Showing only posts in Ars Technica. Show all posts.

Millions of WordPress sites get forced update to patch critical plugin flaw

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Millions of WordPress sites have received a forced update over the past day to fix a critical vulnerability in a plugin called UpdraftPlus. The mandatory patch came at the request of UpdraftPlus developers because of the severity of the vulnerability, which allows untrusted subscribers, customers …

Researchers find threat group that has been active for 5 years

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Enlarge / Warning: Data transfer in progress (credit: Yuri_Arcurs/Getty Images) Researchers on Tuesday revealed a new threat actor that over the past five years has blasted thousands of organizations with an almost endless stream of malicious messages designed to infect systems with data-stealing malware. TA2541, as security firm Proofpoint …

How $323M in crypto was stolen from a blockchain bridge called Wormhole

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Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) This is a story about how a simple software bug allowed the fourth-biggest cryptocurrency theft ever. Hackers stole more than $323 million in cryptocurrency by exploiting a vulnerability in Wormhole, a Web-based service that allows inter-blockchain transactions. Wormhole lets people move digital coins …

Mac malware spreading for ~14 months installs backdoor on infected systems

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) Mac malware known as UpdateAgent has been spreading for more than a year, and it is growing increasingly malevolent as its developers add new bells and whistles. The additions include the pushing of an aggressive second-stage adware payload that installs a persistent backdoor on infected …

Android malware can factory-reset phones after draining bank accounts

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) A banking-fraud trojan that has been targeting Android users for three years has been updated to create even more grief. Besides draining bank accounts, the trojan can now activate a kill switch that performs a factory reset and wipes infected devices clean. Brata was first …

Booby-trapped sites delivered potent new backdoor trojan to macOS users

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) Researchers have uncovered advanced, never-before-seen macOS malware that was installed using exploits that were almost impossible for most users to detect or stop once the users landed on a malicious website. The malware was a full-featured backdoor that was written from scratch, an indication that …

Supply chain attack used legitimate WordPress add-ons to backdoor sites

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Dozens of legitimate WordPress add-ons downloaded from their original sources have been found backdoored through a supply chain attack, researchers said. The backdoor has been found on “quite a few” sites running the open source content management system. The backdoor gave the attackers full administrative …

Red Cross implores hackers not to leak data for 515k “highly vulnerable people”

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) The Red Cross on Wednesday pleaded with the threat actors behind a cyberattack that stole the personal data of about 515,000 people who used a program that works to reunite family members separated by conflict, disaster or migration. "While we don't know who is …

Safari and iOS users: Your browsing activity is being leaked in real time

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) For the past four months, Apple’s iOS and iPadOS devices and Safari browser have violated one of the Internet’s most sacrosanct security policies. The violation results from a bug that leaks user identities and browsing activity in real time. The same-origin policy is …

North Korean hackers stole nearly $400 million in crypto last year

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Enlarge The past year saw a breathtaking rise in the value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, with Bitcoin gaining 60 percent in value in 2021 and Ethereum spiking 80 percent. So perhaps it's no surprise that the relentless North Korean hackers who feed off that booming crypto economy …

Backdoor for Windows, macOS, and Linux went undetected until now

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Enlarge (credit: Jeremy Brooks / Flickr ) Researchers have uncovered a never-before-seen backdoor written from scratch for systems running Windows, macOS, or Linux that remained undetected by virtually all malware scanning engines. Researchers from security firm Intezer said they discovered SysJoker—the name they gave the backdoor—on the Linux-based Webserver …

Backdoor RAT for Windows, macOS, and Linux went undetected until now

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Enlarge (credit: Jeremy Brooks / Flickr ) Researchers have uncovered a never-before-seen backdoor malware written from scratch for systems running Windows, macOS, or Linux that remained undetected by virtually all malware scanning engines. Researchers from security firm Intezer said they discovered SysJoker—the name they gave the backdoor malware—on the …

