Category: Cybersecurity Alerts

The Cybersecurity Alerts section provides timely notifications about emerging cyber threats, vulnerabilities, and potential risks that organizations must be aware of. This section offers critical updates on newly identified malware, software vulnerabilities, and security breaches, enabling businesses and compliance teams to take proactive measures to safeguard their networks and data. Staying informed with real-time alerts is essential for maintaining a strong security posture in an ever-evolving threat landscape.

49% of All Phishing Sites Have SSL Credentials and Show Green Padlock

Nearly half of the phishing sites now have SSL credentials, begin with HTTPS, and show the green lock to display the sites are safe, as per new research by PhishLabs.

The number of phishing websites that have SSL credentials has been rising gradually since Q3, 2016 when about 5% of phishing websites were showing the green lock to show a safe connection. The proportion increased to roughly 25% of all phishing sites by this time last year, and by the end of Q1, 2018, 35% of phishing websites had SSL credentials. At the end of Q3, 2018, the proportion had risen to 49%.

It is no shock that so many phishers have chosen to change to HTTPS, as free SSL credentials are easy to get. Most companies have now made the change to HTTPS and it has been drummed into clients to always look for the green lock next to the URL to make certain the connection is safe before any confidential information is disclosed. Some search engines also show the web page is ‘secure’ as well as showing the green lock.

The green lock shows a lot of web users that not only is the site safe, but also that it is safe and genuine, which is certainly not the case. A safe connection doesn’t mean the site is reliable.

A survey carried out by PhishLabs in late 2017 disclosed the level of the confusion. About 80% of surveyed people thought the green lock showed a site was legitimate/safe. Just 18% of respondents to the survey presently identified that the green lock only meant the connection between the browser and the site was safe.

The truth is that the green lock is no assurance that a site is genuine or safe. It only implies that the user’s data is encrypted between their browser and the site so it can’t be interrupted and read by a third party. If the website has been created by a scammer, any information entered through the site can be read by the scammer.

The survey, together with the surge in HTTPS phishing sites, indicate how significant it is for businesses to teach their workers about the correct meaning of the green lock to avoid them falling for phishing cheats.

In addition to beginning with HTTPS and showing the green lock, phishing sites often use stolen branding. They can look same as the genuine site they are deceiving. The only pointer that the site is not genuine is the URL. However, even the URL can seem identical to the actual site. A lot of phishing sites take benefit of internationalized domain names to make the URLs seem genuine.

Brian Krebs identified one phishing site that deceived the cryptocurrency exchange box and used a nearly identical URL. The only difference being the use of the Vietnamese letter “ỉ” in place of the standard i. The characters are nearly indistinguishable, particularly on a small mobile screen.

Mobile screens also don’t show the complete URL, therefore it is easy to create a subdomain to impersonate the genuine domain, as only this part of the URL is likely to be shown on a mobile screen.

Marriott Announces 500 Million-Record Breach of Starwood Hotel Guests’ Files

The Marriott hotel chain has announced it has suffered a massive data breach that has resulted in the theft of the personal information of up to 500 million guests of the Starwood Hotels and Resorts group.

Marriott identified the data breach on September 8, 2018, after an alert was generated by its internal security system following an attempt by an unauthorized individual to access the Starwood guest reservation database. Third-party computer forensics experts were called in to assist with the investigation, which confirmed that the Starwood network was first gained in 2014. It is currently unclear howthe hacker breached security defenses and gained access to the network.

The hacker had encrypted data on the network which hampered efforts to investigate the breach and determine what data had been accessed. It took until November 19, 2018 for Marriott to decrypt the data and determine what the files contained.Only then was Marriott able to confirm that the database contained information on previous Starwood Hotels guests.

Analyzing such a huge database to determine which customers have had their information compromised has naturally taken some time. Marriott is still in the process of deduplicating the database to determine the exact number of guests impacted.

Marriott believes up to 500 million individuals who had previously made a reservation at Starwood Hotels and Resorts have been affected. They also include individuals who made reservations at Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, Four Points by Sheraton, Element Hotels, Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts, W Hotels, St.Regis, Westin Hotels & Resorts, Aloft Hotels, The Luxury Collection,Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels that are part of the Starwood Preferred Guest program, and its Starwood branded timeshare properties.

The types of data present in the stolen database include the names of guests, mailing addresses, email addresses, and other information. Around 327 million past guests may also have had the following information stolen: SPG account information, birth date, gender, reservation date, arrival date, departuredate, their communication preferences, and potentially, their passport number.

Marriott has not yet confirmed whether the hacker stole payment card information. Payment card data were encrypted with the AES-128 algorithm, but the two bits of information that would allow the data to be decrypted may also have been stolen.

