Tag: malware

Cyber attack on Merkel’s aide

The German chancellor’s office has fallen victim to a hacking attack, according to a German newspaper. The Regin malware in question has been linked to British and US spy agencies.

The complex spying malware arrived via a USB stick to the work computer of the unit head in the Department for European Policy, where it was picked up by virus scanning software, according to Monday’s edition of the German newspaper Bild.

According to the report, the staff member, who works in close contact with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, had written a draft of a speech on her work computer, which she then took home using a USB stick at the end of the day and worked on it using her private laptop.

She later saved the document again on her private USB stick and brought it back into the office, to use on her work laptop. A virus alert went off and it was detected that the USB stick was infected with the spying software Regin. Checks of all other high-security laptops in the Federal Chancellery revealed no additional infections.

The cybersecurity company Symantec first warned of the highly-sophisticated malware at the end of November. According to them, the Regin spying software can make screenshots, control the mouse cursor, steal passwords, monitor data traffic and restore deleted data.

According to US news website “The Intercept,” which was co-created by Edward Snowden confidant Glenn Greenwald, Regin was deployed to steal information from governments, companies and research institutions. According to them, the British spy agency GCHQ and the United States spy agency NSA were involved in the development of the sophisticated spying software, which is particularly difficult to detect.

Source: AFP, dpa

The Dark Web

This is a Twitter network for a political hashtag in the US, produced by Truthy. We see two clearly separated clusters, corresponding to conservative and liberal communities. Retweets, which tend to stay in the same community, are shown in blue. Mentions, shown in orange, connect the two communities. Image © Truthy.
This is a Twitter network for a political hashtag in the US, produced by Truthy. We see two clearly separated clusters, corresponding to conservative and liberal communities. Retweets, which tend to stay in the same community, are shown in blue. Mentions, shown in orange, connect the two communities. Image © Truthy.

Cybercriminals are settling into a comfortable place in the “Dark Web” where they test, refine and distribute malware for online crimes.

It sounds sinister, and it is. Big Brother is breaching your privacy, and terrorists and criminals are busy with a practice called astroturfing — creating the false impression that there’s huge grassroots support for some cause or person using false user accounts. It’s a big problem in elections and other types of political conflicts.

Automated tools to collect and analyse terrorist content from the Internet have been developed. like Truthy, a free tool for analysing how information spreads on Twitter that has been useful in spotting astroturfing.

McAfee, the US Internet security specialist, also noted that a huge data breach that affected as many as 110 million customers of the US retailer Target may also be just the tip of the iceberg.

In its quarterly threat assessment released Monday, McAfee Labs noted the relative ease with which this type of malware is bought and sold in “Dark Web” marketplaces.

McAfee researchers concluded that the malware for the Target attacks used “relatively unsophisticated technologies likely purchased ‘off the shelf’ from the Cybercrime-as-a-Service community, and customized specifically for these attacks,” the security firm said.

The report pointed out that the attackers who stole the data have also found a market — offering some of the 40 million credit card numbers reported stolen in batches of between one million and four million at a time.

“The fourth quarter of 2013 will be remembered as the period when cybercrime became ‘real’ for more people than ever before,” said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president for McAfee Labs.

“These cyber thefts occurred at a time when most people were focused on their holiday shopping and when the industry wanted people to feel secure and confident in their purchases. The impact of these attacks will be felt both at the kitchen table as well as the boardroom table.”

Weafer added that the attacks “represent a coming of age for both Cybercrime-as-a-Service and the ‘Dark Web’ overall.”

The “Dark Web” actors appear to be operating with ease, like other kinds of online businesses, McAfee said.

“But the big lesson is that we face a healthy and growing cybercrime industry which played a key role in enabling and monetizing the results of these attacks.”

Source: rawstory.com