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Ransomware
Cyber Attacks Cyber Leak Cyber Safety CyberCrime Phishing Scams Ransomware

Schools' Files Leak Online Days After Ransomware Deadline

 


Many documents purported to have been stolen from Minneapolis Public Schools, and have now been posted online. In the days following the announcement of the breach, a cyber gang claimed that the district did not meet its deadline to pay a ransom demand of $1 million. 

It was evident that download links appeared on a website designed to look like a technology news blog in the middle of the night, a front for the attack, on Wednesday morning, and the next day, the links appeared on Telegram, an encrypted instant messaging service widely used by terrorists and far-right extremists.

There is still some doubt about the contents of the large 92-gigabyte file currently being sent to the 74. There is still a significant difference between the available download and what the Medusa ransomware gang claimed it stole from the district. This is 157 terabytes - 1,000 gigabytes in one terabyte. 

Earlier this month, a dark web blog belonging to the criminal group uploaded a file tree detailing the ownership of the files to its website. As the file tree shows on the left, it would appear that a large amount of sensitive information is contained in the records that are visible in the file tree. In addition to these questions, you will be able to obtain information about allegations of sexual violence by students, district finances, student discipline, special education, civil rights investigations, and notification of student maltreatment and sexual offenders, as well as information regarding district finances, student discipline, special education, and civil rights investigations.  

Even though the full scale of the breach is not known yet, cybersecurity experts say present and former Minneapolis residents and district employees should take steps to protect themselves as soon as possible.  

According to Doug Levin, the national director of the K-12 Security Information Exchange and an expert in K-12 cybersecurity incidents, now is a good time to implement two-factor authentication to accounts that can benefit from it as well as avoid reusing passwords across multiple services. 

However, experts said that there are no easy solutions for those who are now at risk of having sensitive personal information accessible to them, including personal information about incidents of student sexual misconduct. Levin is one of the most prominent mental health professionals in the country. He says that if you are the victim of harassment, you should strongly consider seeking mental health counseling or creating an action plan.  

As Levin explained, when a genie has been allowed out of its bottle, it is extremely difficult to re-inject it. As he continued, he stated that the school district had no idea what it could do to comfort these individuals or even to provide them with any recourse. Credit monitoring is not helpful. They would like their well-being and reputation to be protected.  

There have been several complaints about the Minnesota district's public communications about a ransomware attack, which it initially referred to as an "encryption event." This past Friday, the Minneapolis district announced that the ransomware group had released the stolen records on the dark web, a part of the internet accessible only with special software that can leave the user untraceable. 

In a Telegram message, the user identified himself as an 18-year-old Minneapolis high school student who was interested in downloading the data, because they were concerned it might contain sensitive information such as their Social Security number or other personal information, The 74 reported.  

The district has urged the community, as a part of its checklist of safety precautions, that downloads of the breached data should be avoided as much as possible. The paper argues that doing so could contribute to the work of cybercriminals because it would increase our community's fear of the information and increase the level of panic that they would cause.  

Additionally, the district has issued warnings to its residents urging them not to respond to suspicious emails or phone calls because they may be phishing scams. It has also urged them to change their passwords periodically. A statement from the district stated that the district was working to determine which records had been compromised on Friday. As a result of the ongoing process that is expected to take some time, the company planned to inform affected individuals when it was complete.  

Callow believed ransomware victims should take a proactive approach to notify those whose data was stolen in the first place. The investigation will be completed at the end of the investigation rather than waiting until it is completed.   
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Vulnerabilities and Exploits
AI Cyber Safety Data Safety Machine learning MLflow Vulnerabilities and Exploits

A Major Flaw in the AI Testing Framework MLflow can Compromise the Server and Data

MLflow, an open-source framework used by many organizations to manage and record machine-learning tests, has been patched for a critical vulnerability that could enable attackers to extract sensitive information from servers such as SSH keys and AWS credentials. Since MLflow does not enforce authentication by default, and a growing percentage of MLflow deployments are directly exposed to the internet, the attacks can be carried out remotely without authentication.

