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    25 Mar, 2020
    US Government Sites Give Bad Security Advice
    Cybersecurity , , , , , ,

    Many U.S. government Web sites now carry a message prominently at the top of their home pages meant to help visitors better distinguish between official U.S. government properties and phishing pages. Unfortunately, part of that message is misleading and may help perpetuate a popular misunderstanding about Web site security and trust that phishers have been exploiting for years now. …

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    23 Mar, 2020
    Who’s Behind the ‘Web Listings’ Mail Scam?
    Cybersecurity , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    In December 2018, KrebsOnSecurity looked at how dozens of U.S. political campaigns, cities and towns had paid a shady company called Web Listings Inc. after receiving what looked like a bill for search engine optimization (SEO) services rendered on behalf of their domain names. The story concluded that this dubious service had been scamming people and companies for more than a decade, and promised a Part II to explore who was behind Web Listings. What follows are some clues that point to a very convincing answer to that question. …

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    20 Mar, 2020
    Security Breach Disrupts Fintech Firm Finastra
    Cybersecurity , , , , ,

    Finastra, a company that provides a range of technology solutions to banks worldwide, said it was shutting down key systems in response to a security breach discovered Friday morning. The company’s public statement and notice to customers does not mention the cause of the outage, but their response so far is straight out of the playbook for dealing with ransomware attacks. …

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    20 Mar, 2020
    Zyxel Flaw Powers New Mirai IoT Botnet Strain
    Cybersecurity , , , , , , ,

    In February, hardware maker Zyxel fixed a zero-day vulnerability in its routers and VPN firewall products after KrebsOnSecurity told the company the flaw was being abused by attackers to break into devices. This week, security researchers said they spotted that same vulnerability being exploited by a new variant of Mirai, a malware strain that targets vulnerable Internet of Things (IoT) devices for use in large-scale attacks and as proxies for other cybercrime activity. …

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    17 Mar, 2020
    Coronavirus Widens the Money Mule Pool
    Cybersecurity , , , , , , , , , , ,

    With many people being laid off or working from home thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, cybercrooks are almost certain to have more than their usual share of recruitable “money mules” — people who get roped into money laundering schemes under the pretense of a work-at-home job offer. Here’s the story of one upstart mule factory that spoofs a major nonprofit and tells new employees they’ll be collecting and transmitting donations for an international “Coronavirus Relief Fund.” …

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    16 Mar, 2020
    The Web’s Bot Containment Unit Needs Your Help
    Cybersecurity , , ,

    Anyone who’s seen the 1984 hit movie Ghostbusters likely recalls the pivotal scene where a government bureaucrat orders the shutdown of the ghost containment unit, effectively unleashing a pent-up phantom menace on New York City. Now, something similar is in danger of happening in cyberspace: Shadowserver.org, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization that works to help Internet service providers (ISPs) identify and quarantine malware infections and botnets, has lost its longtime primary source of funding. …

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    12 Mar, 2020
    Live Coronavirus Map Used to Spread Malware
    Cybersecurity , , , , , ,

    Cybercriminals constantly latch on to news items that captivate the public’s attention, but usually they do so by sensationalizing the topic or spreading misinformation about it. Recently, however, cybercrooks have started disseminating real-time, accurate information about global infection rates tied to the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to infect computers with malicious software.  …

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    12 Mar, 2020
    Crafty Web Skimming Domain Spoofs “https”
    Cybersecurity , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Earlier today, KrebsOnSecurity alerted the 10th largest food distributor in the United States that one of its Web sites had been hacked and retrofitted with code that steals credit card and login data. While such Web site card skimming attacks are not new, this intrusion leveraged a sneaky new domain that hides quite easily in a hacked site’s source code: “http[.]ps” (the actual malicious domain does not include the brackets, which are there to keep readers from being able to click on it). …

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    10 Mar, 2020
    FBI Arrests Alleged Owner of Deer.io, a Top Broker of Stolen Accounts
    Cybersecurity , , , , , , , ,

    FBI officials last week arrested a Russian computer security researcher on suspicion of operating deer.io, a vast marketplace for buying and selling stolen account credentials for thousands of popular online services and stores. Kirill V. Firsov was arrested Mar. 7 after arriving at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, according to court documents unsealed Monday. Prosecutors with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California allege Firsov was the administrator of deer.io, an online platform that hosted more than 24,000 shops for selling stolen and/or hacked usernames and passwords for a variety of top online destinations. …

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