Sextortion Scams Now Include Photos of Your Home

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2024 15:45:49 +0000

An old but persistent email scam known as “sextortion” has a new personalized touch: The missives, which claim that malware has captured webcam footage of recipients pleasuring themselves, now include a photo of the target’s home in a bid to make threats about publishing the videos more frightening and convincing.

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Owners of 1-Time Passcode Theft Service Plead Guilty

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2024 16:46:35 +0000

Three men in the United Kingdom have pleaded guilty to operating otp[.]agency, a once popular online service that helped attackers intercept the one-time passcodes (OTPs) that many websites require as a second authentication factor in addition to passwords. Launched in November 2019, OTP Agency was a service for intercepting one-time passwords needed to log in to various websites. Scammers would enter the target’s phone number and name, and the service would initiate an automated phone call to the target that alerts them about unauthorized activity on their account.

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Local Networks Go Global When Domain Names Collide

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2024 14:12:31 +0000

The proliferation of new top-level domains (TLDs) has exacerbated a well-known security weakness: Many organizations set up their internal Microsoft authentication systems years ago using domain names in TLDs that didn’t exist at the time. Meaning, they are continuously sending their Windows usernames and passwords to domain names they do not control and which are freely available for anyone to register. Here’s a look at one security researcher’s efforts to map and shrink the size of this insidious problem.

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Don’t Let Your Domain Name Become a “Sitting Duck”

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2024 12:06:45 +0000

More than a million domain names — including many registered by Fortune 100 firms and brand protection companies — are vulnerable to takeover by cybercriminals thanks to authentication weaknesses at a number of large web hosting providers and domain registrars, new research finds.

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Researchers: Weak Security Defaults Enabled Squarespace Domains Hijacks

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2024 15:24:46 +0000

At least a dozen organizations with domain names at domain registrar Squarespace saw their websites hijacked last week. Squarespace bought all assets of Google Domains a year ago, but many customers still haven’t set up their new accounts. Experts say malicious hackers learned they could commandeer any migrated Squarespace accounts that hadn’t yet been registered, merely by supplying an email address tied to an existing domain.

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The Stark Truth Behind the Resurgence of Russia’s Fin7

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:22:59 +0000

The Russia-based cybercrime group dubbed “Fin7,” known for phishing and malware attacks that have cost victim organizations an estimated $3 billion in losses since 2013, was declared dead last year by U.S. authorities. But experts say Fin7 has roared back to life in 2024 — setting up thousands of websites mimicking a range of media and technology companies — with the help of Stark Industries Solutions, a sprawling hosting provider is a persistent source of cyberattacks against enemies of Russia.

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Alleged Boss of ‘Scattered Spider’ Hacking Group Arrested

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2024 23:40:20 +0000

A 22-year-old man from the United Kingdom arrested this week in Spain is allegedly the ringleader of Scattered Spider, a cybercrime group suspected of hacking into Twilio, LastPass, DoorDash, Mailchimp, and nearly 130 other organizations over the past two years.

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Why Your VPN May Not Be As Secure As It Claims

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Mon, 06 May 2024 14:24:47 +0000

Virtual private networking (VPN) companies market their services as a way to prevent anyone from snooping on your Internet usage. But new research suggests this is a dangerous assumption when connecting to a VPN via an untrusted network, because attackers on the same network could force a target’s traffic off of the protection provided by their VPN without triggering any alerts to the user.

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Russian FSB Counterintelligence Chief Gets 9 Years in Cybercrime Bribery Scheme

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2024 20:07:56 +0000

The head of counterintelligence for a division of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) was sentenced last week to nine years in a penal colony for accepting a USD $1.7 million bribe to ignore the activities of a prolific Russian cybercrime group that hacked thousands of e-commerce websites. The protection scheme was exposed in 2022 when Russian authorities arrested six members of the group, which sold millions of stolen payment cards at flashy online shops like Trump’s Dumps.

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