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NSO claims 'more than 5' EU states use Pegasus spyware

And it's like, what ... 12, 13,000 total targets a year max, exec says

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Fri 24 Jun 2022 // 06:22 UTC

NSO Group told European lawmakers this week that "under 50" customers use its notorious Pegasus spyware, though these customers include "more than five" European Union member states.
The surveillance-ware maker's General Counsel Chaim Gelfand refused to answer specific questions about the company's customers during a European Parliament committee meeting on Thursday.
Instead, he frequently repeated the company line that NSO exclusively sells its spyware to government agencies — not private companies or individuals — and only "for the purpose of preventing and investigating terrorism and other serious crimes."

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Google: How we tackled this iPhone, Android spyware

Watching people's every move and collecting their info – not on our watch, says web ads giant

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Fri 24 Jun 2022 // 10:46 UTC

Spyware developed by Italian firm RCS Labs was used to target cellphones in Italy and Kazakhstan — in some cases with an assist from the victims' cellular network providers, according to Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG).
RCS Labs customers include law-enforcement agencies worldwide, according to the vendor's website. It's one of more than 30 outfits Google researchers are tracking that sell exploits or surveillance capabilities to government-backed groups. And we're told this particular spyware runs on both iOS and Android phones.
We understand this particular campaign of espionage involving RCS's spyware was documented last week by Lookout, which dubbed the toolkit "Hermit." We're told it is potentially capable of spying on the victims' chat apps, camera and microphone, contacts book and calendars, browser, and clipboard, and beam that info back to base. It's said that Italian authorities have used this tool in tackling corruption cases, and the Kazakh government has had its hands on it, too.

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Emotet malware gang re-emerges with Chrome-based credit card heistware

Crimeware groups are re-inventing themselves

Jeff Burt Fri 10 Jun 2022 // 07:57 UTC

The criminals behind the Emotet botnet – which rose to fame as a banking trojan before evolving into spamming and malware delivery – are now using it to target credit card information stored in the Chrome web browser.
Once the data – including the user's name, the card's numbers and expiration information – is exfiltrated, the malware will send it to command-and-control (C2) servers that are different than the one that the card stealer module uses, according to researchers with cybersecurity vendor Proofpoint's Threat Insight team.
The new card information module is the latest illustration of Emotet's Lazarus-like return. It's been more than a year since Europol and law enforcement from countries including the United States, the UK and Ukraine tore down the Emotet actors' infrastructure in January 2021 and – they hoped – put the malware threat to rest.

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HelloXD ransomware bulked up with better encryption, nastier payload

Russian-based group doubles the extortion by exfiltrating the corporate data before encrypting it.

Jeff Burt Mon 13 Jun 2022 // 17:30 UTC

Windows and Linux systems are coming under attack by new variants of the HelloXD ransomware that includes stronger encryption, improved obfuscation and an additional payload that enables threat groups to modify compromised systems, exfiltrate files and execute commands.
The new capabilities make the ransomware, first detected in November 2021 - and the developer behind it even more dangerous - according to researchers with Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence group. Unit 42 said the HelloXD ransomware family is in its initial stages but it's working to track down the author.
"While the ransomware functionality is nothing new, during our research, following the lines, we found out the ransomware is most likely developed by a threat actor named x4k," the researchers wrote in a blog post.

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Microsoft Defender goes cross-platform for the masses

Redmond's security brand extended to multiple devices without stomping on other solutions

Richard Speed Fri 17 Jun 2022 // 15:30 UTC

Microsoft is extending the Defender brand with a version aimed at families and individuals.
"Defender" has been the company's name of choice for its anti-malware platform for years. Microsoft Defender for individuals, available for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers, is a cross-platform application, encompassing macOS, iOS, and Android devices and extending "the protection already built into Windows Security beyond your PC."
The system comprises a dashboard showing the status of linked devices as well as alerts and suggestions.

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Symbiote Linux malware spotted – and infections are 'very hard to detect'

Performing live forensics on hijacked machine may not turn anything up, warn researchers

Brandon Vigliarolo Fri 10 Jun 2022 // 14:50 UTC

Intezer security researcher Joakim Kennedy and the BlackBerry Threat Research and Intelligence Team have analyzed an unusual piece of Linux malware they say is unlike most seen before - it isn't a standalone executable file.
Dubbed Symbiote, the badware instead hijacks the environment variable (LD_PRELOAD) the dynamic linker uses to load a shared object library and soon infects every single running process.
The Intezer/BlackBerry team discovered Symbiote in November 2021, and said it appeared to have been written to target financial institutions in Latin America. Analysis of the Symbiote malware and its behavior suggest it may have been developed in Brazil.

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AMD targeted by RansomHouse, attackers claim to have '450Gb' in stolen data

Relative cybercrime newbies not clear on whether they're alleging to have gigabits or gigabytes of chip biz files

Jeff Burt Tue 28 Jun 2022 // 14:01 UTC

If claims hold true, AMD has been targeted by the extortion group RansomHouse, which says it is sitting on a trove of data stolen from the processor designer following an alleged security breach earlier this year.
RansomHouse says it obtained the files from an intrusion into AMD's network on January 5, 2022, and that this isn't material from a previous leak of its intellectual property.
This relatively new crew also says it doesn't breach the security of systems itself, nor develop or use ransomware. Instead, it acts as a "mediator" between attackers and victims to ensure payment is made for purloined data.

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Europol arrests nine suspected of stealing 'several million' euros via phishing

Victims lured into handing over online banking logins, police say

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Thu 23 Jun 2022 // 06:29 UTC

Europol cops have arrested nine suspected members of a cybercrime ring involved in phishing, internet scams, and money laundering.
The alleged crooks are believed to have stolen "several million euros" from at least "dozens of Belgian victims," according to that nation's police, which, along with the Dutch, supported the cross-border operation.
On Tuesday, after searching 24 houses in the Netherlands, officers cuffed eight men between the ages of 25 and 36 from Amsterdam, Almere, Rotterdam, and Spijkenisse, and a 25-year-old woman from Deventer. We're told the cops seized, among other things, a firearm, designer clothing, expensive watches, and tens of thousands of euros.

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World Economic Forum wants a global map of online crime

Will cyber crimes shrug off Atlas Initiative? Objectively, yes

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Fri 10 Jun 2022 // 21:27 UTC

RSA Conference An ambitious project spearheaded by the World Economic Forum (WEF) is working to develop a map of the cybercrime ecosystem using open source information.
The Atlas initiative, whose contributors include Fortinet and Microsoft and other private-sector firms, involves mapping the relationships between criminal groups and their infrastructure with the end goal of helping both industry and the public sector — law enforcement and government agencies — disrupt these nefarious ecosystems.
This kind of visibility into the connections between the gang members can help security researchers identify vulnerabilities in the criminals' supply chain to develop better mitigation strategies and security controls for their customers.

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Walmart accused of turning blind eye to transfer fraud totaling millions of dollars

Store giant brands watchdog's lawsuit 'factually misguided, legally flawed'

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Wed 29 Jun 2022 // 00:36 UTC

America's Federal Trade Commission has sued Walmart, claiming it turned a blind eye to fraudsters using its money transfer services to con folks out of "hundreds of millions of dollars."
In a lawsuit [PDF] filed Tuesday, the regulator claimed the superstore giant is "well aware" of telemarketing fraudsters and other scammers convincing victims to part with their hard-earned cash via its services, with the money being funneled to domestic and international crime rings.
Walmart is accused of allowing these fraudulent money transfers to continue, failing to warn people to be on their guard, and failing to adopt policies and train employees on how to prevent these types of hustles.

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