"Basically, every organization that uses this tool is at risk of losing their AI models, having an internal server compromised, and having their AWS account compromised," Dan McInerney, a senior security engineer with cybersecurity startup Protect AI, told CSO. "It's pretty brutal."

McInerney discovered the flaw and privately reported it to the MLflow project. It was fixed in the framework's version 2.2.1, which was released three weeks ago, but no security fix was mentioned in the release notes.

Path traversal used to include local and remote files

MLflow is a Python-based tool for automating machine-learning workflows. It includes a number of components that enable users to deploy models from various ML libraries, handle their lifecycle (including model versioning, stage transitions, and annotations), track experiments to record and compare parameters and results, and even package ML code in a reproducible format to share with other data scientists. A REST API and command-line interface are available for controlling MLflow.

All of these features combine to make the framework an invaluable resource for any organisation experimenting with machine learning. Scans using the Shodan search engine confirm this, revealing a steady increase in publicly exposed MLflow instances over the last two years, with the current count exceeding 800.However, it is likely that many more MLflow deployments exist within internal networks and may be accessible to attackers who gain access to those networks.

"We reached out to our contacts at various Fortune 500's [and] they've all confirmed they're using MLflow internally for their AI engineering workflow,' McInerney tells CSO.

McInerney's vulnerability is identified as CVE-2023-1177 and is rated 10 (critical) on the CVSS scale. He refers to it as local and remote file inclusion (LFI/RFI) via the API, in which remote and unauthenticated attackers can send specially crafted requests to the API endpoint, forcing MLflow to expose the contents of any readable files on the server.

What makes the vulnerability worse is that most organisations configure their MLflow instances to store their models and other sensitive data in Amazon AWS S3. In accordance with a review of the configuration of publicly available MLflow instances by Protect AI, seven out of ten used AWS S3. This means that attackers can use the s3:/ URL of the bucket utilized by the instance as the source parameter in their JSON request to steal models remotely.

It also implies that AWS credentials are most likely stored locally on the MLflow server in order for the framework to access S3 buckets, and that these credentials are typically stored in a folder called /.aws/credentials under the user's home directory. The disclosure of AWS credentials can be a serious security breach because, depending on IAM policy, it can give attackers lateral movement capabilities into an organization's AWS infrastructure.

Insecure deployments result from a lack of default authentication

Authentication for accessing the API endpoint would protect this flaw from being exploited, but MLflow does not implement any authentication mechanism. Simple authentication with a static username and password can be added by placing a proxy server, such as nginx, in front of the MLflow server and forcing authentication through it. Unfortunately, almost none of the publicly exposed instances employ this configuration.

McInerney stated, "I can hardly call this a safe deployment of the tool, but at the very least, the safest deployment of MLflow as it stands currently is to keep it on an internal network, in a network segment that is partitioned away from all users except those who need to use it, and put behind an nginx proxy with basic authentication. This still doesn't prevent any user with access to the server from downloading other users' models and artifacts, but at the very least it limits the exposure. Exposing it on a public internet facing server assumes that absolutely nothing stored on the server or remote artifact store server contains sensitive data."
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Ring Home Security
Android Central Cyber Safety Cyber Security Data Stolen Eufy Home Security Home Surveillance Ransomware attack Ring Home Security

Home Security: Breaches and Ransomware Making it Impossible to Review Firms and Their Security


The recent Ring home security ransomware incident and Eufy's insecure network has left numerous researchers and users wondering about the cyber safety these home security and surveillance firms possess. 

Product reviewers and tech journalists are even left with a sense of perplexity on what security camera, or security product must they recommend to potential users, knowing for a fact that the backend could or could not be secure. 

According to Michael Hicks, senior editor at Android Central “When I review a product, I try to be as nitpicky as possible. Not because I want to give a bad review, but because it's my job to go past the idealized press releases and spec sheets to see the cracks beneath the surface.” 

