Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) An international cast of law enforcement agencies has struck a blow at a cybercrime linchpin that’s as obscure as it is instrumental in the mass-infection of devices: so-called droppers, the sneaky software that’s used to install ransomware, spyware, and all manner of other …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) One day last October, subscribers to an ISP known as Windstream began flooding message boards with reports their routers had suddenly stopped working and remained unresponsive to reboots and all other attempts to revive them. “The routers now just sit there with a steady red …

Enlarge (credit: Flavio Coelho/Getty Images) Two years ago when “Michael,” an owner of cryptocurrency, contacted Joe Grand to help recover access to about $2 million worth of bitcoin he stored in encrypted format on his computer, Grand turned him down. Michael, who is based in Europe and asked …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) The US Treasury Department has sanctioned three Chinese nationals for their involvement in a VPN-powered botnet with more than 19 million residential IP addresses they rented out to cybercriminals to obfuscate their illegal activities, including COVID-19 aid scams and bomb threats. The criminal enterprise, the …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) A previously unknown piece of ransomware, dubbed ShrinkLocker, encrypts victim data using the BitLocker feature built into the Windows operating system. BitLocker is a full-volume encryptor that debuted in 2007 with the release of Windows Vista. Users employ it to encrypt entire hard drives to …

Enlarge (credit: JAVS) A software maker serving more than 10,000 courtrooms throughout the world hosted an application update containing a hidden backdoor that maintained persistent communication with a malicious website, researchers reported Thursday, in the latest episode of a supply-chain attack. The software, known as the JAVS Viewer …

Enlarge For more than four days, a server at the very core of the Internet’s domain name system was out of sync with its 12 root server peers due to an unexplained glitch that could have caused stability and security problems worldwide. This server, maintained by Internet carrier …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Malware recently spotted in the wild uses sophisticated measures to disable antivirus protections, destroy evidence of infection, and permanently infect machines with cryptocurrency-mining software, researchers said Tuesday. Key to making the unusually complex system of malware operate is a function in the main payload, named …

Enlarge (credit: Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images ) The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will require some financial institutions to disclose security breaches within 30 days of learning about them. On Wednesday, the SEC adopted changes to Regulation S-P, which governs the treatment of the personal information of consumers. Under the …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | the-lightwriter) An Arizona woman has been accused of helping generate millions of dollars for North Korea’s ballistic missile program by helping citizens of that country land IT jobs at US-based Fortune 500 companies. Christina Marie Chapman, 49, of Litchfield Park, Arizona, raised $6.8 …

Enlarge / The front page of BreachForums. The FBI and law enforcement partners worldwide have seized BreachForums, a website that openly trafficked malware and data stolen in hacks. The site has operated for years as an online trading post where criminals could buy and sell all kinds of compromised data …

Enlarge (credit: BeeBright / Getty Images / iStockphoto ) Infrastructure used to maintain and distribute the Linux operating system kernel was infected for two years, starting in 2009, by sophisticated malware that managed to get a hold of one of the developers’ most closely guarded resources: the /etc/shadow files that stored …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Federal agencies, health care associations, and security researchers are warning that a ransomware group tracked under the name Black Basta is ravaging critical infrastructure sectors in attacks that have targeted more than 500 organizations in the past two years. One of the latest casualties of …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) Google has updated its Chrome browser to patch a high-severity zero-day vulnerability that allows attackers to execute malicious code on end user devices. The fix marks the fifth time this year the company has updated the browser to protect users from an existing malicious exploit …

Enlarge (credit: Getty ) For years, Dell customers have been on the receiving end of scam calls from people claiming to be part of the computer maker’s support team. The scammers call from a valid Dell phone number, know the customer's name and address, and use information that should …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Researchers on Wednesday reported critical vulnerabilities in a widely used networking appliance that leaves some of the world’s biggest networks open to intrusion. The vulnerabilities reside in BIG-IP Next Central Manager, a component in the latest generation of the BIG-IP line of appliances, which …

Enlarge / Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev, aka LockBitSupp (credit: UK National Crime Agency) Since at least 2019, a shadowy figure hiding behind several pseudonyms has publicly gloated for extorting millions of dollars from thousands of victims he and his associates had hacked. Now, for the first time, “LockBitSupp” has been unmasked …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Researchers have devised an attack against nearly all virtual private network applications that forces them to send and receive some or all traffic outside of the encrypted tunnel designed to protect it from snooping or tampering. TunnelVision, as the researchers have named their attack, largely …

Enlarge (credit: Kuzmik_A/Getty Images ) Most scammers and cybercriminals operate in the digital shadows and don’t want you to know how they make money. But that’s not the case for the Yahoo Boys, a loose collective of young men in West Africa who are some of the …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Translating numerical IP addresses into human-readable domain names has long been fraught with gaping security risks. After all, lookups are rarely end-to-end encrypted. The servers providing domain name lookups provide translations for virtually any IP address—even when they’re known to be malicious. And …

Enlarge A maximum severity vulnerability that allows hackers to hijack GitLab accounts with no user interaction required is now under active exploitation, federal government officials warned as data showed that thousands of users had yet to install a patch released in January. A change GitLab implemented in May 2023 …

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Ars Technica ) Cybercriminals and spies working for nation-states are surreptitiously coexisting inside compromised name-brand routers as they use the devices to disguise attacks motivated both by financial gain and strategic espionage, researchers said. In some cases, the coexistence is peaceful, as financially motivated hackers provide …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Change Healthcare, the health care services provider that recently experienced a ransomware attack that hamstrung the US prescription market for two weeks, was hacked through a compromised account that failed to use multifactor authentication, the company CEO told members of Congress. The February 21 attack …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) If you build a gadget that connects to the Internet and sell it in the United Kingdom, you can no longer make the default password "password." In fact, you're not supposed to have default passwords at all. A new version of the 2022 Product Security …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Authentication service Okta is warning about the “unprecedented scale” of an ongoing campaign that routes fraudulent login requests through the mobile devices and browsers of everyday users in an attempt to conceal the malicious behavior. The attack, Okta said, uses other means to camouflage the …