IT Security Newsletter

IT Security Newsletter - 1/19/2022

Written by Cadre | Wed, Jan 19, 2022

Safari and iOS users: Your browsing activity is being leaked in real time

For the past four months, Apple's iOS and iPadOS devices and Safari browser have violated one of the Internet's most sacrosanct security policies. The violation results from a bug that leaks user identities and browsing activity in real time. The same-origin policy is a foundational security mechanism that forbids documents, scripts, or other content loaded from one origin-meaning the protocol, domain name, and port of a given webpage or app-from interacting with resources from other origins. READ MORE...

Cloned Dept. of Labor Site Hawks Fake Government Contracts

A new phishing campaign is targeting aspiring government vendors with an invitation to bid on various fake federal projects with the U.S. Department of Labor. Emails branded to look like legitimate communications from the DoL contain malicious links that, rather than leading to a government procurement portal, harvest the credentials of anyone who attempts to login, according to a new report from threat researchers at INKY. READ MORE...

Interpol arrests 11 BEC gang members linked to 50,000 targets

In coordination with the Nigerian Police Force, Interpol has arrested 11 individuals suspected of participating in an international BEC (business email compromise) ring. BEC is a type of attack conducted via email involving the spear-phishing of certain company employees responsible for approving payments to contractors, suppliers, etc. By impersonating a coworker, a supervisor, or a client/supplier, BEC actors manage to divert payments to their bank accounts, stealing them from the target. READ MORE...

'White Rabbit' Ransomware May Be FIN8's Latest Tool

A new ransomware family, White Rabbit, chewed through a local U.S. bank last month - and it may be connected to the financially motivated advanced persistent threat (APT) group known as FIN8, researchers said. In a Tuesday report, Trend Micro researchers said that this twicky wabbit knows how to burrow away where it can't be spotted. In fact, it looks like the operators behind the White Rabbit ransomware have taken a page from the more established ransomware family known as Egregor. READ MORE...

QR codes can eat your lunch, FBI warns

QR codes are among the few "winners" of the coronavirus pandemic, the joke goes, because restaurants and other businesses have deployed them in far greater numbers over the past few years, in an effort to make more interactions contactless. The FBI is warning, however, that scammers love them, too. The bureau's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), issued a general alert Tuesday about "malicious" QR codes that reroute unsuspecting consumers to the world of cybercrime. READ MORE...

Researchers Explore Hacking VirusTotal to Find Stolen Credentials

Security researchers have found a method to collect vast amounts of stolen user credentials by executing searches on VirusTotal, the online service used to analyze suspicious files and URLs. With a €600 (around $679) VirusTotal license and a few tools, the SafeBreach research team collected more than a million credentials using this technique. The goal was to identify the data a criminal could gather with a license for VirusTotal. READ MORE...

Multi-Factor Authentication Bypass Led to Box Account Takeover

A vulnerability in Box's implementation of multi-factor authentication (MFA) allowed attackers to take over accounts without having access to the victim's phone, according to new research from Varonis. Because of the vulnerability - which was addressed in November 2021 - an attacker only needed stolen credentials to access an organization's Box account and steal sensitive data, provided that the account has SMS-based MFA enabled (which has long been proven insecure). READ MORE...

  • ...in 1809, short story writer and poet Edgar Allen Poe, regarded as the inventor of the detective story, was born in Boston.
  • ...in 1883, the first electric lighting system using overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service in New Jersey.
  • ...in 1955, Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the first president to hold news conferences to be filmed by TV and newsreels.
  • ...in 1977, President Gerald R. Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino, aka "Tokyo Rose", known for her propaganda broadcasts during World War II.