Security News
Crane Hassold, former FBI analyst turned director of threat intel at Abnormal Security, shares stories from his covert work with cyberattackers. "Behavioral characteristics and motivations of cybercriminals in the real world and virtual world are the same," said Crane Hassold, who helped to create the CBAC after spending more than 11 years as an FBI analyst, offering strategic and tactical analytical support to cyber, financial crime and violent crime cases.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says criminals have escalated SIM swap attacks to steal millions by hijacking victims' phone numbers. "From January 2018 to December 2020, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center received 320 complaints related to SIM swapping incidents with adjusted losses of approximately $12 million. In 2021, IC3 received 1,611 SIM swapping complaints with adjusted losses of more than $68 million."
Two New York-based "Tech entrepreneurs" were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly conspiring to launder $4.5bn in stolen cryptocurrency, the US Department of Justice said, adding it's so far recovered $3.6bn in purloined digicah - based on current prices. At the time the funds were stolen in August 2016, a single BTC traded for about $540, making 119,754 BTC worth about $65m. Today, one BTC sells for roughly $43,170, making the total haul worth about $5.2bn; it was valued at around $4.5bn at the time the feds filed their court documents.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released technical details and indicators of compromise associated with LockBit ransomware attacks in a new flash alert published this Friday. Two years later, in June 2021, LockBit announced the LockBit 2.0 RaaS on their data leak site after ransomware actors were banned from posting on cybercrime forums [1, 2]. With the relaunch, the ransomware gang redesigned Tor sites and overhauled the malware, adding more advanced features, including the automatic encryption of devices across Windows domains via Active Directory group policies.
US Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray has named China as the source of more cyber-attacks on the USA than all other nations combined. In a Monday speech titled Countering Threats Posed by the Chinese Government Inside the US, Wray said the FBI is probing over 2,000 investigations of incidents assessed as attempts by China's government "To steal our information and technology."
Use a burner phone if you're traveling to the Olympics, the FBI warned on Tuesday, lest you come home with a nasty case of malware and/or snatched personal data. The FBI didn't mention specific threats, per se, but its alert warned those traveling to the February 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and March 2022 Paralympics that we've seen this all before with the Olympics, where "Malicious cyber actors could use a broad range of cyber activities to disrupt these events."
Scammers are trying to steal job seekers' money and personal information through phishing campaigns using fake advertisements posted on recruitment platforms. "The FBI warns that malicious actors or 'scammers' continue to exploit security weaknesses on job recruitment websites to post fraudulent job postings in order to trick applicants into providing personal information or money," the FBI says.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned today that threat actors could potentially target the February 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and March 2022 Paralympics. "The FBI to date is not aware of any specific cyber threat against the Olympics, but encourages partners to remain vigilant and maintain best practices in their network and digital environments," the US security service said in a private industry notification issued on Tuesday.
QR codes have become a go-to staple for contactless transactions of all sorts during the pandemic, and the FBI is warning cybercriminals are capitalizing on their lax security to steal data and money, and drop malware. The smart little matrix bar codes are easily tampered with and can be used to direct victims to malicious sites, the FBI warned in an alert.
"Cybercriminals are tampering with QR codes to redirect victims to malicious sites that steal login and financial information," the federal law enforcement agency said.The FBI said crooks are switching legitimate QR codes used by businesses for payment purposes to redirect potential victims to malicious websites designed to steal their personal and financial information, install malware on their devices, or divert their payments to accounts under their control.