BACKGROUND: Researchers at the Lookout Threat Lab provide a highly detailed review of new rooting malware distributed in fully functioning apps offered on Google Play, Amazon App store and the Samsung Galaxy store. They are calling the malware “AbstractEmu” “after its use of code abstraction and anti-emulation checks to avoid running while under analysis.” The malware leverages recent CVE’s from 2019-20 to allow access to a wide variety of hardware and uses quite sophisticated methods to confirm each device types to avoid detection. A very interesting 5 min read.
ISBuzz Team
BACKGROUND: A British firm which sells people’s location data has admitted that some of its information was gained without seeking permission from users. Huq uses location data from apps on people’s phones, and sells it on to clients, which include dozens of English and Scottish city councils. It told the BBC that in two cases, its app partners had not asked for consent from users. But it added that the issue had now been rectified. In a statement, the firm said it was aware of two “technical breaches” of data privacy requirements.
BACKGROUND: Following the news that Medical AI Database exposure of over 800 million patient records, IT security expert commented below.
BACKGROUND: New findings from Thales showing that Majority of Businesses Don’t Protect Their Sensitive Data in the Cloud – (2021 Thales Cloud Security Study pdf ) Key stats include: 40% of global respondents reveal they dealt with a cloud breach in the last yearOnly 17% of businesses are encrypting at least half of the sensitive data they store in the cloudOnly 34% of organizations retain total control of encryption keys83% of businesses fail to encrypt half of sensitive data stored in the cloudJust 33% use MFA
BACKGROUND: It has been reported that Papua New Guinea’s finance department has been hit with a ransomware attack, locking access to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid money, according to people familiar with the situation. The attack on the Department of Finance’s Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) occurred last week, the people said. The IFMS consolidated the Pacific nation’s budget and accounting for all tiers and departments of government onto a platform. It controls access to funds for the government, which is heavily reliant on foreign aid.
BACKGROUND: In response to Scoolio’s API flaw that exposed the data of 400,000 German students, Information Security experts commented below.
Cybersecurity experts at Proofpoint are warning the public of a wave of email attacks related to Netflix’s hit show ‘Squid Game’, which are being used to spread dangerous malware to victims. Large cybercriminal group TA575 has been sending thousands of the malicious emails targeting Squid Game fans, who are promised early access to the Season 2 of the TV show or to take part in the TV show casting. By filling out either an attached document or a talent form, victims are then tricked into downloading the Trojan known as Dridex, which can steal personal information such as banking details.…
BACKGROUND: As reported by Metro, WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app in the world, is about to stop working on thousands of phones. The app is set to stop support for older phones around the world on November 1, 2021. It will cease to function on up to 43 different smartphone models as it shifts the requirements for the Android and iOS operating systems. In the FAQ section on its website, WhatsApp says people should use phones running Android version OS 4.1 or iPhones running iOS 10 and newer. If you haven’t updated your system software recently, then you may…
BACKGROUND: An “unprecedented” and co-ordinated cyber-attack struck multiple UK-based providers of voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services, according to comms council the UK. This type of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) works by flooding a website or online service with internet traffic in an attempt to throw it offline or otherwise make it inaccessible. Yesterday’s attack targeted VoIP providers that supply phone services to UK businesses, including emergency services.