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The Hack_Right program aiming to help young hackers avoid cybercrime and use their skills for good has received a pledge of support from about 20 companies. The program is intended for young individuals that received a conviction for cybercriminal activity for the first time. It is an alternative to the traditional punishment process or an addition to it. Source: Bleeping Computer

Marriott International notified some of its associates of an incident that exposed their social security numbers (SSNs) to an unknown party. An unknown individual may have accessed the information from the network of an unnamed vendor that was acting as the hotel's agent for receiving service of official documents. Source: Bleeping computer

The Emotet Trojan is celebrating Halloween by pushing out new spam templates that want to invite you to a neighborhood party. While these emails promise you a treat, in reality Emotet is tricking you into installing an infection. For those not familiar with Emotet, it is a malware infection that is spread through spam emails containing malicious documents. These documents install the Emotet Trojan on the victim's computer, which then installs other malware and uses the...

Researchers detect an updated Gafgyt variant that targets flaws in small office and home wireless routers from Zyxel, Huawei, and Realtek. A newly discovered variant of the Gafgyt Internet of Things (IoT) botnet is attempting to infect connected devices, specifically small office and home wireless routers from brands that include Zyxel, Huawei, and Realtek. Source: Dark Reading

APT41's new campaign is latest to highlight trend by Chinese threat groups to attack upstream service providers as a way to reach its intended targets, FireEye says. APT41, a Chinese hacking group known for its prolific state-sponsored espionage campaigns, has begun targeting telecommunications companies with new malware designed to monitor and save SMS traffic from phones belonging to individuals of interest to the government. Source: Dark Reading

The attack early in the morning of October 29 has taken all of the school district's systems offline. A ransomware attack against Las Cruces, New Mexico's public school system has shut down computers and networks across the district. School district IT teams reportedly reacted quickly, shutting down all computers immediately after detecting the attack at 0700 on October 29. According to the district, no student data is believed to have been compromised. Source: Dark Reading

In a report for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, Bed Bath & Beyond retailer disclosed that an unauthorized party obtained login information for some of its customers. Details about the breach are scarce but the company says that it affected a small number of online accounts. Source: Bleeping Computer

Attackers have targeted precision companies in Italy with phishing that is difficult to spot. The final payload is a fileless trojan that harvests credentials. The campaign used a legitimate-looking Microsoft Excel spreadsheet embedded with exploit code that moves silently to infect the computer. Source: Bleeping Computer

There has been a surge in activity surrounding the Xhelper Android ad dropper, with more than 45,000 devices being infected since the malware made its first appearance six months ago. In the past month an average of 131 devices were infected each day, with about 2,400 devices persistently infected throughout the month. The malware mostly hits users in India, the U.S. and Russia. Source: SC Magazine

Messaging app WhatsApp has said Indian journalists and activists are among some 1,400 people worldwide who were targeted with Israeli-made spyware. WhatsApp filed a lawsuit against NSO Group on Wednesday, alleging it was behind cyber-attacks that infected devices in April and May. The Israeli company, which makes software for surveillance, has strongly disputed the allegations. India has 400 million WhatsApp users, making the country its biggest market. Source: BBC