Industry Intel

Girl Scouts and OpenText empower future leaders of tomorrow with cyber resilience

The transition to a digital-first world enables us to connect, work and live in a realm where information is available at our fingertips. The children of today will be working in an environment of tomorrow that is shaped by hyperconnectivity. Operating in this...

World Backup Day reminds us all just how precious our data is

Think of all the important files sitting on your computer right now. If your computer crashed tomorrow, would you be able to retrieve your important files? Would your business suffer as a result? As more and more of our daily activities incorporate digital and online...

3 Reasons We Forget Small & Midsized Businesses are Major Targets for Ransomware

The ransomware attacks that make headlines and steer conversations among cybersecurity professionals usually involve major ransoms, huge corporations and notorious hacking groups. Kia Motors, Accenture, Acer, JBS…these companies were some of the largest to be...

How Ransomware Sneaks In

Ransomware has officially made the mainstream. Dramatic headlines announce the latest attacks and news outlets highlight the staggeringly high ransoms businesses pay to retrieve their stolen data. And it’s no wonder why – ransomware attacks are on the rise and the...

An MSP and SMB guide to disaster preparation, recovery and remediation

Introduction It’s important for a business to be prepared with an exercised business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan plan before its hit with ransomware so that it can resume operations as quickly as possible. Key steps and solutions should be followed...

Podcast: Cyber resilience in a remote work world

The global pandemic that began to send us packing from our offices in March of last year upended our established way of working overnight. We’re still feeling the effects. Many office workers have yet to return to the office in the volumes they worked in pre-pandemic....

5 Tips to get Better Efficacy out of Your IT Security Stack

If you’re an admin, service provider, security executive, or are otherwise affiliated with the world of IT solutions, then you know that one of the biggest challenges to overcome is efficacy. Especially in terms of cybersecurity, efficacy is something of an amorphous...

How Cryptocurrency and Cybercrime Trends Influence One Another

Typically, when cryptocurrency values change, one would expect to see changes in crypto-related cybercrime. In particular, trends in Bitcoin values tend to be the bellwether you can use to predict how other currencies’ values will shift, and there are usually...

Cyber News Rundown: Cryptomining WAV Files

Oct 18, 2019 | Industry Intel

Cryptominers Found in Audio Files

Researchers have recently found that both cryptominers and backdoors are being deployed within WAV audio files on targeted systems. Using steganography, attackers can include components for both loading and executing malicious scripts, while still allowing some audio files to play normally. Along with the malicious software, Monero cryptominers were launched simultaneously to begin generating cryptocurrency.

Vermont School District Monitoring Students Online Activity

A Vermont school district recently hired the cyber-monitoring software company Social Sentinel track the social media and email accounts of enrolled students. The purported purpose of the software is to stop problems such as bullying and self-harm among students by scanning for specific keywords, while supposedly respecting the privacy of the district’s thousands of students. Unfortunately, most of the posted alerts are currently being triggered by searches for a locally-made beer.

Darknet Child Porn Distribution Site Shutdown

Officials in the U.S. and South Korea collaborated to shut down a darknet site thought to be the largest distribution site of child porn. More than 300 individuals were arrested in connection with the site. By monitoring new Bitcoin addresses created when users made an account, the officials were able to find not only hundreds of users, but also the site’s administrator, who has since been charged in South Korea. Most alarmingly, amongst the 250,000 videos found on the server, nearly half were previously unknown to law enforcement.

Fake Account Reporting Leads to Facebook Lockout

Many Facebook users have been locked out of their accounts after reporting fake or spam accounts, some for nearly a week. Following the lockout, users were shown a bugged verification screen that left users even further from regaining access. Luckily, Facebook responded to the many requests to reinstate user accounts, resolved the issue, and fixed the authentication process.

Payment Card Marketplace Re-leaks Stolen Cards

One of the largest online marketplaces for stolen payment card info has been breached, leading to nearly 26 million payment cards stolen in prior breaches being reintroduced to hackers. By accessing the binary data stored in the magnetic strips, hackers were able to create fake cards and make fraudulent purchases. At least 8 million unique cards had been uploaded to the marketplace since the start of 2019.

