Security News
VMware released a report which takes the pulse of the financial industry's top CISOs and security leaders on the changing behavior of cybercriminal cartels and the defensive shift of the financial sector. The report found that financial institutions are facing increased destructive attacks and falling victim to ransomware more than in years' past, as sophisticated cybercrime cartels evolve beyond wire transfer fraud to now target market strategies, take over brokerage accounts and island hop into banks.
The report revealed how quickly cybercriminals capitalize on new security weaknesses - shrinking the window that organizations have to remediate vulnerabilities ahead of an attack. With 20,175 new vulnerabilities published in 2021, Skybox Research Lab witnessed the most vulnerabilities ever reported in a single year.
Cybercriminals are finding new ways to target cloud environments. To up their game, attackers are adopting more advanced and sophisticated methods to target sensitive and vulnerable cloud native environments.
A new social engineering scam is making the rounds, and this one is particularly insidious: It tricks users into sending money to what they think is their own account to reverse a fraudulent charge. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center issued the warning, which it said involves cybercriminals who have definitely done their homework.
A crimeware-related threat actor known as Haskers Gang has released an information-stealing malware called ZingoStealer for free on, allowing other criminal groups to leverage the tool for nefarious purposes. Besides harvesting sensitive information such as credentials, stealing cryptocurrency wallet information, and mining cryptocurrency on victims' systems, the malware leverages Telegram as both an exfiltration channel as well as a platform to distribute updates.
How cybercriminals are creating malicious hyperlinks that bypass security software. A report released Thursday by email security provider Avanan reveals how a coding practice called Quoted-printable is being used in phishing emails to present malicious links as legitimate.
In this video for Help Net Security, Tal Samra, Cyber Threat Analyst at Cyberint, talks about Discord, a platform often used for cybercrime activities, and the possible threats users might come across. The application offers its users privacy and encryption, access to private rooms and hidden content, and by also being resistant to law enforcement seizure, it has been increasingly leveraged by cybercriminals in distributing malicious files.
In this video for Help Net Security, Charles Brook, Threat Intelligence Researcher at Tessian, talks about how cybercriminals have taken advantage of the crisis in Ukraine to create charity donation scams. While there are legitimate ways to donate money and resources, scammers have started using impersonation techniques and sneaky tactics to dupe individuals into sending fake donations via emails, asking for cryptocurrency, or via fake websites.
More advanced phishing kits contain a control center to tune the functionalities of the phishing pages, such as by specifying how they will receive data, or performing filtering. Phishing kits make it easier for cybercriminals without technical knowledge to launch phishing campaigns.
As the war in Ukraine unfolded, one way of helping was to donate cryptocurrency which resulted in over $50 million in crypto donations. Cybercriminals were quick to move and take advantage of this lucrative situation and inattentive victims.