Security

Ransomware attackers could turn a key Windows security tool against the system, according to new research. The tactic could also evade leading security tools.

The research from SafeBreach Labs covered "EFS", otherwise known as Encrypting File System. EFS was released as far back as Windows 2000 (in the year 2000), and is somewhat similar to Bitlocker. The main difference between the two is that Bitlocker can encrypt an entire volume, while EFS can encrypt individual files and folders.

Chinese hackers have used a zero-day in the Trend Micro OfficeScan antivirus during their attacks on Mitsubishi Electric, ZDNet has learned from sources close to the investigation.

Trend Micro has now patched the vulnerability, but the company did not comment if the zero-day was used in other attacks beyond Mitsubishi Electric. News of the Mitsubishi Electric hack became public on Monday, this week. In a press release published on its website, the Japanese electronics vendor and defense contractor said it was hacked last year.

Almost two years have passed since the appearance of Shlayer, a piece of Mac malware that gets installed by tricking targets into installing fake Adobe Flash updates. It usually does so after promising pirated videos, which are also fake. The lure may be trite and easy to spot, but Shlayer continues to be common—so much so that it’s the number one threat encountered by users of Kaspersky Labs’ antivirus programs for macOS.

More than 2,000 WordPress sites have been infected with malicious JavaScript that redirects visitors to scam websites and sets the stage for additional malware to be downloaded at a later time.

The Sucuri team said access is gained to WordPress sites through plugin vulnerabilities, including Simple Fields and CP Contact Form with PayPal. A large uptick in this activity was picked up during the third week of January.

Microsoft disclosed today a security breach that took place last month in December 2019.

In a blog post today, the OS maker said that an internal customer support database that was storing anonymized user analytics was accidentally exposed online without proper protections between December 5 and December 31.

A UN report published Wednesday places a secretive, billion-dollar Israeli spyware company at the center of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s alleged hack of Jeff Bezos’ personal phone.

The UN report found that Crown Prince Mohammed and Bezos exchanged messages on WhatsApp in spring 2018, before Crown Prince Mohammed sent Bezos a malicious video file, after which Bezos’ phone started transmitting a huge amount of data. The report’s authors called for an “immediate investigation by US and other relevant authorities.”

It's like a plot from a bad thriller: a forensic analysis paid for by Jeff Bezos found that his cell phone coughed up massive amounts of personal information within hours of receiving a WhatsApp-attached video file sent by the future king of Saudi Arabia, the Guardian and the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

On November 8, 2018, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos received an unexpected text message over WhatsApp from Saudi Arabian leader Mohammed bin Salman. The two had exchanged numbers several months prior, in April, at a small dinner in Los Angeles, but weren’t in regular contact; Bezos had previously received only a video file from the crown prince in May that reportedly extolled Saudi Arabia’s economy. The November text had an attachment as well: an image of a woman who looked like Lauren Sanchez, with whom Bezos had been having an unreported affair.

A hacker posted a trove of Telnet credentials for more than 515,000 servers, IoT devices and routers on a hacking forum.

The leaked lists, dated October and November of last year, were published by someone who runs a DDoS-for-hire service and include usernames, passwords and IP addresses, according to a report by ZDNet. The hacker, the report said, scanned the internet to find devices with exposed Telnet ports then ran factory-set credentials and as well as custom password combinations to build bot lists that let hackers access the devices and install malware.

In a lab in New York City, two computers generate random numbers in an effort to guess the passcodes that keep smartphones seized by crime suspects locked down. The challenge is daunting, but not impossible if you can circumvent Apple's limits on attempts. A four-digit key has 10,000 possible combinations, whereas a six-digit key has one million.