Cyber News Rundown: E-Scooters Vulnerable

Oct 11, 2019 | Industry Intel

E-Scooter Security Vulnerability

A security researcher recently found an API vulnerability within the software of Voi e-scooters that allowed him to add over $100,000 in ride credits to his account. The vulnerability stems from a lack of authentication after creating an account which allows users to enter an unlimited number of promo codes offering ride discounts through several of the service’s partners. The writeup of steps to replicate flaw was temporarily taken down by the researcher until the company resolves the issue.

MageCart Strikes Volusion Sites

Thousands of sites using Volusion software have been affected by malicious MageCart scripts going back to mid-September. The scripts have been running from a non-descript API bucket and are using filenames that would appear benign to most security software and site admins. While victims will likely begin monitoring for stolen payment card data, it is still unclear how many sites have been compromised in total.

Brazilian Database for Sale

A database containing extremely sensitive information belonging to more than 92 million Brazilian citizens was found up for auction on several marketplaces on the dark web. Included in a sample of the data were driver’s license numbers and taxation info for the 93 million Brazilians currently employed within the country. Unfortunately for those involved, Brazil’s recently introduced data protection law won’t be in effect until halfway through next year.

Twitter 2FA Leak

Twitter announced earlier this week that many email addresses and phone numbers customers were using for two-factor authentication had been provided to third-parties for use in targeted advertisements. The company is still working to determine how many users are involved in this apparently unintentional misuse of their sensitive information. Twitter has fixed the main issue, though they still require a phone number for 2FA regardless of the method used to verify the account.

New Zealand Health Organization Hacked

Following a cyber attack in August of this year, officials discovered evidence of multiple intrusions into their systems going back nearly three years. The health organization has been working with law enforcement to determine the extent of the unauthorized access, as well as attempting to contact all affected individuals.

5 Key Benchmarks for Choosing Efficient Endpoint Security

Oct 9, 2019 | Threat Lab

First and foremost, endpoint protection must be effective. Short of that, MSPs won’t succeed in protecting their clients and, more than likely, won’t remain in business for very long. But beyond the general ability to stop threats and protect users, which characteristics of an endpoint solution best set its administrators for success?

Get the 2019 PassMark Report: See how 9 endpoint protection products perform against 15 efficiency benchmarks.

Consider the world of the MSP: margins can be thin, competition tight, and time quite literally money. Any additional time spent managing endpoint security, beyond installing and overseeing it, is time not spent on other key business areas. Performance issues stemming from excess CPU or memory usage can invite added support tickets, which require more time and attention from MSPs.

So, even when an endpoint solution is effective the majority of the time (a tall order in its own right), other factors can still raise the total cost of ownership for MSPs. Here are some metrics to consider when evaluating endpoint solutions, and how they can contribute to the overall health of a business.

1. Installation Time

We’ve written recently about the trauma “rip and replace” can cause MSPs. It often means significant after-hours work uninstalling and reinstalling one endpoint solution in favor of another. While MSPs can’t do much about the uninstall time of the product they’ve chosen to abandon, shopping around for a replacement with a speedy install time will drastically reduce the time it takes to make the switch.

Quick installs often also make a good impression on clients, too, who are likely having their first experience with the new software. Finally, it helps if the endpoint solution doesn’t conflict with other AVs.

2. Installation Size

Few things are more annoying to users and admins than bulky, cumbersome endpoint protection, even when it’s effective. But cybersecurity is an arms race, and new threats often require new features and capabilities.

So if an endpoint solution is still storing known-bad signatures on the device itself, this can quickly lead to bloated agent with an adverse effect on overall device performance. Cloud-based solutions, on the other hand, tend to be lighter on the device and less noticeable to users.

3. CPU Usage During a Scan

Many of us will remember the early days of antivirus scans when considering this stat. Pioneering AVs tended to render their host devices nearly useless when scanning for viruses and, unfortunately, some are still close to doing so today.