The data breach, which occurred two years before Marriott acquired the Starwood Hotels and Resorts Group, has been reported to law enforcement. Marriott is currently working with leading security firms to improve security and prevent any further data breaches.

Marriott is in the process of notifying all affected individuals by email. All breach victims have been offered free enrolment in WebWatcher for one year. WebWatcher monitors the Internet for instances of user information being shared and issues alerts. U.S. guests are also being offered fraud consultation services and reimbursement coverage. Since email addresses have been stolen, breach victims have been warned to be alert for phishing attacks that attempt to obtain sensitive information. All official communications are coming from the starwoodhotels@email-marriott.com, although care should still be taken with any emails that appear to have been sent from that email address as sender field could be spoofed.

Microsoft and Adobe December 2018 Patch Tuesday Updates

December 2018 Patch Tuesday has seen Microsoft issue repairs for 39 vulnerabilities, 10 of which have been ranked serious, and two are being actively abused in the wild. There are 9 critical vulnerabilities in Microsoft products and one critical weakness in Adobe Flash Player.

The repairs include the following products and services: Microsoft Windows, WindowsKernel-Mode Drivers, Windows Kernel, Windows Azure Pack, Windows Authentication Methods, Visual Studio, Microsoft Windows DNS, Microsoft Scripting Engine, MicrosoftExchange Server, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Graphics Component, MicrosoftOffice SharePoint, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, and .NET Framework.

December 2018 Patch Tuesday Serious Microsoft vulnerabilities

The serious ulnerabilities affect the Chakra Scripting Engine of Microsoft Edge (5),.NETframework (1), Microsoft Text-to-Speech (1), Internet Explorer (1), and Windows DNS server (1).

  • CVE-2018-8583; CVE-2018-8617; CVE-2018-8618; CVE-2018-8624; CVE-2018-8629: Chakra Scripting Engine: Memory corruption
    vulnerabilities because of how Microsoft Edge manages memory items. Misuse would require a user to visit a specifically created website, via a link in a phishing electronic mail or malvertising, for instance.
  • CVE-2018-8540: .NETFramework: A distant code injection vulnerability when the .NET framework fails to authenticate input properly. An attacker could gain complete control of an affected system if an admin user’s account is compromised.
  • CVE-2018-8626: WindowsDNS Server: A heap overflow vulnerability affecting Windows servers arranged as DNS servers, which could let distant code implementation on the Local System Account.
  • CVE-2018-8631: InternetExplorer: A memory corruption weakness that might let distant code implementation. Misuse would require a user to visit a specifically created website, via a link in a phishing electronic mail, for instance.
  • CVE-2018-8634: Microsoft text-to-Speech: Distant code implementation vulnerability because of a failure to properly manage items in the memory. The fault could be abused to take complete control of a vulnerable system.
  • ADV180031: Adobe FlashPlayer: Adobe repaired two vulnerabilities in an out-of-band update on December 5. Microsoft has tackled these vulnerabilities, which are presently being abused in the wild.

Adobe Updates: December 2018 Patch Tuesday

Adobe has issued a large number of updates to tackle a slew of lately found
vulnerabilities. 87 updates had been included in the total, 39 of which have been ranked serious and could let an attacker implement the arbitrary code or elevate privileges on vulnerable appliances. Many of the vulnerabilities could be used collectively to give anattacker complete control of a susceptible computer.

These repairs are in addition to an out-of-bounds update released earlier in December to repair two actively abused vulnerabilities.

All repairs must be applied as soon as possible.

Vital AMP for WP Plugin Weakness Allows Any User to Gain Admin Rights

A recent critical WordPress plugin weakness has been identified that might let site users increase rights to admin level, providing them with the capability to add custom code to a vulnerable website or upload malware. The vulnerabilities is in the AMP for WP plugin, a trendy plugin that changes standard WordPress posts into the Google Accelerated Mobile Pages format to improve load speeds on mobile browsers. The plugin has over 100,000 active users.

Although the plugin was expected to carry out checks to decide whether a particular user is allowed to carry out certain administrative jobs, inadequate checks were carried out to confirm the existing user’s account permissions. As a consequence, any user, including a user listed on the site to submit remarks, might gain admin rights to the site.

The vulnerability was found by WordPress plugin developer Sybre Waaijer who clarified that the vulnerability would let any user read and download files, upload files, modify plugin settings, insert HTML content into posts, or load malware such as a cryptocurrency miner or install malevolent JavaScript. Although there were some safety checks carried out, in most instances unauthenticated users might easily carry out illegal activities on a site with the vulnerable plugin installed.

As per web safety company WebARX, the vulnrability is present in the ampforwp_save_steps_data hook – An Ajax hook that can be called by all listed users on a site. As insufficient checks are carried out to confirm the account role of the user when the hook is called, any site user can use the functions.