North Korean hackers stole nearly $400 million in crypto last year

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Enlarge The past year saw a breathtaking rise in the value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, with Bitcoin gaining 60 percent in value in 2021 and Ethereum spiking 80 percent. So perhaps it's no surprise that the relentless North Korean hackers who feed off that booming crypto economy …

Ukraine says government websites hit by “massive cyber attack”

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Enlarge / A Ukrainian Military Forces serviceman watches through a spyglass in a trench on the frontline with Russia-backed separatists near Avdiivka, southeastern Ukraine, on January 9, 2022. (credit: Anatolii Stepanov | Getty Images) Ukraine said it was the target of a “massive cyber attack” after about 70 government websites ceased …

Coming to a laptop near you: A new type of security chip from Microsoft

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Enlarge (credit: Lenovo ) In November 2020, Microsoft unveiled Pluton, a security processor that the company designed to thwart some of the most sophisticated types of hack attacks. On Tuesday, AMD said it would integrate the chip into its upcoming Ryzen CPUs for use in Lenovo's ThinkPad Z Series of …

The secret Uganda deal that has brought NSO to the brink of collapse

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Enlarge / A man walks by the building entrance of Israeli cyber company NSO Group at one of its branches in the Arava Desert on November 11, 2021, in Sapir, Israel. (credit: Amir Levy | Getty Images) In February 2019, an Israeli woman sat across from the son of Uganda’s …

Google Play app with 500,000 downloads sent user contacts to Russian server

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) An Android app with more than 500,000 downloads from Google Play has been caught hosting malware that surreptitiously sends users’ contacts to an attacker-controlled server and signs up users to pricey subscriptions, a security firm reported. The app, named Color Message, was still available …

Backdoor gives hackers complete control over federal agency network

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Enlarge (credit: Jeremy Brooks / Flickr ) A US federal agency has been hosting a backdoor that can provide total visibility into and complete control over the agency network, and the researchers who discovered it have been unable to engage with the administrators responsible, security firm Avast said on Thursday. The …

Hackers launch over 840,000 attacks through Log4J flaw

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Enlarge (credit: Matejmo | Getty Images) Hackers including Chinese state-backed groups have launched more than 840,000 attacks on companies globally since last Friday, according to researchers, through a previously unnoticed vulnerability in a widely used piece of open-source software called Log4J. Cyber security group Check Point said the attacks …

Malicious NPM packages are part of a malware “barrage” hitting repositories

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) Researchers have found another 17 malicious packages in an open source repository, as the use of such repositories to spread malware continues to flourish. This time, the malicious code was found in NPM, where 11 million developers trade more than 1 million packages among each …

iPhones of US diplomats hacked using “0-click” exploits from embattled NSO

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) The iPhones of nine US State Department officials were infected by powerful and stealthy malware developed by NSO Group, the Israeli exploit seller that has come under increasing scrutiny for selling its wares to customers who in turn use it to spy on journalists, lawyers …

Really stupid “smart contract” bug let hackers steal $31 million in digital coin

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) Blockchain startup MonoX Finance said on Wednesday that a hacker stole $31 million by exploiting a bug in software the service uses to draft smart contracts. The company uses a decentralized finance protocol known as MonoX that lets users trade digital currency tokens without some …

Thousands of AT&T customers in the US infected by new data-stealing malware

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Thousands of networking devices belonging to AT&T Internet subscribers in the US have been infected with newly discovered malware that allows the devices to be used in denial-of-service attacks and attacks on internal networks, researchers said on Tuesday. The device model under attack is …

Google Play apps downloaded 300,000 times stole bank credentials

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) Researchers said they’ve discovered a batch of apps downloaded from Google Play more than 300,000 times before the apps were revealed to be banking trojans that surreptitiously siphoned user passwords and two-factor authentication codes, logged keystrokes, and took screenshots. The apps—posing as …

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