While it is possible to cite certain problems pertaining to a security camera, like the video quality or an unreliable AI detection. However, there is always the possibility of some undiscovered breach, even with the some of the best cameras around, that are tested and appreciated. 

Hicks says, this is not something most tech journalists are qualified to detect. With a smartphone, one can examine most software and security for themselves, and users too have almost complete control to block or enable apps from tracking them. The entire data security for a security camera is managed remotely, therefore we can only trust the company to protect ones data safely. 

The issue is that, if ever, we really can trust a security business to provide an honest assessment of its cybersecurity. 

Companies like LastPass or Eufy, whether they specialize in hardware or software, frequently conceal any ongoing breaches for months until they become public, at which point they play down their seriousness with technical jargons and mitigating factors. 

Some Recent Unsettling Incidents 

According to a report Vice published this past week regarding a third-party associated with Ring being infected by BlackCat ransomware, Ring employees have been instructed to “anything about this,” and that they are unsure yet what user data is at risk if Amazon does not pay. 

Prior to this incident, security researcher Paul Moore found that Eufy cameras were sending users' images and facial recognition data to the cloud without them knowing or consent, that one could stream anyone's private camera feeds from a web browser, and that Eufy's AES 128 encryption was easily cracked due to the use of simple keys. 

In response, Eufy patched some issues and edited its privacy guidelines to provide fewer protections for its users. 

Accepting the Unknown 

The bottom line is: even the renowned security firms with encryption that seems impenetrable can make choices that expose your personal information or home feeds, or they can recruit someone who unethically abuses their position of authority. And even if someone blows the whistle or a security expert notices the error, there is absolutely no guarantee that you will learn about it after that corporation learns about it. 

In an environment like this, casually reviewing any company's security camera on the basis of its merits and recommending online readers seems like an irresponsible take. Michael Hicks in his article wrote “It's my job to do so, and I will write about the Blink Indoor and Blink Mini once it's clear how its parent company handles the Ring ransomware attack.” 

However, in doing so, Michael Hicks adds he will have to include certain big disclaimers that he “just don't know what Blink's (or any company's) weakest link is.” There is a possibility that it could be a dishonest employee, an unreliable third-party team, shoddy encryption, or something else. 

In the meantime, he advises individuals to use security cams with local storage in order to avoid storing their private footages and information on company servers. However, there is no guarantee of security, considering the fact that firms like Eufy was well received and trusted as a local storage option before its numerous problems were revealed.  

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Safeboot
Boot Configuration Cyber Safety Cyber Security Logs Research Safeboot

Identifying Ransomware’s Stealthy Boot Configuration Edits

 

The research by Binary Defense entails the various threat hunting techniques and detections for a regularly reported Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) methodology. Using the built-in Windows programme bcdedit.exe (Boot Configuration Data Edit),  threat actors have been spotted changing boot loader configurations to: 
  • Modify Boot Status Policies 
  • Disable Recovery Mode 
  • Enable Safe Mode 
Threat actors (such as Snatch and REvil) may not need to utilise bcdedit to adjust boot loader configurations if they implement code that directly modifies the Windows registry keys that define such configurations, according to the hypothesis employed by Binary Defense to construct the hunting queries. Last year, the researcher am0nsec published a proof-of-concept code that showed how to do exactly this on Windows 10 PCs. Binary Defense wanted to make sure that they could detect such behaviour not only on Windows 7, 8.1, and 11 computers but also on systems where the necessary registry key is stored under a different Globally Unique Identifier (GUID). 

The research builds on the work of Specter Ops researcher Michael Barclay, who published an in-depth blog about hunting for such activities on Windows 10 earlier this year. Below are the bcdedit.exe commands that attackers employ to change boot configuration. Other tools, such as the Windows System Configuration Utility (msconfig.exe), can be used to change the boot configuration data as well. Alternatives, on the other hand, are not described in the study because they are not command-line apps and hence cannot be utilised without a user interface.

