News

Cybercriminals continue to seed app stores with malicious apps, advanced attackers successfully compromise mobile devices, and advertisers continue to track users, new reports show. The ubiquity of mobile devices continues to attract attackers as malicious apps have surged 20% across third-party app stores, advertisers and tracking firms account for nine of 10 API calls for top mobile applications, and nation-state actors increasingly target mobile devices, according to a trio of reports released this week. Source: Dark...

By Stuart Sharp, VP of solution engineering at OneLogin According to predictions from the Office of National Statistics, 50% of the UK workforce is expected to be working remotely by 2020. Many organisations have been preparing for this eventuality for many years, as can be seen from the increased uptake of ‘working from home policies’. This is no surprise considering the advancements in technology and the growing expectation of flexible working hours from the modern...

A hacker admitted to planting hardware keyloggers on computers belonging to two companies to get unauthorized to their networks and steal proprietary data. He now faces 12 years of prison time. It appears that the individual was after data relating to an "emerging technology" that both targeted companies were developing. Source: Bleeping Computer

A new malware is targeting Discord users by modifying the Windows Discord client so that it is transformed into a backdoor and an information-stealing Trojan. The Windows Discord client is an Electron application, which means that almost all of its functionality is derived from HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This allows malware to modify its core files so that the client executes malicious behavior on startup. Source: Bleeping Computer

Kalispell Regional Healthcare (KRH) just reported a cyberattack that took place in late August and exposed patients’ health information. The Kalispell, Mont. facility had several employees fall for a phishing email scam, resulting in the attackers gaining the login credentials to KRH’s system, the hospital said in a statement. Source: SC Magazine

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today alerted consumers about the risk of mobile spyware that surreptitiously "stalks" smartphone users, snooping on call history, text messages, photos, GPS location, and browsing history. The warning comes the heels of the FTC's settlement this week with app firm Retina-X Studios LLC, which sold apps called MobileSpy, PhoneSheriff, and TeenShield that could be used as "stalking apps" or "stalkerware," the agency said. The FTC said Retina-X failed to ensure...

A Texas man was sentenced today to 145 months in federal prison for hacking the Los Angeles Superior Court (LASC) computer system and using its servers to deliver around 2 million malspam emails. 33-year-old Oriyomi Sadiq Aloba "was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 15 counts of wire fraud, one count of attempted wire fraud, one count of unauthorized impairment of a protected computer, five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain...

Britain's cyber-defence centre has thwarted more than one million cases of suspected payment card fraud in the last year, its annual review reveals. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said a dedicated anti-fraud effort stopped the cards being abused. It said it had stopped more than 1,800 cyber-attacks aimed at UK citizens and businesses in its first three years. Source: BBC

Three people, part of a Business Email Compromise (BEC) scammer group that stole roughly €10.7 million ($11,900,000) from 12 companies, were arrested in Spain by the Guardia Civil as part of Operation Lavanco. BEC (otherwise known as Email Account Compromise, CEO fraud, or CEO impersonation) fraud schemes are scams that allow crooks to trick a company's employees to wire out funds to attacker-controlled bank accounts they control via computer intrusion or by using social engineering. Source: Bleeping Computer

Japanese hotel chain HIS Group has apologised for ignoring warnings that its in-room robots were hackable to allow pervs to remotely view video footage from the devices. The Henn na Hotel is staffed by robots: guests can be checked in by humanoid or dinosaur reception bots before proceeding to their room. Source: The Register