The vulnrability has been rectified in version 0.9.97.20 of AMP for WP. The update is being pushed out automatically to all sites with the plugin installed.

The new variety of the plugin includes a check of the wpnonce value to decide whether the user is accredited to update plugin settings. Updates will only be allowed if the user has admin rights.

Stealthy sLoad Downloader Executes Massive Reconnaissance to Improve Quality of Infected Hosts

A latest PowerShell downloader has been discovered – the sLoad downloader – which is being utilized in quiet, highly targeted attacks in the UK and Italy. The sLoad downloader executes a wide variety of checks to find out a lot of information concerning the system on which it lives, before selecting the most suitable malevolent payload to position – if a payload is positioned at all.

The sLoad downloader was first identified in May 2018 when it was mainly being used to download the Ramnit banking Trojan, even though more lately it has been providing a much wider variety of malevolent payloads including Ursnif, PsiBot, DarkVNC, and Gootkit, as per safety scientists at Proofpoint who have been studying the danger.

The malware is assumed to be the work of a threat actor known as TA554 that Proofpoint has been tracing for over a year. sLoad is being used in greatly targeted attacks, mostly in the United Kingdom and Italy, even though the group also often targets Canadian companies.

sLoad is part of an increasing type of silent writings that are being developed to carry out silent attacks and improve the quality of infected hosts. Among the difficulties with infecting as many machines as possible is the attacks are loud and are quickly noticed, providing safety researchers plenty of time to study malware, add signatures to AV software, and develop repairs.

Although the spray and pray method of infecting as many end users as possible carries on, particularly by affiliates signed up to use ransomware-as-a-service, there has been a rising tendency over the last few months of a much quieter type of malware – Malware that stays under the detector for longer and goes to great lengths to discover more about a system prior to attacks are started.

Infection mainly happens through spam electronic mails, which are cautiously created, written in the targeted nation’s language, and contain tailored information such as the target’s name and address to add reliability. The most usual subjects and message subjects are missed package distributions and purchase orders, which are detailed in documents attached to the electronic mails. Hyperlinks are also utilized to connect to zip files having the documents. The documents have malevolent macros that start PowerShell writings, which download the sLoad downloader.

The threat group extensively utilizes geofencing at all points in the infection series. This limits infection to particular places as well as orders what actions are taken when a host is infected. This is specifically important when the final payload is a banking Trojan. Banking Trojans aim country-specific banks and use precise web injects for those attacks.

The sLoad downloader examines to define if specific safety procedures are running on a system, and will leave if those procedures are found. A list of all running procedures will be gathered and sent back to its C2 server together with details of Citrix-related .ICA files, Outlook files, and a wide variety of other system information. sLoad will also test browsing histories to decide whether the user has earlier visited banks that are being aimed and will report back on its findings.

If the infected appliance has been utilized to access a banking website that Ramnit is aiming, the banking Trojan will be downloaded, even though other malware variations can also be delivered depending on the information found during the reconnaissance stage.

“sLoad, like other downloaders we have described lately, fingerprints infected systems, letting threat actors better select objectives of interest for the payloads of their selection,” wrote Proofpoint. “Downloaders, although, like sLoad, Marap, and others, provide high levels of flexibility to threat actors, whether evading seller sandboxes, providing ransomware to a system that seems mission critical, or providing a banking Trojan to systems with the most likely return.”

Zero-Day Windows Data Sharing Facility Vulnerability Discovered

A Windows zero-day vulnerability has been discovered that lets hackers erase application dlls and cause a system to crash and possibly hijack systems. The vulnerability lets an attacker elevate rights and erase files that must only be accessible by management and takes benefit of a Windows facility that fails to verify approvals.

That facility, the Windows Data Sharing Facility – dssvc.dll, was launched in Windows 10, hence earlier Windows types are unaffected, even though the vulnerability is also existing in Windows Server 2016 and Server 2019.

In order to abuse the Windows Data Sharing Service vulnerability, the attacker would already require access to the system, so for the fault to be distantly exploitable it would need to be merged with one more exploit. This would restrict the possibility for it to be used in an attack.

Although it’s possible to abuse the vulnerability to run commands on a system, the most likely use is disruption, because it permits files to be erased which would render applications or systems unworkable.

The Windows Data Sharing Facility vulnerability was detected by safety scientist SandboxEscaper. SandboxEscaper also recently issued a proof-of-concept for a zero-day vulnerability in Windows Task Scheduler, which was later adopted by a variety of threat actors and utilized in real-world attacks.

Although the vulnerability is similar to the earlier discovered vulnerability, in the sense that it lets non-admins erase files as a consequence of a Windows facility failing to verify permissions, this vulnerability is much more difficult to abuse. SandboxEscaper clarified in an October 23 Tweet that it’s “a low-quality bug that is a pain to exploit.”

