Cyber Bites

Google has developed a tool for Linux machines that combats USB keystroke injection attacks by flagging suspicious keystroke speeds and blocking devices classified as malicious. Keystroke injection attacks can execute malicious commands via a thumb drive connected to a host machine, by running code that mimics keystrokes entered by a human user. Source: Daily Swig

For the past year, one of Russia's top state-sponsored hacking units has spent its time scanning and probing the internet for vulnerable email servers, according to a report published yesterday by cyber-security firm Trend Micro. The report deals with the activities of APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, Sednit, and Pawn Storm. Source: ZD Net

  Security experts recommend using a complex, random and unique password for every online account, but remembering them all would be a challenging task. That’s where password managers come in handy. Encrypted vaults are accessed by a single master password or PIN, and they store and autofill credentials for the user. However, researchers at the University of York have shown that some commercial password managers (depending on the version) may not be a watertight way...

  Privacy advocates advise caution when tracking the movements of patients or those infected with the new coronavirus, as an effort to minimize the pandemic’s effect. Authorities in the United States and Israel are eyeing ways to use mobile-phone and other location-based data to help control the spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19, raising serious privacy concerns about the practice of using and sharing people’s personal data during the time of a global health crisis....

  France's cyber-security agency issued an alert this week warning about a new ransomware gang that's been recently seen targeting the networks of local government authorities. The alert, issued by France's CERT team, points to a rising number of attacks carried out with a new version of the Mespinoza ransomware strain, also known as the Pysa ransomware. Source: ZD Net

The Australian Information Commissioner lodged Federal Court proceedings against the social media giant, Facebook. The Information Commissioner found Facebook guilty of data privacy breach, which was also in conjunction with a breach of the country’s Privacy Act 1988. The breach affected 311,127 Australian Facebook users. If proven guilty, a maximum civil penalty of up to AUD$1,700,000 (approximately US$9,700,00) will be imposed on Facebook for each serious and/or repeated interference with privacy. Source: CISO Mag

Mozilla has announced plans today to remove support for the FTP protocol from Firefox. Going forward, users won't be able to download files via the FTP protocol and view the content of FTP links/folders inside the Firefox browser." We're doing this for security reasons," said Michal Novotny, a software engineer at the Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the Firefox browser. Source: ZD Net

A Florida company that offers guitar lessons online to millions of students around the world has suffered a data breach.Unauthorized access of TrueFire's computer system went on for six months before the breach was detected on January 10, 2020. In a data breach notification letter dated March 9, 2020, and signed by TrueFire Chief Customer Officer Ren Wright, users who made purchases via the website truefire.com between August 3, 2019, and January 14, 2020, were...

Security researchers at Kaspersky recently posted a warning of new Android malware that can steal cookies and gain control of its victims’ accounts. According to researchers, when the two malware modifications are combined, they can be used for stealing cookies collected by social media networking sites, as well as browsers themselves. After that, hackers can gain control of the victims’ accounts and discreetly manipulate what content they are seeing or further infect their system. Source:Beincrypto

A state-sponsored threat actor is attempting to deploy the Crimson Remote Administration Tool (RAT) onto the systems of targets via a spear-phishing campaign using Coronavirus-themed document baits disguised as health advisories. This nation-backed cyber-espionage is suspected to be Pakistan-based and it is currently tracked under multiple names including APT36, Transparent Tribe, ProjectM, Mythic Leopard, and TEMP.Lapis. Source: Bleeping Computer