Some endpoint solutions are able to scan for viruses silently in the background, while others commandeer almost 100 percent of a device’s CPU to hunt for viruses. This can lead to excruciatingly slow performance and even to devices overheating. With such high CPU demand, scans must often be scheduled for off-hours to limit the productivity hit they induce.

4. Memory Usage During a Scheduled Scan

Similar to CPU use during a scan, RAM use during a scheduled scan can have a significant effect on device performance, which in turn has a bearing on client satisfaction. Again older, so-called legacy antiviruses will hog significantly more RAM during a scheduled scan than their next-gen predecessors.

While under 100 MB is generally a low amount of RAM for a scheduled scan, some solutions on the market today can require over 700 MB to perform the function. To keep memory use from quickly becoming an issue on the endpoints you manage, ensure your chosen AV falls on the low end of the RAM use spectrum.

5. Browse Time

So many of today’s threats target your clients by way of their internet browsers. So it’s essential that endpoint security solutions are able to spot viruses and other malware before it’s downloaded from the web. This can lead to slower browsing and frustrate users into logging support tickets. It’s typically measured as an average of the time a web browser loads a given site, with variables like network connection speed controlled for.

Effectiveness is essential, but it’s far from the only relevant metric when evaluating new endpoint security. Consider all the above factors to ensure you and your clients get the highest possible level of satisfaction from your chosen solution.

Cyber News Rundown: Data Dash

Oct 4, 2019 | Industry Intel

DoorDash Data Breach

Nearly five months after a breach, DoorDash has just now discovered that unauthorized access to sensitive customer information has taken place. Among the stolen data were customer names, payment history, and contact info, as well as the last four digits of both customer payment cards and employee bank accounts. The compromised data spans nearly 5 million unique customers and employees of the delivery service. DoorDash has since recommended all users change their passwords immediately.

American Express Employee Fraud

At least one American Express employee was fired after it was revealed they had illicitly gained access to customer payment card data and may have been using it to commit fraud at other financial institutions. Following this incident, American Express began contacting affected customers offering credit monitoring services to prevent misuse of their data.

Hackers Target Airbus Suppliers

Several suppliers for Airbus have recently been under cyber-attack by state-sponsored hackers that seem to have a focus on the company’s VPN connections to Airbus. Both Rolls-Royce and Expleo, European manufacturers of engines and technology respectively, have been targeted for their technical documentation by Chinese aircraft competitors. This type of attack has pushed many officials to urge for higher security standards across all supply chains, as both large and small companies are now being attacked.

Ransomware Law Passes Senate

A recently passed law mandates the Department of Homeland Security support organizations affected by ransomware. While focused on protecting students in New York state, the legislation follows 50 school districts across the U.S. falling victim to ransomware attacks in 2019 alone, compromising up to 500 schools overall. A similar bill recently passed in the House of Representatives, which is expected to be combined with this legislation.

Ransomware Targets Hospitals Around the Globe

Multiple hospitals in the U.S. and Australia have fallen victim to ransomware attacks within the last month. Some sites were so affected that they were forced to permanently close their facilities after they weren’t able to rebuild patient records from encrypted backups. Several offices in Australia have been unable to accept new patients with only minimal systems for continuing operations.

Cyber News Rundown: Instagram Phishing Campaign

Sep 27, 2019 | Industry Intel

Copyright Phishing Campaign Hits Instagram

Many Instagram accounts were recently compromised after receiving a notice that their accounts would be suspended for copyright infringement if they didn’t complete an objection form within 24 hours. By setting a timeframe, the attackers are hoping that flustered victims would quickly begin entering account credentials into a phony landing page before being redirected to the authentic Instagram login page to appear legitimate.

WordPress Plugin Exploited

Rich Reviews, a vulnerable WordPress plugin that was removed from the main WordPress repository more than six months ago, has been found still active on thousands of websites. This vulnerability allows attackers to download malicious payloads, then redirect victims to phony websites that could further infect their systems. Fortunately, several security companies are working with the plugin’s creators to fix the current vulnerabilities, though these updates won’t reach users until it’s put back on the repository.