SandboxEscaper wrote, “Not the same bug I posted a while ago, this does not write garbage to files but really erases them… meaning you can erase application dll’s and hope they go look for them in user write-able places. Or erase stuff used by system services c:\windows\temp and hijack them.”

Mijja Kolsek, a co-founder of 0Patch, has verified the PoC works and 0Patch team has already issued a micropatch to rectify the “Deletebug” fault. The micropatch was developed within 7 hours of publication of the PoC. The repair will be automatically applied for users of the 0Patch Agent and is obtainable for others through 0Patch.

Microsoft is expected to deliver a solution to the vulnerability.

Exploits Published for LibSSH Vulnerability: Immediate Repairing Required

A lately discovered LibSSH vulnerability, that has been called as ‘comically bad’ by the safety scientist who found it, has been repaired. The vulnerability is extremely easy to abuse. Obviously, different scripts and tools have been published that permit vulnerable apparatuses to be found and the flaw to be abused.

If the LibSSH vulnerability is abused, which needs little expertise even without one of the published scripts, it would let an attacker start an attack and distantly execute code on a vulnerable system.

The LibSSH vulnerability, which would allow anybody to log in to a weak Linux/Unix server without having to provide a password, is as bad as it gets. The vulnerability was found by Peter Winter-Smith of NCC Group, who found that verification can be avoided by sending an SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_SUCCESS message in place of the SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_REQUEST message. The server is expecting an SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_REQUEST message but will suppose that verification has successfully taken place if the SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_SUCCESS message is sent in its place.

As per the latest safety advisory published by LibSSH, “The SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_SUCCESS handler is planned only for communication from the server to the customer.”

The vulnerability is being followed as CVE-2018-10933 and is present in LibSSH types 0.6 and later. The fault has been patched in types 0.8.4 and 0.7.6.

Even though the mistake is trivial to abuse, it is even easier using the scripts that have been issued. Leap Security has issued a script that searches for vulnerable appliances, and there are quite a lot of available that will abuse the vulnerability and permit any code to be run with absolutely no skill needed.

Although the mistake is of high-severity, luckily only a small number of appliances are vulnerable. Anybody running a vulnerable version must repair instantly. Failure to repair will almost certainly see the appliance compromised.

Sophisticated Phishing Attack Inserts Malware into Existing Email Conversation Threads

A new sophisticated phishing method has been identified that includes a malevolent actor gaining access to an electronic mail account, observing a conversation thread, and then putting in malware in response to a continuing discussion.

The cheat is a variation of a Business Email Compromise (BEC) attack. BEC attacks usually involve using a compromised electronic mail account to transmit messages to accounts or payroll workers to get them to make fake bank transfers to accounts managed by the attacker.

In this instance, the aim is to fit a banking Trojan named Ursnif. Ursnif is among the most commonly used banking Trojans and is a variation of Gozi malware. Ursnif not only steals information via web injection but also downloads and fits the Tor client and links to the Tor network for communication with its C2 servers. Once installed, the malware hunts for and steals electronic mail identifications, cookies and credentials.

The attacks have so far been focused in Europe and North America, chiefly on companies in the power sector, fiscal services, and education, even though the attacks are far from confined to those regions and verticals.

In order to carry out this campaign, the attacker has to first gain access to an electronic mail account, which might be accomplished through a normal phishing cheat or buying breached identifications through darknet marketplaces.

Contrary to most phishing scams which include an out-of-the-blue message, this attack method is expected to have a much higher success ratio because the messages are part of a continuing conversation. As the messages come from inside a company and are transmitted from a real account and involve no deceiving of electronic mail addresses, they can be difficult to identify.

Identifying a fake reply to a continuing conversation needs watchfulness on the part of workers. There are likely to be differences in the electronic mails, such as a modification in the language used in the electronic mails, strange replies that are more general than would be expected and out of keeping with the chat, changes to electronic mail signatures or, in the case of one campaign in Canada, an abrupt change from French to English.

The scam was disclosed by scientists at Trend Micro who noted a similarity with a campaign identified by the Cisco Talos team that spread Gozi malware and involved computers that had earlier been hijacked and were part of the Dark Cloud botnet. Trend Micro proposes that the latest campaigns might be a growth of the group’s attack method.

The campaign utilizes Word attachments having malevolent PowerShell code which downloads the latest type of Ursnif. Trend Micro considers the messages are dispatched from the US and notes that the malware will only run on Windows Vista and above and will not infect users in China or Russia.

The campaign demonstrates how advanced phishing attacks are becoming, and that the usual cybersecurity best practice of never opening attachments or clicking links in electronic mails from strange senders is not adequate to avoid malware from being installed.