Boot Status Policy: The usual way to edit the boot status policy is to use bcdedit with these command line arguments:
bcdedit.exe /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures
If there is a failed shutdown, boot, or other error during the startup process, this will change the "boot status policy" settings and compel the system to boot normally rather than entering Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE). Threat actors deactivate this to prevent system administrators from using the Windows RE's System Image Recovery tool.

Recovery Mode: The usual method for disabling recovery mode with bcdedit is like this:
bcdedit.exe /set {default} recoveryenabled no
This command completely eliminates the Windows RE. Using the prior command to change the boot status policy will prevent the boot loader from loading the recovery environment when there are starting difficulties, but it will also prohibit system administrators from manually loading it.

Safeboot: To change the Safeboot options, bcdedit is used with these command line arguments:
bcdedit.exe /set {default} safeboot minimal

This command modifies the configuration that decides whether or not the system will restart in Safe Mode the next time it is powered on. Since not all Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions and Anti-Virus (AV) software will be running in Safe Mode, this is being changed to prevent identification rather than recovery. Windows Defender, for example, does not work in Safe Mode. As a result, any activities taken by a threat actor (for example, file encryption) will not be tracked, and thus will not be prevented.

Prior study into similar approaches revealed that the registry keys storing these boot loader configuration items were Windows version-specific, with only Windows 10 detections. Binary Defense simply set up VMs running Windows 7, 8.1, and 11 and ran the three aforementioned bcdedit.exe commands while doing a capture with the Windows SysInternals tool Procmon to figure out what those registry keys were for other Windows versions. The logs created by this tool are notoriously noisy, but by adding two filters, one excluding any process not named bcdedit.exe and the other excluding any operation not named RegSetValue, it was simple to filter down to the necessary logs.

In a 60-day period, the following queries were evaluated across different enterprise environments with zero false positives. Because changes to these parameters are uncommon, all of these inquiries can be surfaced to a SOC as detections.

Detections
  • Carbon Black
Windows 7:

regmod_name:(*BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\250000e0* OR *BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\16000009* OR *BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\25000080*)

Windows 8.1:

regmod_name:(*BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\250000e0* OR *BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\16000009* OR *BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\25000080*)

Windows 10:

regmod_name:(*BCD00000000\\Objects\\\{9f83643f\-4a91\–11e9\–9501\-b252ac81e352\}\\Elements\\250000E0* OR *BCD00000000\\Objects\\\{9f83643f\-4a91\–11e9\–9501\-b252ac81e352\}\\Elements\\250000E0* OR *BCD00000000\\Objects\\\{9f83643f\-4a91\–11e9\–9501\-b252ac81e352\}\\Elements\\16000009*)

Windows 11:

regmod_name:(*BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\250000e0* OR *BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\16000009* OR *BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\25000080*)

  • CrowdStrike
Windows 7:

(event_simpleName=AsepValueUpdate OR event_simpleName=SuspiciousRegAsepUpdate OR event_simpleName=RegistryOperationDetectInfo) AND (RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\250000e0*” OR RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\16000009*” OR RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\25000080*”)

Windows 8.1:

event_simpleName=AsepValueUpdate OR event_simpleName=SuspiciousRegAsepUpdate OR event_simpleName=RegistryOperationDetectInfo) AND (RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\250000e0*” OR RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\16000009*” OR RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\25000080*”)

Windows 10:

event_simpleName=AsepValueUpdate OR event_simpleName=SuspiciousRegAsepUpdate OR event_simpleName=RegistryOperationDetectInfo) AND (RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\\Objects\\{9f83643f-4a91–11e9–9501-b252ac81e352}\\Elements\\25000080*” OR RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\\Objects\\{9f83643f-4a91–11e9–9501-b252ac81e352}\\Elements\\250000E0*” OR RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\\Objects\\{9f83643f-4a91–11e9–9501-b252ac81e352}\\Elements\\16000009*”)

