Phishing is a problem nearly as old as the Internet. Yet, criminals continue to reach into their bag of phishing tricks in 2019 because, in a nutshell, it just works. Dialing into the human psyche and capitalizing on emotions such as fear, anxiety, or plain laziness, phishing attacks are successful because they take aim at our weaknesses and exploit them—in much the same way an exploit kit takes … [Read more...]
February 20, 2019
February 14, 2019
Hacker destroys VFEmail service, wipes backups
An email service called VFEmail was essentially put out of business after a hack intended to delete everything in (and out of) sight. “Yes, @VFEmail is effectively gone. It will likely not return. I never thought anyone would care about my labor of love so much that they’d want to completely and thoroughly destroy it.” This wasn’t “just” a simple webpage compromise, … [Read more...]
February 11, 2019
February 4, 2019
January 25, 2019
January 21, 2019
January 18, 2019
Hosting malicious sites on legitimate servers: How do threat actors get away with it?
How do threat actors manage to get their sites and files hosted on legitimate providers’ servers? I have asked myself this question many times, and many times thought, “The threat actors pay for it, and for some companies, money is all that matters.” But is it really that simple? I decided to find out. I asked some companies, as well as some of my co-workers who are involved with site takedowns on … [Read more...]
January 16, 2019
The Advanced Persistent Threat files: APT10
We’ve heard a lot about Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) over the past few years. As a refresher, APTs are prolonged, aimed attacks on specific targets with the intention to compromise their systems and gain information from or about that target. While the targets may be anyone or anything—a person, business, or other organization—APTs are often associated with government or military … [Read more...]
January 11, 2019
Luas data ransom: the hacker who cried wolf?
In a terrible start to the year for Irish tram firm Luas, their site was compromised a week ago and adorned with a stark ransom warning: Click to enlarge You are hacked. Some time ago I wrote that you have serious security holes. You didn’t reply. The next time someone talks to you, press the reply button. You must pay one bitcoin in five days. Otherwise I will publish all data and send emails to … [Read more...]
January 10, 2019