Microsoft Patches 49 Vulnerabilities Including One Actively Exploited Weakness

Almost 50 weaknesses have been repaired by Microsoft on October Patch Tuesday including one zero-day weakness that is being actively abused in the wild by the FruityArmor APT group.

The zero-day (CVE-2018-8453) is connected to the Win32k part of Windows and is an elevation-of-privilege weakness found by Kaspersky Lab. If abused, a threat actor might run random code in kernel mode and might create new accounts, install programs, or access, modify or erase data. The fault is present in all supported types of Windows and Windows Server 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2019.

The FruityArmor threat group is based in the Middle East, which is where the attacks have so far been aimed. The group is famous for utilizing zero-day faults for its attacks and has been aiming older type of Windows, even though Microsoft has alerted that the weakness might let attacks on the latest Windows types.

Kaspersky Lab notices that two years before, on October Patch Tuesday 2016, Microsoft also repaired a fault that was being actively abused by the FruityArmor group – CVE-2016-3393. Kaspersky Lab will announce more details of the fault this week.

Altogether 49 weaknesses have been repaired, 12 of which have been ranked critical. One of those critical weaknesses, CVE-2010-3190 is eight years old and has been repaired several times over the past eight years. The latest repair tackles the weakness in Exchange Server 2016. If abused, it would let an attacker take complete control of a weak system. The other critical repairs affect the Internet Explorer and Edge browsers, Hyper-V, and XML Core Facilities.

The latest repairs also tackle three weaknesses that were publicly revealed before repairs being released: A fault in the JET Database engine, Azure IOT, and Windows kernel. The patch for the JET Database Engine fault is specifically important, as last month sample exploit code was also circulated together with details of the weakness. As a consequence, companies were exposed for numerous weeks. It was a similar tale in August when a weakness and proof of concept code was circulated online for a weakness in Windows task scheduler which also left Windows users defenseless.

Most of the other patches in this round of updates were for Windows 10, the Edge browser, and connected Server types.

Adobe has also publicized patches this week, which tackle 16 weaknesses including four critical faults in Adobe Digital Edition. The critical faults allow distant code implementation, three of which are heap-overflow faults and one is a use-after-free weakness.

Phishers Using Azure Blog Storage to Host Phishing Forms with Legal Microsoft SSL License

Cybercriminals are utilizing Microsoft Azure Blog storage to host phishing forms. The site hosting the malevolent files has an authentic Microsoft SSL license which adds genuineness to the campaign. Similar methods have been used in the past for Dropbox phishing cheats and attacks that mimic other cloud storage platforms.

A usual phishing situation involves an electronic mail being transmitted with a button or hyperlink that the user is requested to tick to access a cloud-hosted file. When the link is clicked they are led to a website where they are needed to enter login identifications – Such as Office 365 identifications – to retrieve the file.

At this stage, the scam often falls down. Oftentimes the webpage that is visited seems strange, doesn’t begin with HTTPS, or the site has an illegal SSL certificate. Although visiting such a domain a large red flag will be raised. Nevertheless, if the user visits a usual looking domain and the SSL credential is legal and has been allotted to a trustworthy brand, the possibility of the user continuing and entering login identifications is far higher.

That is precisely the case with Azure blog storage. Although the domain might seem unknown, it’s a legal Windows domain finishing with .blob.core.windows.net and is safe with an SSL credential. An additional check will disclose that the certificate is legal and has been issued by Microsoft IT TLS CA 5. A genuine-looking Office 365 login form will emerge and identifications will need to be entered to get access to the document – electronic mail and password. This is likely to appear entirely reasonable since the user is retrieving a Microsoft document hosted on a Microsoft site.

Nevertheless, entering in identifications into the login box will see that information transmitted to a server managed by the attackers. The user will be informed that the document is being opened, even though they will be guided to a different Microsoft site. Although this is a red flag, by this time it is too late as the user’s identifications have already been thieved.

In this instance, it was Office 365 identifications that the attackers were trying to get, although the scam might similarly be conducted to get Azure identifications or other Microsoft logins.

Avoiding email-based phishing attacks is easiest with anti-phishing controls to safeguard the electronic mail gateway and avoid messages from reaching inboxes. An advanced spam filtering solution will make sure that the bulk of electronic mails are obstructed. Office 365 users must strongly consider extending Microsoft Office 365 with a third-party spam filter for better safety.

No anti-phishing solution will avoid all phishing electronic mails from reaching inboxes, so it is crucial for workers to be taught safety best practices and to get specific anti-phishing training. Besides providing training on the most common phishing cheats, it is important for end users to be educated on phishing cheats that misuse cloud facilities and object store URLs to make sure cheats like this can be identified as such.

