Cyware Monthly Threat Intelligence

Monthly Threat Briefing • Dec 2, 2020
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Monthly Threat Briefing • Dec 2, 2020
The Good
Cybersecurity experts are constantly seeking innovative solutions to keep them ahead of threats and address various challenges. Last month, a research group devised a new and advanced IDS/IPS system that inspects internet traffic for malicious activities. In other news, experts discovered a way to authenticate and optimize DNS traffic on the client-side of the domain-name resolution process. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress passed a significant cybersecurity bill concerning the safety of 5G wireless networks.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab developed the fastest open source intrusion detection and prevention system (IDS/IPS) using a single five-processor core server and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Named Pigasus, the system is designed to demonstrate a more cost-effective approach to inspect internet traffic for malicious activities.
Verisign’s research and development group developed new ways to authenticate and optimize DNS traffic on the client-side of the domain-name resolution process. It would, furthermore, allow organizations to filter out known bad actors and instead send them to a honeypot or deception decoy.
The cyberworld witnessed a new development about the rollout of 5G wireless networks when the Government Accountability Office in the U.S. made recommendations that policymakers should consider the creation of cybersecurity standards to guarantee user safety and privacy.
The Bad
With the arrival of the holiday season, cybercriminals have doubled up their efforts into making life tough for organizations and users. For instance, attackers compromised Peatix, an event organizing platform, and leaked the personal data of over 4.2 million registered users. In another vein, Campari Group was blackmailed by criminals by running Facebook ads about the 2TB of stolen data. In addition, bitcoin hackers swindled about $20 million from DeFi protocol Pickle Finance.
Baltimore County Public Schools suffered a ransomware attack, resulting in the shut down of all the schools. The attack crippled the school network system. However, the ransom money demanded has not been disclosed by the school authorities yet.
Peatix users found themselves in hot water as soon as security experts discovered millions of records being circulated online. The breach at Peatix impacted the data of more than 4.2 million registered users, which were posted by threat actors via ads posted on Instagram stories, Telegram channels, and several other hacking forums.
The decentralized finance protocol Pickle Finance found itself in quite a pickle recently when it was hacked and around $20 million in DAI tokens was drained off from its wallet. The attackers allegedly exploited the vulnerability in DAI PickleJar using fake swaps.
The Campari Group fell victim to a new extortion scheme by the RagnarLocker ransomware gang and lost 2TB of files to the threat actors. The extortion scheme involved running Facebook ads to pressure victims into paying the ransom.
The personal and health information of more than 16 million Brazilian COVID-19 patients were leaked online. This was caused by a hospital employee who uploaded a spreadsheet on GitHub containing usernames, passwords, and access keys to sensitive government systems.
A database containing 8.3 million user records including personal information of 123RF was exposed on a hacker forum. The stolen data consisted of members’ full names, email addresses, MD5 hashed passwords, company name, phone number, address, PayPal emails, and IP addresses. However, no financial information was present in the database.
Prestige Software, a Spain-based hotel booking software provider, exposed over 10 million log files dating back to 2013, due to a misconfigured Amazon S3 bucket. The leaked data included hotel guests’ full names, email addresses, contact details, national ID numbers, and, in some cases, even their payment information.
Last month, American Bank Systems (ABS) and Managed.com were targeted in different ransomware attacks. While the attack on ABS resulted in the compromise of around 53GB of data, the attack on Managed.com impacted a limited number of its clients.
Folksam accidentally leaked private data of about one million of its Swedish customers to tech giants such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn. The shared data included a wide variety of information of its customers.
Luxottica disclosed a data breach that exposed the personal and health information of patients of LensCrafters, Target Optical, and EyeMed. In another camp, BigBasket, India’s largest online grocery delivery company, became a victim of a massive data breach. The leak contained a 15GB database of 20 million user records.
New Threats
Cyber experts highlighted some trending threats from November. They marked the resurgence of TrickBot malware with the release of its 100th version. Moreover, there was a new multistage infostealer malware strain detected during an attack on the MercadoLivre, an Argentinian e-commerce platform. Adding to the woes, an attacker leaked Fortinet VPN credentials of about 50,000 devices installed at government offices and banks.