Security News

How smart bots are infecting and exploiting the internet
2023-05-25 04:00

According to Imperva, bad bot traffic grew to 30.2%, a 2.5% increase over 2021. In this Help Net Security video, Lynn Marks, Senior Product Manager at Imperva, discusses malicious bot activity.

Cops crack gang that used bots to book and resell immigration appointments
2023-05-16 07:18

Police have arrested 69 people alleged to have used bots to book up nearly all of Spain's available appointments with immigration officials, and then sold those meeting slots for between €30 and €200 to aspiring migrants. Those arrested include the four alleged leaders of the crime ring, plus lawyers, managers, advisors, recruiters, and intermediaries, who reportedly received "Large amounts of money" from the sale of the immigration appointments.

Bad bots are coming for APIs
2023-05-15 03:00

For the first time, mobile Safari was one of the leading self-reported user agents, while the volume of bots claiming to be mobile browsers increased 42.78%. In 2020 and 2021, bad bots became the pandemic of the internet as automation became more sophisticated. "Cybercriminals will increase their focus on attacking API endpoints and application business logic with sophisticated automation. As a result, the business disruption and financial impact associated with bad bots will become even more significant in the coming years," Triebes continued.

New Zaraza Bot Credential-Stealer Sold on Telegram Targeting 38 Web Browsers
2023-04-17 06:59

A novel credential-stealing malware called Zaraza bot is being offered for sale on Telegram while also using the popular messaging service as a command-and-control. "Zaraza bot targets a large number of web browsers and is being actively distributed on a Russian Telegram hacker channel popular with threat actors," cybersecurity company Uptycs said in a report published last week.

Here's a list of proxy IPs to help block KillNet's DDoS bots
2023-02-06 21:00

A free tool aims is helping organizations defend against KillNet distributed-denial-of-service bots and comes as the US government issued a warning that the Russian cybercrime gang is stepping up its network flooding attacks against hospitals and health clinics. At current count, the KillNet open proxy IP blocklist lists tens of thousands of proxy IP addresses used by the Russian hacktivists in their network-traffic flooding events.

HeadCrab bots pinch 1,000+ Redis servers to mine coins
2023-02-04 00:27

A sneaky botnet dubbed HeadCrab that uses bespoke malware to mine for Monero has infected at least 1,200 Redis servers in the last 18 months. "The victims seem to have little in common, but the attacker seems to mainly target Redis servers and has a deep understanding and expertise in Redis modules and APIs as demonstrated by the malware," Asaf Eitani and Nitzan Yaakov reported.

How to protect yourself from bot-driven account fraud
2023-01-13 04:30

Bots continue to evolve and thrive at the expense of companies. Kasada's research shows revenue loss from bot-driven account fraud and web scraping continues to skyrocket, despite companies spending more on bot mitigation solutions every year.

New SHC-compiled Linux malware installs cryptominers, DDoS bots
2023-01-04 22:29

A new Linux malware downloader created using SHC has been spotted in the wild, infecting systems with Monero cryptocurrency miners and DDoS IRC bots. According to ASEC researchers, who discovered the attack, the SHC loader was uploaded to VirusTotal by Korean users, with attacks generally focused on Linux systems in the same country.

San Francisco terminates explosive killer cop bots
2022-12-07 20:00

San Francisco legislators this week changed course on their killer robot policy, banning the police from using remote-control bots fitted with explosives. "This fight isn't over, but we are grateful that the board explicitly banned police robots with deadly force," San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston said in a statement following Tuesday's decision to send the policy back to the drawing board.

Deal with sophisticated bot attacks: Learn, adapt, improve
2022-12-07 05:00

A computer program known as a "Bot" acts as an agent for a user or another program or mimics human action. Bots are typically used to automate particular tasks so they can be used without specific human instructions.