Tag: Cybersecurity
Identifying fraudsters on the internet
In an exclusive interview with Cyber Intelligence, Patrick Harding, chief product architect at digital identity security company, Ping Identity, outlines the growing threat of identity theft and fraud, explaining how it evolved and what can be done to counter it. Everybody is forced into digital transactions and relationships and identity management is fundamental to knowing who you are interacting with. The problem goes back to the beginning of the internet in the 1990s and a cartoon of a dog in front of a computer with the caption, “On the internet no-one knows you’re a dog!” That really illustrates the core problem of identifying online users and customers. The extent to which this is carried out largely depends on the sensitivity of the activity concerned. There is a big difference between buying a pair of jeans online and opening a bank account. In both cases, there is a significant series of steps which could include requesting passport ID for financial services.
MacOS users targeted by ‘infostealer’ malware
Apple computer users are suffering a growing number of ‘infostealer’ attacks across multiple regions and industries. These are a form of malicious software created to breach computer systems in order to steal sensitive information. The Palo Alto Networks Unit42 research group has detected a 101 percent increase in macOS infostealers in the last two quarters of 2024. The researchers identified three particularly prevalent macOS infostealers: Poseidon, Atomic, and Cthulhu. The developers of Atomic Stealer sell it as malware as a service (MaaS) in hacker forums and on Telegram. The Atomic Stealer operators usually distribute their malware via malvertising - the use of online advertising to spread malware. This typically involves injecting malicious or malware-laden advertisements into legitimate online advertising networks and webpages. It is capable of stealing notes and documents, browser data such as passwords, and cookies, cryptocurrency wallets, and instant messaging data. Atomic Stealer, also known as AMOS was first discovered in April 2023.
Bucket shop bargains for cybercriminals
Researchers have revealed current vulnerabilities in Amazon’s data storage services, the knock-on effect of which could potentially result in the biggest supply-chain attack in the internet’s history. In November 2024, watchTowr Labs decided to show how a significant Internet-wide supply-chain attack could be caused by abandoned infrastructure left unattended and forgotten on the internet. The researchers chose to focus on an Amazon business data storage service, known as ‘S3 buckets’.
Cybercriminals Weaponize Google AI assistant
Cybercriminals have been quick to see nefarious possibilities in search engine giant Google’s new Gemini 2.0 AI assistant. According to Google’s own findings, nation-state-backed threat actors are already leveraging Gemini to accelerate their criminal campaigns. The actors are using Gemini 2.0 for “researching potential infrastructure and free hosting providers, reconnaissance on target organizations, research into vulnerabilities, payload development, and assistance with malicious scripting and evasion techniques,” says Google.
Cybercrime forums span national boundaries
The bust of the illegal Cracked and Nulled crime forums evidences the global nature of cybercrime and the impossibility of seeing it as a threat that has no regard for national boundaries. Although at least 17 million US citizens were victims of the crime forums. law enforcement agencies in the United States, Romania, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Greece were all involved in the bust, according to the US Department of Justice.
“Crazy Evil” Threatens Cryptocurrency Ecosystem
A new and rising threat to decentralized financing has been identified. Threat intelligence researcher, the Insikt group, has uncovered “Crazy Evil,” a rapidly growing Russian crypto-scam gang that targets cryptocurrency users and influencers. According to Insikt Group, over ten active social media scams are linked directly to Crazy Evil, garnering millions of dollars in illicit funds and infiltrating tens of thousands of devices. Crazy Evil is what is referred to as a “traffer” team, which Insikt describes as “a collective of social engineering specialists tasked with redirecting legitimate traffic to malicious landing pages.” Allegedly operating since 2021 on dark web forums and amassing thousands of followers on their public Telegram channels, Crazy Evil’s primary targets are cryptocurrency users, non-fungible token (NFT) traders and gaming professionals - all of whom often use decentralized platforms with little or no regulatory oversight.
‘Hellcat’ is new breed of cybercriminal
A ransomware gang, Hellcat, that emerged in 2024 is being seen as representative of a new type of threat actor using off-the-shelf malware and innovative extortion techniques. According to cybersecurity company Cato Networks: “Hellcat’s emergence in 2024 marks a troubling shift in the landscape of cybercrime. By leveraging a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model and utilizing double extortion tactics, Hellcat has not only increased the accessibility of ransomware but also heightened the psychological impact on its victims.”
Shoring up SMEs Cyber-Defenses
In an exclusive interview with Cyber Intelligence, CEO and co-founder of cybersecurity firm EyeR, Sean Tsvik, explains what small-to-medium-sized organizations (SMEs) can do to protect their systems and customers’ critical data from increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks. They should start by using a managed detection and response (MDR) service. That allows medium-sized organizations to protect themselves against increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks without paying high salaries to in-house cyber experts. MDR services work out costing only a couple of dollars per endpoint and are by far the best starting point for small-to-medium-sized companies looking to strengthen their cyber defenses. Small organizations can also benefit from moving to the cloud as this leaves even fewer endpoints to secure.
Chinese AI offering rattles Big Tech investors
The start of this week saw roughly $1 trillion wiped off leading US tech stocks, following the launch of Deepseek, a Chinese rival to AI offerings such as Microsoft ChatGPT. What has really spooked the markets is that the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) assistant uses less data and generates lower all-round costs than its current Silicon Valley rivals. The expense of training and developing DeepSeek’s models is claimed to be only a small fraction of that required for OpenAI, putting into question the need to invest in the latest and most powerful AI accelerator chips from Nvidia. At the start of trading this week, Shares in Nvidia dropped a full10 percent and AI data analytics company Palantir lost seven percent in pre-market trading. Microsoft, Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Meta all also experienced a drop in their share price.
GenAI speeds up cybercrime
While Silicon Valley is finding that artificial intelligence (AI) is proving a tough sell to businesses and consumers, cybercriminals worldwide have lost little time in adapting the technology to cybercrime. The latest rogue AI offering is GhostGPT. According to Abnormal Security, Ghost GPT follows hard on the heels of earlier illicit AI offerings: WormGPT, WolfGPT, and EscapeGPT. To test its capabilities, Abnormal Security researchers asked GhostGPT to create a Docusign phishing email. The chatbot produced a convincing template with ease, demonstrating its ability to trick potential victims
FBI Takes Down Crypto-Laundering Scam
The line between cybercrime and plain old-fashioned fraud has become yet more blurred following the sentencing of international virtual currency vendor Anurag Pramod Murarka to 121 months in prison for his involvement in a classic money laundering operation that he advertised on Darknet marketplaces. According to recently unsealed court documents, Murarka operated an international money laundering business from April 2021 until September 29, 2023. Murarka was able to operate out of India and serviced shady clients in the United States through an intricate Indian “hawala” money transferring system and the use of the US Postal Service as his “unwitting partner in transferring ill-begotten funds.” The original Hawala scam was an Indian political and financial scandal involving illicit payments allegedly sent by politicians through a network of four Hawala brokers that implicated some of the country's leading politicians.
HPE Investigating Hacker Breach Claims – January 21st
Following claims from the IntelBroker group on BreachForums of having access to large amounts of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) company data, HPE has begun its investigations. The breach allegedly includes private GitHub repositories, Docker builds, and source codes. Arctic Wolf researchers helped HPE uncover the potential breach, and are continuing to work on validating the claim.