Windows 11:

event_simpleName=AsepValueUpdate OR event_simpleName=SuspiciousRegAsepUpdate OR event_simpleName=RegistryOperationDetectInfo) AND (RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\250000e0*” OR RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\16000009*” OR RegObjectName=”*BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\25000080*”)

  • Microsoft Sentinel and Defender for Endpoint
Windows 7:

DeviceRegistryEvents
| where TimeGenerated > ago(90d)
where ActionType == “RegistryValueSet”
| where RegistryKey has_any (@”BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\250000e0″, @”BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\16000009″, @”BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\25000080″)

Windows 8.1:

DeviceRegistryEvents
| where TimeGenerated > ago(90d)
| where ActionType == “RegistryValueSet”
| where RegistryKey has_any (@”BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\250000e0″, @”BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\16000009″, @”BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\25000080″)

Windows 10:

DeviceRegistryEvents
| where TimeGenerated > ago(90d)
| where ActionType == “RegistryValueSet”
| where RegistryKey has_any (@”BCD00000000\Objects\{9f83643f-4a91–11e9–9501-b252ac81e352}\Elements\25000080″, @”BCD00000000\Objects\{9f83643f-4a91–11e9–9501-b252ac81e352}\Elements\250000E0″, @”BCD00000000\Objects\{9f83643f-4a91–11e9–9501-b252ac81e352}\Elements\16000009″)

Windows 11:

DeviceRegistryEvents
| where TimeGenerated > ago(90d)
| where ActionType == “RegistryValueSet”
| where RegistryKey has_any (@”BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\250000e0″, @”BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\16000009″, @”BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\25000080″)

  • SentinelOne
Windows 7:

EventType = “Registry Value Modified” and RegistryKeyPath In Contains Anycase (“BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\250000e0”, “BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\16000009”, “BCD00000000\Objects\{8c07be1f-21bb-11e8-9c5d-d181d62e5fbf}\Elements\25000080”)

Windows 8.1: {303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}

EventType = “Registry Value Modified” and RegistryKeyPath In Contains Anycase (“BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\250000e0”, “BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\16000009”, “BCD00000000\Objects\{303a1187-f04f-11e7-ae97-d7affdbdc5e9}\Elements\25000080”)

Windows 10:

EventType = “Registry Value Modified” and RegistryKeyPath In Contains Anycase (“BCD00000000\Objects\{9f83643f-4a91–11e9–9501-b252ac81e352}\Elements\25000080”, “BCD00000000\Objects\{9f83643f-4a91–11e9–9501-b252ac81e352}\Elements\250000E0”, “BCD00000000\Objects\{9f83643f-4a91–11e9–9501-b252ac81e352}\Elements\16000009”)

Windows 11: {ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}

EventType = “Registry Value Modified” and RegistryKeyPath In Contains Anycase (“BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\250000e0”, “BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\16000009”, “BCD00000000\Objects\{ea075dc0-83af-11ec-9994-82f1525d1096}\Elements\25000080”)
Read more »
Vulnerabilities and Exploits
Cyber Safety Internet Safety Linux Microsoft Nimbuspwn Vulnerabilities and Exploits

New Nimbuspwn Linux Flaws Could Provide Attackers Root Access

 

Microsoft uncovered vulnerabilities in Linux systems that could be used to grant attackers root access if they were chained together. 

The flaws, dubbed "Nimbuspwn," are detected in networkd-dispatcher, a dispatcher daemon for systemd-networkd connection status changes in Linux, and are labelled as CVE-2022-29799 and CVE-2022-29800. As part of a code review and dynamic analysis effort, Microsoft found the vulnerabilities while listening to signals on the System Bus. 

Microsoft’s Jonathan Bar Or explained, “Reviewing the code flow for networkd-dispatcher revealed multiple security concerns, including directory traversal, symlink race, and time-of-check-time-of-use race condition issues, which could be leveraged to elevate privileges and deploy malware or carry out other malicious activities.”
 
