Cyber Bites

Attackers over the past month have been using a rarely seen approach to disrupt services at large organizations in several countries. Cybercriminals appear to have finally figured out a way to launch highly effective distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks using TCP amplification — something most attackers have typically avoided under the assumption it cannot be done efficiently. Source: Dark Reading

The November Patch Tuesday update fixed 13 critical flaws, including a zero-day bug in Internet Explorer. Patch Tuesday is back once again, bringing with it 74 security fixes, 61 of which are classified as Important and 13 as Critical, including one Internet Explorer bug under active attack. Source: Dark Reading

A cloud infrastructure provider in Iran found itself at the receiving end of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack through MTProxy servers that Telegram users in the country rely on to avoid government-enforced internet restrictions. As Telegram continues to be banned in Iran, users in this country route their messenger communication through MTProxy servers, which make the traffic look random through encryption. This makes restricting it difficult, allowing servers to fulfill their anti-censorship purpose. Source: Bleeping Computer

Mexico's state-owned oil company, Pemex, has suffered a DoppelPaymer ransomware attack that demanded $4.9 million USD in order to decrypt their files.  On Sunday, November 10th, Pemex was hit with a ransomware attack that the company states affected less than 5% of their computers. Workers reported, though, that internal memos told them not to initially turn on their computers, but were up and running again later in the day on Monday. Source: Bleeping Computer

Google and health care provider organization Ascension have publicly confirmed a recent report that the two companies have embarked on a massive initiative to aggregate the data of roughly 50 million patients and store it on the cloud. The companies say it will improve patient care and administration, but the strategy has also sparked concern among certain consumer advocates, cybersecurity experts and reportedly some Ascension employees — especially because neither patients nor doctors had been...

A public early beta preview of the semi-tethered checkra1n iOS jailbreak based on the iOS Checkm8 exploit developed by security researcher Axi0mX in September was released over the weekend. Source: Bleeping Computer

Researchers recently uncovered 49 adware-laced Android apps that were downloaded from the Google Play store more than 3 million times, collectively, before they were reportedly removed. Many of the apps were disguised as games, video editors and stylized photo and filter programs. Sample titles included Cut Out Studio Pro, Tattoo Maker, Bubble Effect, CLOWN MASK, Magazine Cover Studio and Music Video Maker. Source: SC Magazine

OpenText has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Carbonite for $1.42 billion. The deal has OpenText paying $23 per share in cash for Carbonite. Steve Munford, Interim CEO, President/executive Chairman of the Board of Carbonite, said multiple parties had expressed interest in buying his firm. Source: SC Magazine

SmartASP.net reported it was hit with a ransomware attack over the weekend that encrypted and knocked offline many of the hosting services customer accounts. For many SmarterASP.net’s customers their first indication something was wrong was when they were presented with a note from the company stating an attack was taking place and efforts were being made to rectify the situation. The company says it 440,516 customers but it did not indicate how many were affected...

A vulnerability in Amazon's Ring doorbell cameras would have allowed a local attacker to gain access to a target's entire wireless network A vulnerability in Amazon’s Ring Video Doorbell Pro IoT device could have allowed a nearby attacker to imitate a disconnected device and then sniff the credentials of the wireless networks when the owner reconfigured the device, according to a report issued by security firm Bitdefender. Source: Dark Reading