Security News
Researchers have uncovered a massive campaign that delivered proxy server apps to at least 400,000 Windows systems. Some proxy companies sell access to residential proxies and offer monetary rewards to users who agree to share their bandwidth.
AdLoad, well-known malware that has been targeting systems running macOS for over half a decade, has been observed delivering a new payload that - unbeknown to the owners - enlisted their systems into a residential proxy botnet. "Alien Labs has identified over 10,000 IPs reaching out to the proxy servers each week that have the potential to be proxy exit nodes. It is unclear if all these systems have been infected or are voluntarily offering their systems as proxies, but it could be indicative of a bigger infection globally."
More details have emerged about a botnet called AVRecon, which has been observed making use of compromised small office/home office routers as part of a multi-year campaign active since at least May 2021. AVRecon was first disclosed by Lumen Black Lotus Labs earlier this month as malware capable of executing additional commands and stealing victim's bandwidth for what appears to be an illegal proxy service made available for other actors.
Meta's WhatsApp has rolled out updates to its proxy feature, allowing more flexibility in the kind of content that can be shared in conversations. Support for proxy servers was officially launched by the messaging service earlier this January, thereby helping users circumvent government-imposed censorship and internet shutdowns and obtain indirect access to WhatsApp.
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.
Popular instant messaging service WhatsApp has launched support for proxy servers in the latest version of its Android and iOS apps, letting users circumvent government-imposed censorship and internet shutdowns. "Choosing a proxy enables you to connect to WhatsApp through servers set up by volunteers and organizations around the world dedicated to helping people communicate freely," the Meta-owned company said.
Starting today, WhatsApp allows users to connect via proxy servers due to Internet shutdowns or if their governments block the service in their country. The new proxy support option is available to all users running the latest WhatsApp iOS and Android applications.
A new residential proxy market is becoming popular among hackers, cybercriminals, phishers, scalpers, and scammers, selling access to a million claimed proxy IP addresses worldwide. The BlackProxies service claims to have access to a pool of 1,000,000 IP addresses from around the world, all coming from real residential users, ensuring unblocked status, low detection rates, and good speeds.
Nicknamed ProxyNotShell, a new exploit used in the wild takes advantage of the recently published Microsoft Server-Side Request Forgery vulnerability CVE-2022-41040 and a second vulnerability, CVE-2022-41082 that allows Remote Code Execution when PowerShell is available to unidentified attackers. Based on ProxyShell, this new zero-day abuse risk leverage a chained attack similar to the one used in the 2021 ProxyShell attack that exploited the combination of multiple vulnerabilities - CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-34473, and CVE-2021-31207 - to permit a remote actor to execute arbitrary code.
Threat actors are generating revenue by using adware bundles, malware, or even hacking into Microsoft SQL servers, to convert devices into proxies rented through online proxy services. To steal a device's bandwidth, the threat actors install software called 'proxyware' that allocates a device's available internet bandwidth as a proxy server that remote users can use for various tasks, like testing, intelligence collection, content distribution, or market research.