“The vulnerabilities can be chained together to gain root privileges on Linux systems, allowing attackers to deploy payloads, like a root backdoor, and perform other malicious actions via arbitrary root code execution.” 

He went on to state that ransomware attackers might use Nimbuspwn as a route for root access in order to have a significant impact on affected machines. Clayton Craft, the maintainer of the networkd-dispatcher, apparently worked promptly to remedy the flaws after responsibly revealing the bugs. 

Linux users who are affected are recommended to apply patches as soon as they become available. Although Nimbuspwn has the potential to affect a huge number of people, attackers would first need local access to the targeted systems in order to exploit the flaws. 

Mike Parkin, senior technical engineer at Vulcan Cyber argued, “Any vulnerability that potentially gives an attacker root-level access is problematic. Fortunately, as is common with many open-source projects, patches for this new vulnerability were quickly released.” 

“While susceptible configurations aren’t uncommon, exploiting these vulnerabilities appears to require a local account and there are multiple ways to mitigate them beyond the recommended patching. There is currently no indication that these vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild.”
Read more »
Trojan
Android Banking Trojan Android Users Banking Trojan Cyber Safety Flubot malware Security Teabot Trojan

Threat Actors Blanket Androids with Flubot & Teabot Campaigns

 

Researchers have found a bundle of dynamic campaigns transmitting the Flubot and Teabot trojans through a variety of delivery strategies, with threat actors utilizing smishing and pernicious Google Play applications to target victims with fly-by assaults in different locations across the globe. 

Specialists from Bitdefender Labs said they have caught more than 100,000 malignant SMS messages attempting to transmit Flubot malware since the start of December, as indicated by a report distributed Wednesday. 

During their analysis of Flubot, the team additionally found a QR code-peruser application that has been downloaded more than 100,000 times from the Google Play store and which has disseminated 17 different Teabot variations, they said. 

Flubot and Teabot surfaced on the scene last year as somewhat clear financial trojans that take banking, contact, SMS and different kinds of private information from infected gadgets. Be that as it may, the administrators behind them have interesting strategies for spreading the malware, making them especially nasty and expansive. 
 
Flubot was first founded in April focusing on Android clients in the United Kingdom and Europe using noxious SMS messages that nudged recipients to introduce a "missed package delivery" application, exhibiting a component of the malware that allows attackers to utilize command and control (C2) to send messages to victims. 

This feature permits administrators to rapidly change targets and other malware highlights on the fly, augmenting their assault surface to a worldwide scale without requiring a complex framework. For sure, campaigns later in the year targeted Android users in New Zealand and Finland. 

“These threats survive because they come in waves with different messages and in different time zones,” Bitdefender researchers wrote in the report. 

“While the malware itself remains pretty static, the message used to carry it, the domains that host the droppers, and everything else is constantly changing. For example, in the month between Dec. 1 of last year and Jan. 2 of this year, the malware was highly active in Australia, Germany, Spain, Italy and a few other European countries.”   

Campaigns between Jan. 15 and Jan. 18 then, at that point, moved to different parts of the globe, including Romania, Poland, the Netherlands, Spain and even Thailand, they found. 
 
Attackers likewise spread out past attempting to fool users into thinking they missed a package delivery- what Bitdefender named "fake courier messages" - to disseminate Flubot. However this strategy was available in almost 52% of campaigns specialists noticed, they likewise utilized a trick named "is this you in this video" that is a take-off of a credential-stealing campaign that has been streaming steadily via web-based media in around 25% of noticed missions, analysts wrote. 

“When the victim clicks on the link, it usually redirects them to a fake Facebook login that gives attackers direct access to credentials,” researchers explained. 

Flubot administrators have gotten on this trick and are involving a variety of it in one of the smishing efforts noticed, with clients getting an SMS message that inquires, "Is this you in this video?" researchers noted. In any case, the objective of the mission is very similar: to some way or another trick users into installing the software under some cover. 

