a previously undocumented malware targeting Android devices that uses compromised WordPress sites as relays for its actual command-and-control (C2) servers for detection evasion. The malware, codenamed  Wpeeper , is an ELF binary that leverages the HTTPS protocol to secure its C2 communications. "Wpeeper is a typical backdoor Trojan for Android systems, supporting functions such as collecting sensitive device information, managing files and directories, uploading and downloading, and executing commands," researchers from the QiAnXin XLab team  said . The ELF binary is embedded within a repackaged application that purports to be the  UPtodown App Store  app for Android (package name "com.uptodown"), with the APK file acting as a delivery vehicle for the backdoor in a manner that evades detection. The Chinese cybersecurity firm said it discovered the malware after it detected a  Wpeeper artifact  with zero detection on t

In today's digital world, where connectivity is rules all, endpoints serve as the gateway to a business's digital kingdom. And because of this, endpoints are one of hackers' favorite targets.  According to the IDC,  70% of successful breaches start at the endpoint . Unprotected endpoints provide vulnerable entry points to launch devastating cyberattacks. With IT teams needing to protect more endpoints—and more kinds of endpoints—than ever before, that perimeter has become more challenging to defend. You need to improve your endpoint security, but where do you start? That's where this guide comes in.  We've curated the top 10 must-know endpoint security tips that every IT and security professional should have in their arsenal. From identifying entry points to implementing EDR solutions, we'll dive into the insights you need to defend your endpoints with confidence.  1. Know Thy Endpoints: Identifying and Understanding Your Entry Points Understanding your network's

There's a natural human desire to avoid threatening scenarios. The irony, of course, is if you hope to attain any semblance of security, you've got to remain prepared to confront those very same threats. As a decision-maker for your organization, you know this well. But no matter how many experts or trusted cybersecurity tools your organization has a standing guard, you're only as secure as your weakest link. There's still one group that can inadvertently open the gates to unwanted threat actors—your own people. Security must be second nature for your first line of defense For your organization to thrive, you need capable employees. After all, they're your source for great ideas, innovation, and ingenuity. However, they're also human. And humans are fallible. Hackers understand no one is perfect, and that's precisely what they seek to exploit. This is why your people must become your first line of defense against cyber threats. But to do so, they need to learn how to defend thems

The authors behind the resurfaced  ZLoader  malware have added a feature that was originally present in the Zeus banking trojan that it's based on, indicating that it's being actively developed. "The latest version, 2.4.1.0, introduces a feature to prevent execution on machines that differ from the original infection," Zscaler ThreatLabz researcher Santiago Vicente  said  in a technical report. "A similar anti-analysis feature was present in the leaked Zeus 2.X source code, but implemented differently." ZLoader, also called Terdot, DELoader, or Silent Night,  emerged  after a nearly two-year hiatus around September 2023 following its takedown in early 2022. A modular trojan with capabilities to load next-stage payloads, recent versions of the malware have added RSA encryption as well as updates to its domain generation algorithm (DGA). The latest sign of ZLoader's evolution comes in the form of an anti-analysis feature that restricts the binary'

A former employee of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been sentenced to nearly 22 years (262 months) in prison for attempting to transfer classified documents to Russia. "This sentence should serve as a stark warning to all those entrusted with protecting national defense information that there are consequences to betraying that trust,"  said  FBI Director Christopher Wray. Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 32, of Colorado Springs was employed as an Information Systems Security Designer between June 6 to July 1, 2022, during which time he had access to sensitive information. Despite his short tenure at the intelligence agency, Dalke is said to have made contact with a person he thought was a Russian agent sometime between August and September of that year. In reality, the person was an undercover agent working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). To demonstrate his "legitimate access and willingness to share," he then emailed the purported Russian ag

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered multiple campaigns targeting  Docker Hub  by planting millions of malicious "imageless" containers over the past five years, once again underscoring how open-source registries could pave the way for supply chain attacks. "Over four million of the repositories in Docker Hub are imageless and have no content except for the repository documentation," JFrog security researcher Andrey Polkovnichenko said in a report shared with The Hacker News. What's more, the documentation has no connection whatsoever to the container. Instead, it's a web page that's designed to lure users into visiting phishing or malware-hosting websites. Of the 4.6 million imageless Docker Hub repositories uncovered, 2.81 million of them are said to have been used as landing pages to redirect unsuspecting users to fraudulent sites as part of three broad campaigns - Downloader (repositories created in the first half of 2021 and September 2

The U.S. government has unveiled new security guidelines aimed at bolstering critical infrastructure against artificial intelligence (AI)-related threats. "These guidelines are informed by the whole-of-government effort to assess AI risks across all sixteen critical infrastructure sectors, and address threats both to and from, and involving AI systems," the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)  said  Monday. In addition, the agency said it's working to facilitate safe, responsible, and trustworthy use of the technology in a manner that does not infringe on individuals' privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. The new guidance concerns the use of AI to augment and scale attacks on critical infrastructure, adversarial manipulation of AI systems, and shortcomings in such tools that could result in unintended consequences, necessitating the need for transparency and secure by design practices to evaluate and mitigate AI risks. Specifically, this spans four diffe

Operational Technology (OT)  refers to the hardware and software used to change, monitor, or control the enterprise's physical devices, processes, and events. Unlike traditional Information Technology (IT) systems, OT systems directly impact the physical world. This unique characteristic of OT brings additional cybersecurity considerations not typically present in conventional IT security architectures. The convergence of IT and OT Historically, IT and Operational Technology (OT) have operated in separate silos, each with its own set of protocols, standards, and cybersecurity measures. However, these two domains are increasingly converging with the advent of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). While beneficial in terms of increased efficiency and data-driven decision-making, this convergence also exposes OT systems to the same cyber threats that IT systems face. Unique Cybersecurity Considerations for OT Real-time requirements Operational Technology systems often opera