Security News

China-based APT Debuts Sepulcher Malware in Spear-Phishing Attacks
2020-09-02 10:00

Researchers discovered the new malware being distributed over the past six months through two separate campaigns. "Based on the use of publicly known sender addresses associated with Tibetan dissident targeting and the delivery of Sepulcher malware payloads, [we] have attributed both campaigns to the APT actor TA413," said Proofpoint researchers in a Wednesday analysis.

AI-enabled future crimes ranked: Deepfakes, spearphishing, and more
2020-08-17 17:00

A study explores the possible range and risk of attacks from military robots and autonomous attack drones to AI-assisted stalking. A study published in the journal Crime Science analyzed a vast spectrum of AI-enabled crimes in the years ahead ranging from military robots and autonomous attack drones to AI-assisted stalking.

Breach of high-profile Twitter accounts caused by phone spear phishing attack
2020-07-31 15:14

Twitter has confirmed that the breach of several high-profile accounts that occurred on July 15 was caused by a phone spear phishing attack that targeted a small number of employees. Using the credentials of the affected employees, the attackers managed to compromise 130 different Twitter accounts, including those of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama, according to Twitter.

Twitter: Epic Account Hack Caused by Mobile Spearphishing
2020-07-31 13:21

A mobile spearphishing attack targeting "a small number of employees" is what led to the unprecedented, major attack earlier in the month on high-profile Twitter accounts to push out a Bitcoin scam. On the day of the attack, Twitter revealed that the accounts fell victim to a compromise of the company's internal systems by a group of unidentified hackers that managed to access Twitter company tools and secure employee privileges.

Twitter Employees Targeted With Phone Spear-Phishing in Recent Attack
2020-07-31 13:04

Twitter on Thursday revealed that several employees were targeted with phone spear-phishing in a social engineering attack leading to the recent security incident. A total of 130 accounts were targeted in the incident, with hackers abusing internal Twitter systems and tools to reset the passwords for 45 of them.

Twitter says spear-phishing attack hooked its staff and led to celebrity account hijack
2020-07-31 05:27

Twitter has offered further explanation of the celebrity account hijack hack that saw 130 users' timelines polluted with a Bitcoin scam. "The social engineering that occurred on July 15, 2020, targeted a small number of employees through a phone spear phishing attack," says a July 30 update to Twitter's incident report.

Spear-Phishing Attack Spoofs EE To Target Executives
2020-05-05 19:38

The email tells recipients that "The best way to update details is to log on to your EE" and offers a hyperlink that states 'view billing to make sure your account details are correct' to entice the recipient to click the phishing link. The phishing landing page uses the trusted HTTPS protocol within the URL. The use of HTTPS, which other phishing campaigns have utilized, gives false hope to the user that network traffic is being encrypted and that it's therefore safe.

U.S. Universities Hit With ‘Adult Dating’ Spear-Phishing Attack
2020-04-27 16:14

More than 150,000 emails spreading the Hupigon RAT that use adult dating as a lure have been uncovered, with almost half being sent to U.S. university and college email addresses. Several U.S. universities have been targeted in a widespread spear-phishing attack that uses adult dating as a lure.

Weeks before US oil contract prices went negative, a spear-phishing crew went after oil firms. What did they get?
2020-04-21 08:00

As American crude oil crashed on Monday, leading to the bizarre situation of a negative futures contract price, our attention was drawn to a spear-phishing campaign against organizations involved in global oil production. A second, much smaller spear-phishing operation, impersonated a Philippines-based shipping company, targeted oil and gas companies in that country.

Spearphishing Campaign Exploits COVID-19 To Spread Lokibot Infostealer
2020-04-03 12:50

Researchers have discovered threat actors once again capitalizing on the COVID-19 pandemic and current attention on the World Health Organization with a new spearphishing email designed to spread the LokiBot trojan sent using the WHO trademark as a lure. Instead, it sends an attachment that unleashes the infostealer LokiBot if downloaded and executed, according to a blog post published Thursday by threat analyst Val Saengphaibul.