Banking Malware Campaign

Hundreds of malware samples have been discovered that target ATMs and can be deployed to obtain sensitive banking information from infected systems. Dtrack, the name of the malware tools, can also be used to steal local machine information, such as keystrokes and browser history, by using known vulnerabilities in network security. This type of attack comes from the Lazarus Group, who have been known to target nations and major financial institutions around the world.

Click2Gov Site Hacked

An online bill paying site used in dozens of cities across the U.S. was recently hacked in at least eight cities, already compromising more than 20,000 individuals from all 50 states. This will be the third breach affecting Click2Gov, all of which used an exploit allowing attackers to gain both remote access to the system and upload any files they choose. Many of the cities that were targeted recently were part of the prior attacks on the Click2Gov portal.

Wyoming Healthcare Hit with Ransomware

Campbell County Health’s computer systems were brought to a halt after suffering a ransomware attack this week. Nearly 1,500 computers were affected and all currently scheduled surgeries and other medical care must be delayed or diverted to another facility. Fortunately, CCH is working quickly to restore all of their systems to normal and determine the exact infection point for the attack.

Cyber News Rundown: TFlower Ransomware Exploiting RDP

Sep 20, 2019 | Industry Intel

TFlower Ransomware Exploiting RDP

Ransomware attacks seem to be earning larger payouts by focusing on big businesses and governments, and a new variant dubbed TFlower might be no exception. TFlower has been proliferating by hacking into compromised networks through various remote desktop services. Attackers can reportedly execute the malware and begin encrypting most file types and removing all local backups. It is still unclear how much the demanded ransom is, but researchers have found that TFlower doesn’t append the encrypted files’ extensions.

Ransomware is evolving. Click here to learn more on the threat.

Lion Airline Data Leak

More than 30 million customer records belonging to two Lion Air-owned companies Malindo Air and Thai Lion Air were found in a publicly accessible database and later on several underground forums earlier this month. Among the available data are names, birthdates, and passport information, all of which could easily be used to commit identity fraud. While the data was available for nearly a month, it is still unclear how many individuals may have obtained copies of the data.

White Hat Hackers Expose Webcam Security Flaws

Over 15,000 unique webcams from several different manufacturers have been found to be using default security settings while connected to the internet. Many of the compromised devices have been identified in the U.S., Europe, and Southeast Asia. This recent discovery should prompt manufacturers to implement additional security settings and require users to set their own passwords.

Medical Patient Images and Data Unprotected

In a recent research study of 2,300 healthcare systems, nearly 25 percent were publicly accessible on the internet, containing a total of 24.3 million patient healthcare records from at least 52 countries. Over 400 million medical images were available for access or download through a system that allows medical workers to share patient documents. These systems date back to the 1980s and need to be brought up to current security standards, as the current system has virtually none.

Ecuadorian Data Analytics Breach

An Ecuadorian data analysis firm, Novaestrat, is under investigation after it was discovered that the company left personally identifiable information for nearly every Ecuadorian citizen exposed in an unsecured database. Records for 2.5 million car owners and nearly 7.5 million financial and banking transactions were included in the records. Immediately upon the revelation of the breach, Ecuadorian government officials arrested the CEO for possessing the data illicitly.

Cyber News Rundown: Arizona School Ransomware Attack

Sep 13, 2019 | Industry Intel

Ransomware Closes Arizona School District

As many students began returning for the fall semester, classes were cancelled in the Flagstaff Unified School District in Arizona after a ransomware attack disabled some of the district’s computer systems. Officials haven’t yet released any additional information on the ransom demanded or if any sensitive employee or student documents was compromised. The attack is another in a chain of ransomware campaigns affecting dozens of school districts around the country in recent months.