Cofense Study Reveals Extensive Misuse of Zoho Email by Keyloggers

Latest research from Cofense has shown there has been a substantial increase in keylogger activity in 2018 which backs up research carried out by Microsoft that indicated the revival of a keylogger known as Hawkeye.

Keyloggers are information-stealing malware that record keystrokes on a computer and other input from human interface devices (HUDs) such as microphones and webcams. A lot of modern keyloggers are also capable to copy information from the clipboard and take screenshots. Their purpose is to get login identifications, passwords, and other confidential information.

That information is recorded but should then be transmitted back to the attackers without being noticed. There are different methods that can be used to get the thieved data. The information can be conveyed to an IP, Domain, or URL, but one of the most usual ways keyloggers exfiltrate data is through electronic mail.

The people that use keyloggers register free electronic mail accounts to receive the thieved information, and Cofense has found that the biggest single electronic mail provider used to get keylogger data is Zoho, the Indian supplier of online office suite software. After reviewing the terminus of information thieved by keyloggers, Cofense found that 39% of electronic mails went to Zoho accounts, compared to 7% that were sent to Yandex accounts, the second most usually misused electronic mail platform.

The purpose why keyloggers are using Zoho is not abundantly obvious, even though Cofense scientists propose it is the lack of safety controls that make the electronic mail facility popular. For example, 2-factor verification is available for Zoho electronic mail accounts, but it is not compulsory. Electronic mail accounts can be opened free of charge and there are comparatively few controls over who can open an account. Cofense notes that the account registration procedure would be easy to automate with an easy script and that there is no requirement to use a mobile phone for confirmation.

The statement is more bad news for Zoho, which was lately provisionally taken offline by its registrar after reports that one of its facilities was being exploited and used for phishing producing an outage for its 30 million+ users.

Zoho has now replied to the report and has announced that it is taking measures to avoid misuse of its electronic mail facility and will soon need all new accounts to include a mobile phone number for confirmation, including its free accounts. Zoho will also boost its efforts to check outgoing SMTP and will be looking for doubtful login patterns and will stop users who seem to be misusing its facility.

“We are also narrowing our rules for all users. We have lately reviewed and improved our policy around SPF (sender policy framework) and applied DKIM (domain key identified mail) for our domain. This will bring about a solid DMARC policy that we will also publish,” said Sridhar Vembu, creator and CEO of Zoho.

Vembu also clarified that it’s not the only cloud facility supplier that is aimed in this way, “ Unluckily, phishing has become one of the bad side-effects of Zoho’s fast progress, particularly the progress of our mail facility. Since Zoho Mail offers the most generous free accounts, this gets worsened as more malevolent actors take benefit of this huge customer value. However, we are clamping down on this severely.”

Adobe Repairs Actively Abused 0-Day Weakness in Flash Player

On Wednesday, December 5, 2018, Adobe released an update to rectify a weakness in Adobe Flash Player that is being leveraged by a threat group in targeted attacks in Russia. The threat group has previously attacked a healthcare service in Russia that is used by senior civil servants.

The weakness was recognized by researchers at Gigamon who passed on details of the weakness to Adobe in late November. Qihoo 360 scientists lately recognized an advanced constant threat campaign that was actively abusing the weakness.

The weakness is being abused using a particularly created Word document which is being dispersed using a spear phishing campaign. The campaign is extremely targeted; however, it is possible that other threat groups might try to abuse the same weakness in bigger, less-targeted campaigns.

The spear-phishing campaign used social engineering methods to deceive the receiver into opening a malicious Word document that impersonated as a worker survey. The document was transmitted as a .rar attachment to the electronic mail, with the compressed file having the document, the exploit, and the payload. The Word document had a malevolent Flash Active X control in the header.

Upon opening the document, the user is presented with a Microsoft Office alerting that the document might be damaging to the computer. If the content is enabled, the malevolent code will be performed, the weakness will be abused, and the attacker will gain command line access to the user’s system.

The payload, named backup.exe masquerades as an NVIDIA Control Panel application with a matching icon and (stolen) certificate. If the payload is performed, system information will be gathered which will be sent back to the attacker’s distant server through HTTP POST. Shellcode will also be downloaded and run on the infected appliance.

The weakness, followed as CVE-2018-15982, is present in type 31.0.0.153 and all earlier types of Adobe Flash Player Desktop Runtime, Adobe Flash Player for Google Chrome, and Adobe Flash Player for Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11. Types 31.0.0.108 and earlier of Adobe Flash Player Installer also have the weakness.

Users are suggested to update to type 32.0.0.101 (Type 31.0.0.122 of Adobe Flash Player Installer) as soon as possible. The update also repairs the Insecure Library Loading (DLL hijacking) privilege escalation weakness CVE-2018-15983.

