Top 10 Stories

Hilton hotels' HHonors loyalty program has shipped an email so similar to a phishing email it tricked its own IT shop into advising that it was a scam. The email was an attempt to get customers to confirm their contact details by logging into their accounts and revising their stored contact details. One user reported the apparent scam to Hilton HHonors through Twitter and was advised that the email was a phoul phish. It is one example...

One of the most active Trojans this year has changed tactics and now installing backdoors on target machines instead of ransomware. Nemucod was used in several large campaigns in 2016, having reached a 24 per cent share on global malware detections in March this year, according to the firm. In the past, Nemucod payloads were primarily ransomware families, most frequently Locky or the now-discontinued TeslaCrypt. But now it has changed to serve up a backdoor....

More than 2,000 leaked incident reports from Australia’s detention camp for asylum seekers on the remote Pacific island of Nauru – totalling more than 8,000 pages – are published by the Guardian today. The Nauru files set out as never before the assaults, sexual abuse, self-harm attempts, child abuse and living conditions endured by asylum seekers held by the Australian government, painting a picture of routine dysfunction and cruelty. The Guardian’s analysis of the files reveal that...

A Russian cyberattack that targeted Democratic politicians was bigger than it first appeared and breached the private email accounts of more than 100 party officials and groups, officials with knowledge of the case said Wednesday. The widening scope of the attack has prompted the F.B.I. to broaden its investigation, and agents have begun notifying a long list of Democratic officials that the Russians may have breached their personal accounts. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: NY...

Cybersecurity firm Symantec has unearthed a new scam campaign targeting Instagram users. According to the company’s research, affected profiles have been altered with sexually suggestive imagery to lure users to adult dating and porn spam. These recent findings bear a resemblance to those from a previous report which discovered that more than 2500 Twitter accounts had been compromised to tweet links to similarly explicit content, although Symantec has not established a direct link between the two...

Apple has argued that allowing banks to use iPhone NFC chips independently of Apple Pay would compromise the phones' security. The argument has been aired in Apple's response to the four Australia Banks who have requested permission to negotiate with Apple as a bloc rather than join Apple Pay. The banks want their own apps to be able to use iPhones' wireless payment parts and to get a slice of the cut Apple takes on each Apple...

A previously unknown hacking group variously dubbed "Strider" or "ProjectSauron" has carried out cyber-espionage attacks against select targets in Russia, China, Iran, Sweden, Belgium and Rwanda, security researchers said on Monday. The group, which has been active since at least 2011 and could have links to a national intelligence agency, uses Remsec, an advanced piece of hidden malware, Symantec researchers said in a blog post (symc.ly/2aTHoOm). Remsec spyware lives within an organization's network rather than...

Free airline Fast Track for all! Free lunch and booze at luxury airport lounges for all! Duty-free shopping for all! That’s what a fake QR code generating app can get you, according to Przemek Jaroszewski, head of Poland’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). At the Defcon security conference in Las Vegas on Sunday, Jaroszewski presented the simple program that he’s now used dozens of times to get into airline lounges all over Europe.   Original...

A new cat-themed ransomware found to be targeting Android users has been uncovered. The hackers behind the ransomware use a seemingly innocent and cute image of a cat, which appears when an infected device has been remotely locked. The ransomware is also capable of allowing hackers to steal SMS messages, encrypt victims' files and block access to the phones. Dubbed El Gato by McAfee Labs security researchers, the ransomware was also discovered to have botnet...

The Australian census website was shut down by what authorities said was a series of deliberate attacks from overseas hackers. Millions of Australians were prevented from taking part in the national survey on Tuesday night. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) had boasted only hours before that its website would not crash. The prime minister assured the public that their personal information was not compromised. Original Source: BBC View the full story here.