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BEC Scam Targets Toyota Corporation

A subsidiary company of Toyota fell victim to a business email compromise (BEC) that could cost more than $37 million. Using social engineering to convince the victim to send the wire transfer has become a common practice around the world and earned scammers an estimated $1.3 billion in 2018 alone. Officials are still working to determine the proper course of action to recover the stolen funds, though it is unlikely they will be able to track down their present location.

International BEC Sting Nets 281 Arrests

With the cooperation of many law enforcement agencies around the world, at least 281 individuals were taken into custody for their roles in various BEC scams. Along with the arrests, officials seized $3.7 million in cash that had been stolen by redirecting wire transfers while posing as a high-level executive. While the majority of arrests came from Europe and Africa, nearly a quarter occurred in the U.S.

LokiBot Campaign Affects U.S. Manufacturer

A poorly written email phishing campaign was recently discovered with a rather malicious payload called LokiBot. In the scam, once a victim would open the attachment (with assurances in the email that it simply needs to be reviewed), an archive would unzip and allow the payload to begin hunting for credentials and any other sensitive information stored on the system. After reviewing the LokiBot sample, the IP address from which the campaign originated from has been tied to several other, similar campaigns from recent months.

Oklahoma State Trooper Pension Fund Stolen

Malicious hackers recently stole more than $4.2 million from the Oklahoma State Trooper’s pension fund, which was to be used to assist roughly 1,500 retired law enforcement agents in the state. While most of the benefits programs should remain unaffected, officials are confident that they will be able to recover the funds, which would also be covered by insurance company if unable to be recovered.

Cyber News Rundown: Deepfake Voice Fraud

Sep 6, 2019 | Industry Intel

Deepfake BEC Scam

A new variant of the well-known BEC scam has implemented a feature that has yet to be used in an email scam: voice fraud. Using an extremely accurate deepfake voice of a company’s CEO, scammers were able to successfully convince another company to wire $250,000 with the promise of a quick return. Unfortunately, that transfer was quickly spread out through a number of countries, leaving investigators with very little clue as to the identity of the scammers.

Yves Rocher Data Leak

The customer databases belonging to French retailer Yves Rocher were found to be publicly available by researchers who discovered the records of over 2.5 million customers. In addition to the personal data, the details for over 6 million transactions, and internal Yves Rocher information were grouped with the exposed database. The internal data could be a major opportunity for any competitors to obtain some crucial footings in the marketplace.

German Mastercard Breach

Officials recently learned of a data breach that was affecting nearly 90,000 German Mastercard holders that are part of their members loyalty program. Nearly half of the exposed email addresses have already been compromised in previous data breaches, according to Have I Been Pwned, though the affected customers should still update their credentials. Fortunately, this breach only affected the loyalty program members rather than the entirety of Mastercard’s world-wide client base.

Ransomware Wave Hits US

Continuing on from a summer full of ransomware attacks on US cities comes a streak of 13 new attacks that range from the East Coast to the West Coast. Sadly, several of the victims have already paid out some portion of the demanded ransoms, with some insurance companies even attempting to negotiate with the attackers for a lower payout. With this streak, the total number of ransomware attacks in the US in 2019 is up to 149, 20% of which involved educational institutions.

UK Travel Agency Breach

A UK-based travel agency has recently fallen victim to a data breach that could affect over 200,000 of their customers. The main leak included audio files for the affected customers confirming travel and payment plans, as the travel firm completes their deals over the phone. The audio files appear to have bene publicly available for a span of nearly 3 years, but quickly secured the sensitive information once they were informed of its current status.

Cyber News Rundown: Social Media Bots Attack

Aug 30, 2019 | Industry Intel

Cybercriminals use Botnets to Launch Attacks on Social Media

According to a new report, more than half of all login attempts on social media sites are fraudulent, and at least 1 in 4 new account creation attempts are also fraudulent. With the sheer number of potential victims these types of sites provide attackers, these strategies are proving to be more and more lucrative. Even more worrisome: at least 10% of all digital handshakes from online purchases to new accounts being created are being made by malicious actors.