Persistent New LoJax Rootkit Survives Hard Disk Substitution

Oct 7, 2018

Security researchers at ESET have identified a new rootkit that takes perseverance to a whole new level. As soon as infected, the LoJax rootkit will remain working on an appliance even if the operating system is reinstalled or the hard drive is reformatted or substituted.

Rootkits are malevolent code that is used to provide an attacker with continuous administrator access to an infected appliance. They are difficult to detect and subsequently, they can remain active on an appliance for long periods, permitting cybercriminals to access an infected appliance at will, thieve information, or infect the appliance with more malware variations.

Although reformatting a hard drive and reinstalling the operating system can typically remove a malware infection, that is not the case for the LoJax rootkit because it compromises the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) – The interface between the firmware of an appliance and its operating system. The UEFI runs pre-boot apps and manages the booting of the operating system. As the LoJax rootkit continues in Flash memory, even substituting a hard drive will have no effect.

The LoJax rootkit may not be detected as most antivirus programs don’t check the UEFI for malware. Even if the rootkit is detected, removing it is far from straightforward. Removal needs the firmware to be flashed.

A lot of cybersecurity experts consider these UEFI rootkits to be theoretical instead of actively being used in real-world attacks, as ESET remarks in a fresh blog post. “UEFI rootkits are generally seen as extremely risky tools for executing cyberattacks. No UEFI rootkit has ever been noticed in the wild – until we discovered a campaign that effectively positioned a malevolent UEFI module on a victim’s system.” The rootkit was installed by a threat group known as Fancy Bear, a cyberespionage group supposed to have strong connections to the Russian military intelligence organization, GRU.

LoJax is not, in itself, an information taker. It is a backdoor that permits a system to be retrieved at will for spying purposes, data thievery, or for the installation of malware. It can also permit an infected appliance to be followed geographically.

What is vague is how the attackers gained access to the device to install the rootkit. ESET considers the most likely way that was reached was with a spear phishing electronic mail. As soon as access to the appliance was achieved, the UEFI memory was read, an image was generated, then changed, and the firmware was substituted with the rootkit installed. The rootkit was installed on an older appliance which had several other kinds of malware installed. More modern appliances have controls in place to avoid such attacks – Secure Boot for example.  However, that doesn’t necessarily imply they are protected.

“Companies must study the Secure Boot construction on their hardware and make certain they are constructed properly to avoid illegal access to the firmware memory,” wrote safety intelligence team lead at ESET, Alexis Dorais-Joncas. “They also require to think about controls for detecting malware at the UEFI/BIOS level.”

Enhanced Remote Desktop Protocol Attacks Prompts IC3 to Issue Alert

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has issued a warning to companies concerning the misuse of distant administration tools such as Remote Desktop Procedure. The warning was prompted by a substantial increase in attacks and darknet marketplaces vending RDP access.

Remote Desktop Protocol was first launched into Windows in 1996 and has proven to be a valuable tool. It allows workers to connect to their office computer distantly and IT divisions to access computers to install software or provide help.  When connected through RDP, it’s possible to gain access to the Desktop, convey mouse and keyboard commands, and distantly take complete control of a computer.

Obviously, RDP has been an attractive aim for hackers who use it to steal data, download malevolent software, fit backdoors, or even damage computers.

Every now and then, vulnerabilities are identified in RDP which can be abused by hackers, therefore it is important to make sure systems are completely patched and modern. Nevertheless, attacks happen by getting login identifications. This is typically achieved through brute force attacks to predict vulnerable passwords. Several possible password and username blends are tried until the right one is predicted.

Passwords can also be obtained via man-in-the-middle attacks, such as when workers login to their work computers through RDP on public WiFi hotspots. Several businesses leave RDP ports open and accessible over the Internet (port 3839 particularly) which makes it much easier for RDP to be hacked.

Latest attacks have seen cybercriminals gain access through RDP and steal data or install ransomware, with the latter particularly common. The threat actors behind SamSam ransomware mainly use RDP to gain access to business computers to install ransomware.  This method has also been used to disperse ransomware variations such as CrySiS, ACCDFISA, CryptON, Rapid, Globelmposter, Brrr, Gamma, Monro and a lot more.

IC3 has advised all companies to carry out an audit to decide which appliances have RDP enabled, including cloud-based virtual machines, and to disable RDP if it’s not needed. If RDP is essential, strong passwords should be set, 2FA used, and rate limiting must be applied to obstruct IPs that have made too many failed attempts to log in. Patches must be applied quickly to make sure vulnerabilities cannot be abused.

