Security News
Emotet establishes a backdoor onto Windows computer systems via automated phishing emails that distribute Word documents compromised with malware. Subjects of emails and documents in Emotet campaigns are regularly altered to provide the best chance of luring victims into opening emails and installing malware-regular themes include invoices, shipping notices and information about COVID-19.
EU police agency Europol has boasted of taking down the main botnet powering the Emotet trojan-cum-malware dropper, as part of a multinational police operation that included raids on the alleged operators' homes in the Ukraine. "To severely disrupt the EMOTET infrastructure, law enforcement teamed up together to create an effective operational strategy. It resulted in this week's action whereby law enforcement and judicial authorities gained control of the infrastructure and took it down from the inside," said Europol in a jubilant statement this afternoon.
A German-led police operation has taken down the "World's largest" darknet marketplace, whose Australian alleged operator used it to facilitate the sale of drugs, stolen credit card data and malware, prosecutors said Tuesday. Police in the northern city of Oldenburg "Were able to arrest the alleged operator of the suspected world's largest illegal marketplace on the darknet, the DarkMarket, at the weekend," prosecutors said in a statement.
Singapore has admitted data collected for contact-tracing can be accessed by police despite earlier assurances it would only be used to fight the coronavirus, sparking privacy concerns Tuesday about the scheme. A senior official admitted in parliament that police could "Obtain any data" - including information gathered through the contact-tracing programme - in the course of a criminal investigation.
21 people have been arrested across the UK as part of a nationwide cyber crackdown targeting customers of WeLeakInfo[. A now-defunct online service that had been previously selling access to data hacked from other websites.
When Dutch ethical hacker Victor Gevers tried to alert Secret Service that he was able to guess the password to President Donald Trump's Twitter handle last October, there were plenty of skeptics, most notably at the White House. Now, Dutch prosecutors have determined Gevers did guess the password to the world's most powerful Twitter account, but said that he will not be charged with a crime because he was acting honorably to track down vulnerabilities associated with high-profile accounts.
A police constable has been sacked after reportedly tracking down young women motorists through their car numberplates and propositioning them on social media. Stephen Woods, formerly of Guernsey Police, was dismissed from the Channel Island's local force after searching for their car registration details to find their names.
Italian police have arrested two people allegedly for using malware to steal 10 GB of confidental data and military secrets from defense company Leonardo S.p. A. Leonardo is one of the world's largest defense contractors, with 30% of the company owned by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Apple's global security director has been charged with bribery for allegedly offering hundreds of iPads to Californian law enforcement officers in exchange for weapons permits for company employees. Chief Security Officer Thomas Moyer promised to give the Santa Clara County sheriff's office 200 iPads, worth about $70,000, in exchange for concealed weapons permits, the county's district attorney alleged in a statement Monday.
A tech-support scammer making random phone calls in the hope of finding a victim called the cyber-crime squad of an Australian police force, which used the happy accident to document the con trick and inform the public on what to watch out for. The call was placed to the Financial and Cybercrime Investigation Branch in the state of South Australia, where the cops serve 1.75 million citizens.