Cybercriminals target end users. Learn why businesses need security awareness training.

xHelper Trojan Infects Thousands of Android Devices

A new Trojan has infected over 30,000 devices in a very short time. By disguising itself as a JAR archive, the dropper is able to move quickly through a system, rather than being installed within a bundle as a standard APK. At least two variants of the Trojan have been spotted, one running extremely silently on infected devices while the other does less to hide itself, creating an actual xHelper icon and pushing an increasing number of notifications to the device.

Malicious PDF Scanner App

Researchers recently notified Google of a Trojanized CamScanner app that has been downloaded over 100 million times. The app itself is used to download and launch a malicious payload, after making contact with the attacker’s servers. Fortunately, Google is quick to act when they receive these types of reports, and has already removed the app from the Play Store. This app follows in a long line of high-install malicious apps to hit the Google™ Play Store in the last couple months.

Cable Companies Delay Robocall-Detection Implementation

Following the FCC decision to push out a technology that would allow all telecom companies to implement detections for the excessive number of robo-calls their customers receive every year. Unfortunately, the FCC never made an official deadline, so the lobby groups for the cable companies have been pushing for further delays. Hopefully, more telecom companies will get behind this technology and start helping their customers avoid this kind of harassment.

Hosting Provider Data Breach

A data breach was recently revealed by Hostinger, a hosting provider, which could affect their entire 14-million-strong customer base. Within the last week, the company identified unauthorized access to one of their servers, which contained sensitive customer information. Fortunately, Hostinger resolved the vulnerability quickly and pushed out a mandatory password reset to all affected users.

Cyber News Rundown: Android Adware

Aug 23, 2019 | Industry Intel

Android Apps Riddled with Adware

Another 85 photo and gaming apps have been removed from the Google Play store after they were discovered to have been distributing adware to the roughly 8 million users who had downloaded the fake apps. The adware itself is rather tricky: by sitting dormant on devices for at least 30 minutes to avoid detection, they are then able to display a steady stream of full-screen ads that make users wait through each in its entirety before allowing continued use of the app.

Learn more about mobile security for shopping, banking and browsing.

Texas Hit by Multiple Ransomware Attacks

Several Texas municipalities have fallen victim to a single ransomware campaign affecting at least 22 locations and asking a cumulative ransom of $2.5 million. The state of Texas has been under fire for the past few months, suffering a seemingly endless string of ransomware attacks on local governments. Fortunately, many of the targeted districts have been swift to remediate issues and are already on the path to full system recovery, managing to avoid paying heavy ransoms.

Steam Zero-Days Released After Valve Bans Submitter

A researcher recently found several zero-day vulnerabilities within the Steam API that could allow for local privilege escalation (LPE), which could then allow malware to use the client as a launching point. Unfortunately, Valve decided the bug was outside of its scope of responsibility, locked the report, and refused to investigate it any further, also banning the submitter from the bug bounty program. Eventually, after much negative media coverage, Valve pushed out a patch that was quickly subverted by another workaround. It is unusual for a company with so many active users to blatantly ignore one of Microsoft’s most commonly patched vulnerabilities.

Adult Site Database Exposed

Yet another adult site has fallen victim to poor information security practices after a database containing personally identifiable information belonging to nearly 1 million users was misconfigured and left publicly available. The leak was discovered by researchers who were able to verify a breach and swiftly report it to the site, which took only four days to secure the data. Site users were notified of the breach and are being advised to change login credentials, especially those using work devices or contact details.

Magecart Found in Poker Tracker

The infamous Magecart card-skimming script was recently found loaded into Poker Tracker’s main site, which allows online poker players to make statistics-based betting decisions. It was later revealed that the site was fully injected via an outdated version of Drupal that has since been updated. The attack left the attackers with a copy of every payment made through the site or the app.

Cyber News Rundown: Hookup App Exposes Users

Aug 16, 2019 | Industry Intel

Hookup App Leaks User Locations

Geo-locating and other sensitive data has been leaked from the hookup app 3fun, exposing the information for more than 1.5 million users. While some dating apps using trilateration to find nearby users, 3fun showed location data capable of tracing a user to a specific building or floor. Though users had the option to disable coordinate tracking, that data was nevertheless stored and available through the app’s API. 3fun has since resolved the leak and has hopefully implemented stronger security measures considering the private nature of their client’s activities.

