Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence - May 13–17

Weekly Threat Briefing • May 17, 2019
Weekly Threat Briefing • May 17, 2019
The Good
We’re back with our weekly dose of the most insightful threat intel. The past week witnessed several cybersecurity advancements, security incidents, as well as the emergence of new threats. To begin with, let’s first glance through all the good that has happened in cyberspace over the past week. Amazon is introducing a new feature dubbed ‘Alexa Guard’ which transforms the Echo smart speaker into a smart home security system. PEO STRI is setting up a “national cyber range” where US forces and their allies can conduct “in-the-box” exercises in a simulated cyber realm. Meanwhile, researchers are developing a technology inspired by fitness trackers that could prevent cyber attacks.
The Bad
Several data breaches and security incidents were witnessed over the past week. Attackers hacked the webcast of the first Eurovision semi-final to display faked explosions along with a warning about a missile attack. Magecart threat group injected its card skimming script on Forbes’ subscription website in order to steal the credit card data that customers enter on the checkout page. Last but not least, the names of the major antivirus companies that were breached by ‘Fxmsp’ hacking group have been revealed, which includes Symantec, McAfee, and Trend Micro.
New Threats
In the past week, the occurrence of several new malware strains and vulnerabilities were detected. Researchers have spotted Emotet distributing third-party payloads such as Qbot, Trickbot, IcedID, and Gootkit. Whatsapp had a critical vulnerability in its audio call feature that could allow attackers to install spyware on mobiles via a WhatsApp call. Meanwhile, researchers uncovered a flaw in Intel’s hardware that could allow attackers to extract sensitive data from a computer’s CPU.