Companies must make sure that the RDP connection is not open to the Internet and is only accessible through an internal network or using a VPN to contact it through the firewall. Obviously, strong passwords must also be used for the VPN and the latest type of VPN software used.

Since RDP is frequently used to install ransomware, it is vital to regularly back up data and to test standbys to make sure files can be recovered in the event of a tragedy.

Danabot Banking Trojan Utilized in U.S. Campaign

The DanaBot banking Trojan was first noticed by safety scientists at Proofpoint in May 2018. It was being utilized in a single campaign targeting clients of Australian Banks. More campaigns were later noticed targeting clients of European banks, and nowadays the attacks have shifted beyond the Atlantic and U.S. banks are being targeted.

Banking Trojans are the main danger. Proofpoint notices that they now account for 60% of all malware transmitted through electronic mail. The DanaBot banking Trojan is being dispersed through spam electronic mail, with the malevolent messages having an embedded hyperlink to websites hosting a Word document with a malevolent macro. If permitted to run it will introduce a PowerShell command which downloads DanaBot.

The DanaBot Trojan thieves identifications for online bank accounts via a blend of banking site web injections, keylogging, taking screenshots and seizing form data. The malware is written in Delphi and is modular and is able of downloading additional parts.

Proofpoint notices that the campaigns it has noticed use different IDs in their server communications which indicate that several people are carrying out campaigns, most probably through a malware-as-a-service offering. So far, nine different IDs have been identified which indicates nine people are carrying out campaigns. Each actor aims a particular geographical area aside from in Australia where there are two people carrying out campaigns.

The latest campaign targeting U.S bank clients is also being conducted through spam electronic mail and similarly links to a Word document with a malevolent macro. The spam electronic mails intercepted by Proofpoint spoof eFax messages, and are complete with proper branding. The electronic mails assert the Word document has a 3-page fax transmission.

Enabling the macro will result in Hancitor being downloaded, which in turn will download the DanaBot banking Trojan and other information stealing malware. A number of U.S banks are being targeted including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, TD Bank, and JP Morgan Chase.

Proofpoint has identified similarities with other malware families proposing it the work of the group behind CryptXXX and Reveton. “This family started with ransomware, to which stealer functionality was added in Reveton. The evolution carried on with CryptXXX ransomware and now with a banking Trojan with Stealer and distant access functionality included in DanaBot.”

Q2, 2018 Saw an 86% Increase in Cryptocurrency Mining Malware

2018 has proven to be the year of cryptocurrency mining malware. Cybercriminals are gradually discarding other types of malware and ransomware in support of malware capable of hijacking computers and mining cryptocurrency.

Mining cryptocurrency needs computers to solve the difficult problems necessary to confirm cryptocurrency dealings and add them to the blockchain account book. That needs substantial processing power and takes time. In exchange for carrying out the service, the miner that resolves the problem is compensated with a small amount of cryptocurrency. In order for this to be lucrative, substantial computer processing power is needed. That can be accomplished in two ways. Purchasing the hardware or hijacking other people’s computers.

The high value of cryptocurrencies makes mining an attractive possibility, particularly if a cybercriminal can hire an army of computers to carry out the processing. One computer can earn a few dollars a day. 10,000 computers infected with cryptocurrency mining malware makes this a very lucrative operation. That fact has not been lost on cybercriminals.

2018 has seen a huge increase in the use of cryptocurrency mining malware. In the first quarter of 2018, McAfee informs there was a 629% increase in the number of cryptocurrency mining malware samples it interrupted. That rising tendency has continued all through Q2. As per the September McAfee Threat Statement, there was an additional 86% rise in identified cryptocurrency mining malware samples in Q2.

“Using cryptomining malware is simpler, more straightforward, and less dangerous than conventional cybercrime activities – causing these schemes to rise steeply in fame over the last few months. Actually, cryptomining malware has rapidly developed as a main player on the danger landscape,” said Raj Samani, chief scientist at McAfee.

Although PCs are most usually targeted, cybercriminals have now split out and are also using other Internet-connected appliances to mine cryptocurrency, including Android smartphones. These appliances have much lower processing power than PCs, however since they are comparatively easy to capture, the sheer number of appliances that can be infected more than makes up for their low processing power.

There has also been the main increase in the use of malware that abuse software weaknesses. These kinds of malware rose by 151% in Q2, 2018. “WannaCry and NotPetya provided cybercriminals convincing instances of how malware might use weakness exploits to gain a footing on systems and after that rapidly spread across networks,” said Christiaan Beek, Lead Scientist and Senior Principal Engineer at McAfee. A lot of malware variations have been created that impersonate WannaCry and NotPetya.

The McAfee report also demonstrates there was a 57% growth in ransomware samples in the previous year, and although use is still increasing, reputation is decreasing with just 27% increase seen in Q2, 2018.