“This new vector for banking trojans shows that attackers are looking to expand past the regular malicious SMS messages.”
  
Among different lures, Flubot administrators likewise utilized SMS messages utilizing counterfeit program updates and phoney phone message notices in around 8% of noticed campaigns, separately, analysts stated.
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US
Cyber Attacks Cyber Safety data security Education Educational Institutes hack Schools Students Data US

Cyberattack Compels Albuquerque Public Schools to Close 144 Schools

 

Following a cyberattack that attacked the district's attendance, communications, and transportation systems, all 144 Albuquerque Public Schools are closed for the remainder of this week, according to APS's announcement on mid-day Thursday. 

APS is one of the 50 largest school districts in the country, with around 74,000 students. 

District IT staff discovered the problem on Wednesday, and APS posted a statement on its website and Twitter account that afternoon stating, “All Albuquerque Public Schools will be closed Thursday, Jan. 13, due to a cyberattack that has compromised some systems that could impact teaching, learning, and student safety. … The district is working with contracted professionals to fix the problem.” 

"The district continues to examine a cyberattack that affected the student information system used to take attendance, contact families in emergencies, and ensure that students are picked up from school by authorised people," APS stated online on Thursday afternoon and cancelled classes for Friday. 

APS said it will reopen schools on Tuesday, Jan. 18, after being closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, specifying that administrative offices stayed open. The attack was detected Wednesday morning when instructors attempted to enter onto the student information system and were unable to obtain access to the site, according to APS Superintendent Scott Elder in a brief statement uploaded to the district's APS Technology YouTube page. 

Elder further stated, “APS is working with local and national law enforcement as well as teams of cyber specialists to as quickly as possible limit our exposure to this attack, to protect all systems in our network and ensure a safe environment to return to school and business as usual.” 

He noted that the district's IT department had been "mitigating attacks" in recent weeks. A spokeswoman told the Albuquerque Journal she was sceptical about what kind of attack it was and said she didn’t know whether those responsible had demanded a ransom.
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Spyware
Apple Cyber Safety Cyber Security Data protection Government Hacker iPhone NSO Pegasus Spyware

Pegasus Spyware Reportedly Hacked iPhones of U.S. State Department & Diplomats

 

An unidentified party used NSO Group's Pegasus spyware to attack the Apple iPhones of at least nine US State Department officials, as per a report published Friday by Reuters. 

After receiving a query about the incident, NSO Group indicated in an email to The Register that it had barred an unnamed customer's access to its system, but it has yet to determine whether its software was engaged. 

An NSO spokesperson told The Register in an email, "Once the inquiry was received, and before any investigation under our compliance policy, we have decided to immediately terminate relevant customers’ access to the system, due to the severity of the allegations." 

"To this point, we haven’t received any information nor the phone numbers, nor any indication that NSO’s tools were used in this case." 

The Israel-based firm, which was recently sanctioned by the US for reportedly selling intrusion software to repressive regimes and is being sued by Apple and Meta's (Facebook's) WhatsApp for allegedly assisting the hacking of their customers, says it will work cooperatively with any relevant government authority and share what it learns from its investigation. 

NSO's spokesperson stated, “To clarify, the installation of our software by the customer occurs via phone numbers. As stated before, NSO’s technologies are blocked from working on US (+1) numbers. Once the software is sold to the licensed customer, NSO has no way to know who the targets of the customers are, as such, we were not and could not have been aware of this case." 

According to Reuters, the impacted State Department officials were situated in Uganda or were focused on Ugandan issues, therefore their phone numbers had a foreign nation prefix rather than a US prefix. When Apple launched its complaint against the NSO Group on November 23rd, the iPhone maker also stated that it will tell iPhone customers who have been the target of state-sponsored hacking. On the same day, Norbert Mao, a communist, was assassinated. On the same day, Norbert Mao, a lawyer and the President of Uganda's Democratic Party, tweeted that he'd gotten an Apple threat notification. 

