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Social engineering-driven malware threats continue to be a big threat, but new research details how cybercriminals profit off such schemes to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars from stolen credit cards of unsuspecting victims. Cybersecurity firm Check Point Research, in a report shared with The Hacker news, uncovered the digital trail of a Nigerian cybercriminal, who went by the name of "Dton" and targeted hundreds of thousands of people under the moniker of "Bill Henry" by sending them malicious emails with custom-built malware. The company said it disclosed the findings to concerned Nigerian and international law enforcement authorities for further action. A multi-stage criminal scheme The operation began with Dton buying stolen credit card details from Ferrum Shop, an online marketplace that sells over 2.5 million stolen credit card credentials, and then charging them each $550 each to fraudulently net more than $100,000 in illicit transactions

Europol, along with the Spanish and the Romanian national police, has arrested 26 individuals in connection with the theft of over €3.5 million ($3.9 million) by hijacking people's phone numbers via SIM swapping attacks. The law enforcement agencies arrested 12 and 14 people in Spain and Romania, respectively, as part of a joint operation against two different groups of SIM swappers, Europol said . The development comes as SIM swapping attacks are emerging as one of the biggest threats to telecom operators and mobile users alike. The increasingly popular and damaging hack is a clever social engineering trick used by cybercriminals to persuade phone carriers into transferring their victims' cell services to a SIM card under their control. The SIM swap then grants attackers access to incoming phone calls, text messages, and one-time verification codes (or one-time passwords ) that various websites send via SMS messages as part of the two-factor authentication (2FA) proc

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

A new simple but dangerous strain of Android malware has been found in the wild that steals users' authentication cookies from the web browsing and other apps, including Chrome and Facebook, installed on the compromised devices. Dubbed " Cookiethief " by Kaspersky researchers, the Trojan works by acquiring superuser root rights on the target device, and subsequently, transfer stolen cookies to a remote command-and-control (C2) server operated by attackers. "This abuse technique is possible not because of a vulnerability in the Facebook app or browser itself," Kaspersky researchers said. "Malware could steal cookie files of any website from other apps in the same way and achieve similar results." Cookiethief: Hijacking Accounts Without Requiring Passwords Cookies are small pieces of information that's often used by websites to differentiate one user from another, offer continuity around the web, track browsing sessions across different

Microsoft today finally released an emergency software update to patch the recently disclosed very dangerous vulnerability in SMBv3 protocol that could let attackers launch wormable malware , which can propagate itself from one vulnerable computer to another automatically. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-0796 , in question is a remote code execution flaw that impacts Windows 10 version 1903 and 1909, and Windows Server version 1903 and 1909. Server Message Block (SMB), which runs over TCP port 445, is a network protocol that has been designed to enable file sharing, network browsing, printing services, and interprocess communication over a network. The latest vulnerability, for which a patch update ( KB4551762 ) is now available on the Microsoft website, exists in the way SMBv3 protocol handles requests with compression headers, making it possible for unauthenticated remote attackers to execute malicious code on target servers or clients with SYSTEM privileges. Compre

Cybercriminals will stop at nothing to exploit every chance to prey on internet users. Even the disastrous spread of SARS-COV-II (the virus), which causes COVID-19 (the disease), is becoming an opportunity for them to likewise spread malware or launch cyber attacks. Reason Labs recently released a threat analysis report detailing a new attack that takes advantage of internet users' increased craving for information about the novel coronavirus that is wreaking havoc worldwide. The malware attack specifically aims to target those who are looking for cartographic presentations of the spread of COVID-19 on the Internet, and trickes them to download and run a malicious application that, on its front-end, shows a map loaded from a legit online source but in the background compromises the computer. New Threat With An Old Malware Component The latest threat, designed to steal information from unwitting victims, was first spotted by MalwareHunterTeam last week and has now be

Shortly after releasing its monthly batch of security updates , Microsoft late yesterday separately issued an advisory warning billions of its Windows users of a new critical, unpatched, and wormable vulnerability affecting Server Message Block 3.0 ( SMBv3 ) network communication protocol. It appears Microsoft originally planned to fix the flaw as part of its March 2020 Patch Tuesday update only, but, for some reason, it pulled the plug at the last minute, which apparently did not stop a tech company from accidentally leaking the existence of the unpatched flaw. The yet-to-be patched flaw (tracked as CVE-2020-0796 ), if exploited successfully, could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the target SMB Server or SMB Client. The belated acknowledgment from Microsoft led some researchers to call the bug " SMBGhost ." "To exploit the vulnerability against an SMB Server, an unauthenticated attacker could send a specially crafted packet to a targeted SMBv3

Microsoft today released security updates to fix a total of 115 new security vulnerabilities in various versions of its Windows operating system and related software—making March 2020 edition the biggest ever Patch Tuesday in the company's history. Of the 115 bugs spanning its various products — Microsoft Windows, Edge browser, Internet Explorer, Exchange Server, Office, Azure, Windows Defender, and Visual Studio — that received new patches, 26 have been rated as critical, 88 received a severity of important, and one is moderate in severity. However, unlike last month , none of the vulnerabilities the tech giant patched this month are listed as being publicly known or under active attack at the time of release. It's worth highlighting that the patch addresses critical flaws that could be potentially exploited by bad actors to execute malicious code by specially crafted LNK files and word documents. Titled "LNK Remote Code Execution Vulnerability" ( CVE-2020

Cybersecurity has been regarded as a necessity for all computer users, especially today when data breaches and malware attacks have become rampant. However, one of the more overlooked aspects of cybersecurity is the prevention of other forms of cybercrime, such as the spread of harmful content and predatory behavior. Most current discussions on cybersecurity revolve around organizations needing to protect customer data or for individual users to prevent their sensitive data from being intercepted. However, given the prevalence of toxic behavior, it's about time the cybersecurity community also gives internet safety, especially for children and younger users, its due attention. Israel-based startup L1ght aims to curb the spread of bad behavior online. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to detect harmful content, hate speech, bullying, and other predatory behavior in social networks, communication applications, and online video games. The firm