Sunday, January 24, 2016

Issue 48 - Week of Jan 18th

1.       Cyber-scammers steal $54 million from Austrian Airplane manufacturer: Last week, FACC announced that its finance department had become a victim to cyber-crime executed from outside of the company in which it roughly lost $54 million. According to experts, the incident is a classic CEO Fraud incident, also known as Business Email Compromise (BEC), in which, attackers send emails to company employees or CEOs, posing as other employees or partners, asking for urgent money transfers. If staff members don't double-check big money transfers via telephone calls, fraudsters can trick employees into sending large amounts of cash to accounts under their control.

2.       Linux malware: Malware researchers have identified a new Trojan (Linux.BackDoor.Xunpes.1) for Linux devices  that takes screenshots and logs keystrokes. The malware runs a package creating a backdoor that establishes an encrypted connection to a remote server that executes several commands, including ones for taking screenshots and logging keystrokes, and then re-transmits the resulting data. Last week another Linux malware was also detected (Linux.Ekoms.1). This takes screenshots every 30 seconds and sends them to a remote server. Nov’15 - thousands of sites infected with Linux encryption ransomware were detected.

3.       Public Holidays Website Leads to RIG EK & Drive-by Download of Qakbot Malware: Researchers have found evidence that a famous 'public holiday' website called Officeholiday[.]com was hacked last week and visitors to this site were silently redirected to an exploit kit called RIG. This kit attempts to find and exploit vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player on the system in order to download the Qakbot malware. Qakbot is capable of stealing passwords, certificates, cookies & browser traffic. The malware was also in news last week after it downed Melbourne Health's systems.

4.       Angler exploit kit & CryptoWall 4.0 ransomware update: We discussed this combo in issue 41, since then, Angler has become one of the largest exploit kit found in the market and has been making news for its ransomware campaigns. It is estimated that Angler now infects 90,000 victims a day and generates more than $60M annually. Several servers running these campaigns have been identified and details published, it is believed that this will dent Angler income by 50%.

5.       TeslaCrypt 2.0 cracked, victims need not pay ransom: The flaw leveraged by researchers to crack the ransomware - is not in the encryption algorithm itself, but rather how encryption keys are stashed on a victim's PC. Given today computing capabilities, researchers were able to build tools that could retrieve the keys and decrypt the machines without having to pay any ransom. Unfortunately, the latest 3.0 version of the malware has patched the design flaw.

6.       Kovter Actors Now Turning Machines Into Zombies: Kovter is one of the oldest malware strains around, one that has adapted to fit various needs and niches, and survived mainly as a click-fraud toolkit, ideal for making a quick buck out of online ads. The malware is distributed using malicious emails with ZIP attachments and subject lines like ‘Notice to Appear in Court’ or 'You have received a new fax'. When opened, these ZIP files automatically execute a JavaScript file which connects to a Web server and downloads the Kovter malware, which could then either - run a proxy or a bot on the machine to create ad impressions that are seen by no one but often get charged to marketers as a viewed promotion. It is estimated that bots will inflict $7.2 billion in damages to digital advertisers in the coming year.

7.       Ad blockers - Google reveals it now has over 1,000 staff just fighting bad ads: Google says last year it eliminated 780 million "plain bad" ads carrying malware, promoting fake goods or leading to phishing sites. Malvertising has become a popular mechanism for distributing malware, it harms internet users and threatens the multi-billion dollar ad industry. Google developed a similar humans and machine strategy for combating bad apps on Google Play, last year hiring its first human reviewers to help identify apps that violate its store policies.

8.       AMX fixes backdoor vulnerability 10 months on: AMX, owned by HARMAN International, is a manufacturer of video switching and control devices. Way back in March last year it was discovered that an administrative account with hardcoded credentials was added to an internal user database that can be used to access SSH and its web interface. This "Black Widow" account was deliberately hidden and had additional features like- ‘packet capture’ on the network interface which not even an administrator account could perform. The company claims they have released firmware updates for the affected products, while denying the account was deliberately hidden. AMX's client portfolio includes The White House, Fortune 100 companies and various other departments. Juniper and Fortinet have had similar issues.

9.       'Asacub' Trojan converted to mobile banking weapon: This Trojan has been around since last June and was originally used for stealing browser histories, contact lists, and other data from infected mobiles- including incoming SMS messages. Last week it was found that the new versions of the Trojan contained phishing screens with the logos of major European banks - designed to steal credentials. It also had additional capabilities like tracking and sending current location data, and taking a snapshot using the device camera. Other Mobile malware discovered recently include - Bankosy, Faketoken (Steals OTP) & SlemBunk, Marcher (steals credentials using rigged lookalike apps).

Phishing attack could steal LastPass password manager details: LastPass stores user’s passwords in the cloud in an encrypted protected vault. A security researcher has released a tool (calling it LostPass) that can steal the login details and two-factor authentication key. The attack relies on a user visiting a malicious website, it will detect if the browser is using LastPass, mimic a LastPass notification, remotely log-out the user and request the password and two-factor authentication key. The hacker would then be able to gain full access to every password stored in a LastPass user’s vault. The company has responded and a primary change was made - LastPass now requires all users to perform the email verification step, which  will significantly mitigate a LostPass-type attack.

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