Ransomware Attacks on DSLR Cameras

Malware authors continue to find new victims, as a ransomware variant has been found to be remotely attacking Canon DSLR cameras and demanding a ransom to regain access to the device. Researchers have found multiple vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to perform any number of critical functions on the cameras, including displaying a ransom note and remotely taking pictures with the camera. Fortunately, Canon has already begun issuing patches for some of its affected devices, though it’s taking longer to fully secure others.

Take back your privacy. Learn more about the benefits of a VPN.

Google Drive Exploit Allows Phishing Campaign to Flourish

A new phishing campaign has been discovered that uses a legitimate Google Drive account to launch a phishing campaign that impersonates the CEO asking the victim to open the Google Docs file and navigate to the phishing site’s landing page. Luckily for victims, the campaign has a few tells. The phony CEO email address uses a non-conforming naming convention and the email itself appears to be a hastily compiled template.

British Airways Data Leak

British Airways has again come under scrutiny, this time after it was discovered that their e-ticketing system was leaking sensitive passenger data. The leak stems from flight check-in links that were sent out to customers containing both their surname and booking confirmation numbers completely unencrypted within the URL. Even more worrisome, this type of vulnerability has been well-known since last February when several other airlines were found to have the same issue by the same security firm.

Android Trojan Adds New Functionality

Following in the footsteps of Anubis, an Android banking Trojan for which source code was recently revealed, Cerberus has quickly filled the void without actually borrowing much of that code. One major change is that Cerberus implemented a new method of checking if the device is physically moving or not, in hopes of avoiding detection by both the victim and any researchers who may be analyzing it. Additionally, this variant uses phishing overlays from several popular sites to further collect any login credentials or payment card data.

Cyber News Rundown: Children’s Tablets Show Vulnerabilities

Aug 9, 2019 | Industry Intel

Children’s Tablets Leave Users Vulnerable

At least one LeapPad tablet designed specifically for children has been found to harbor critical vulnerabilities in the app Pet Chat that could allow unauthorized access to online traffic. The vulnerabilities could be used locate the tablet’s owner by creating a temporary WiFi network to help the user connect with other devices in the area. In addition to the remote access, local attackers would be able to send messages to children through non-HTTPS communications.

UK Universities Lacking Security

A recent study found that nearly 65% of the UK’s top universities are currently operating with sub-standard cybersecurity, especially during the time that students would be sitting for final exams. Among the remaining 35% of universities that did have some domain authentication, only 5% of those were using settings that would fully block phishing emails. If UK university students are requesting any login changes, they should be cautious when opening anything they receive, as the message may be compromised.

Intel CPU Patch Issued by Microsoft

Microsoft just released a patch for an Intel CPU vulnerability that was brought to light in 2012. The flaw could have been used to breach memory data from the device. The researchers who discovered it found they could easily leak sensitive kernel memory data into the normal user operations, even though a system normally doesn’t allow this. Additionally, this vulnerability would allow for speculative execution, which is when the system begins executing certain operations pre-emptively, and simply deleting those that don’t occur.

AT&T Employees Bribed to Unlock Phones

Employees of AT&T were found to be illicitly installing hardware onto corporate systems that would allow an attacker to unlock phones that were prevented from being used on other mobile providers. Even though some of the conspirators were eventually fired, many continued to work from within and from outside the company to further compromise nearly 2 million individual devices until the scam, which had been ongoing for more than five years, was discovered.

Mobile Bank Customers’ PINs Exposed

Customers of Monzo, a mobile-only bank in the UK, are being warned to change their PINs after many customers’ were leaked into internal log files. Fortunately, the data wasn’t made available outside of the company and the problem of PINs being stored in an alternate location has been resolved. Even after the company fixed the data leak, though, many customers were still suspicious when receiving an email informing them of the PIN reset issue.