According to the Washington Post, NSO's Pegasus software was involved in the attempted or accomplished hacking of 37 phones linked to journalists and rights activists, including two women connected to Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The findings contradicted NSO Group's claims that their software was only licenced for battling terrorists and law enforcement, according to the report. 

The NSO Group released its 2021 Transparency and Responsibility Report [PDF] the same month, insisting that its software is only used against groups with few sympathisers, such as terrorists, criminals, and pedophiles. 

Several reports from cybersecurity research and human rights organisations, not to mention UN, EU, and US claims about the firm, have disputed that assertion. The US State Department refused The Register's request for confirmation of the Reuters claim but said the agency takes its obligation to protect its data seriously. They were also told that the Biden-Harris administration is seeking to limit the use of repressive digital tools.
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Minor Safety
Child Identity Theft Cyber bullying Cyber Crime Cyber Safety Frauds Juvenile Minor Safety

Child Identity Fraud Costs Nearly $1 Billion per Year

 

On November 2, Javelin Strategy & Research published a new study that stated the yearly cost of child identity theft and fraud in the United States is estimated to be approximately $1 billion. 

Tracy Kitten, director of fraud & security at Javelin Strategy & Research, published the 2021 Child Identity Fraud research, which examined the variables that put children at the most risk of identity theft and fraud. The research examined habits, characteristics, and social media platforms as risk factors. 

Children who use Twitch (31%), Twitter (30%), and Facebook (25%), as per the survey, are most prone to have their personal information compromised in a data breach. Another significant result was that in the previous year, more than 1.25 million children in the United States were victims of identity theft and fraud. On average, the family spent more than $1,100 to resolve the matter, and it took a long time. 

Surprisingly, the survey indicated that over half of all child identity theft and fraud instances include children aged nine and under, with the majority of victims (70 percent) knowing their attackers.

Kitten added, “One of the most eye-opening findings from our research was just how much risk children are exposed to when they are not supervised online. Add to that nearly 90% of the households with internet access say they have children on social media, and the picture our findings paint quickly becomes dark, grim, and scary.” 

Criminals utilised social media to gain access to vulnerable minors, according to Kitten, a journalist and cybersecurity subject specialist. 

“Predators and cybercriminals lurk in the wings of all social media platforms, waiting for the moment to prey on overly trusting minors who may not fully understand safe online behaviour.” 

Families should limit and supervise children' usage of social media and messaging platforms, and be on the watch for cyber-bullying, according to Javelin. 

“Platforms that allow users to direct/private message (DM), friend, or follow other users via public search pose the greatest concern,” stated a company spokesperson. 

Parents were advised not to reveal their children's personal information on social media and to set a good example for their children by demonstrating safe online conduct.
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Mobile Malware
Banking Malware Cyber Crime Cyber Safety Cyber Security. malware Mobile Malware

Hike in Banking Malware Attacks; Mobile Malware A Part of Cyber-Crime Too!



Banking malware is on a rise and the percentage of the wreckage it causes has risen up to 50%.

The viral banking malware usually is on the lookout for payment data, credentials and of course, cash.

Development kits for mobile malware code are easily available on underground portals and hence this issue is relevant.

The creators of mobile bankers henceforth allow the fabrication of new versions of malware that could be distributed on an enormous scale.

Ramnit (28%), Trickbot (21%) and Ursnif (10%) are apparently the most widely known types of the malware.

Mobile malware happens to be pretty difficult to identify and equally so to deal with as they use similar malicious techniques that are applied on computers.

The variants of the malware that were recurrently identified by the anti-virus solutions were Android-bound Triada (30%), Lotoor (11%) and Hidad (7%).

Turning the anti-malware off, using transparent icons with empty application labels, delayed execution to bypass sandboxes, and encrypting the malicious payload are a few of the evasion techniques being employed, per sources.

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