Trending cyber news

The cybercrime unit of the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) is stepping up a program designed to educate children about the ramifications of DDOS attacks.

According to the report, the volume of such attacks has risen sharply during the pandemic, presumably causing disruption to online training  activities.

Education is a key pillar in preventing crime and these messages highlight the risks and consequences of committing cyber offences, which can result in a criminal record,” said John Denley, Deputy Director of the NCA’s cybercrime unit.

“Law enforcement plays a critical role in tackling cybercrime and keeping the country safe. School outreach is important to educate a younger audience and this initiative will continue to help divert young people away from criminality.”

It’s great to see cooperation between law enforcement and the private sector in delivering important initiatives like this one to prevent students from getting involved in cybercrime.”

Cybercrime groups supported by the North Korean regime have increasingly been focusing on crypto markets, for several obvious reasons. Lazarus APT, in particular, has been a very technically skilled and well-funded threat group involved in carrying out attacks on the crypto industry.

The attacks on crypto markets

• The attacks netted around $400 million in 2021, a whopping 40% increase as compared to the last year.
• North Korea-supported attackers control $170 million in their crypto balances, collected from 49 attacks carried out between 2017 and 2021.
• Attackers are using various methods, including phishing emails, malware, social engineering tricks, and code exploits to target their victims, mostly involving investment firms and crypto exchanges.

Exploring the money laundering

• Before cashing out the money, they are laundered using software known as mixers. 
• The mixers are used to hide the origins of their malicious cryptocurrencies while converting them into fiat currencies.

A new cryptocurrency-related scam is abusing the Amazon brand to dupe would-be investors into handing over Bitcoin (BTC). 

Cryptocurrency and digital token scams have become a common threat facing investors and the general public today. 

Even though regulators worldwide are clamping down on fraud — through tax legislation, securities offering registration, tighter rules surrounding cryptocurrency adverts, and by keeping a close eye on initial coin offerings (ICOs), exit scams, rug pulls, and theft is still rampant. 

Generating panic and encouraging victims to make a rash decision are common tactics used in various scams, and this is no exception. In the Amazon scheme, the fraudsters have imposed a ‘time-sensitive’ lure to make individuals feel like they could be losing out on a lucrative investment opportunity.

The campaign began by publishing fake social media posts in groups that are interested in the cryptocurrency space. If users clicked on a post, they were directed to a fake “CNBC Decoded” news website that included an article on the soon-to-be-released ‘Amazon crypto token.’

The cyberattackers gave visitors roughly 30 seconds to read the fake release before they were automatically redirected to a domain that offered pre-sale tokens. The website in question was fully functional and required signing up email account confirmation and user profile creation. 

In total, most of the visitors to the fake token landing pages were using mobile devices (98%). The distribution of mobile operating systems in use is fairly even but leans toward Android handsets (56%), followed by Apple iOS (42%). 

The majority of victims are located in North America, South America, and Asia.  

“Based on our research, we predict that crypto scams will continue to drive many nefarious activities throughout the 2022 threat landscape,” the researchers commented. 

QR codes are among the few “winners” of the coronavirus pandemic, the joke goes, because restaurants and other businesses have deployed them in far greater numbers over the past few years, in an effort to make more interactions contactless.

The FBI is warning, however, that scammers love them, too.

The bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), issued a general alert Tuesday about “malicious” QR codes that reroute unsuspecting consumers to the world of cybercrime.

“[C]ybercriminals are taking advantage of this technology by directing QR code scans to malicious sites to steal victim data, embedding malware to gain access to the victim’s device, and redirecting payment for cybercriminal use,” the announcement says.

The FBI’s warning is the latest in a long string of advisories from cybersecurity researchers or government agencies about the threat posed by QR codes. Last week, Ars Technica reported on fake QR codes that were stuck on parking meters in Texas cities, with the goal of intercepting payments.

In October 2021, scammers were spotted using them as as part of a phishing attack. Earlier last year, the U.S. Army issued. Other alerts pointed to bitcoin scams, And at least one barcode scanner app became notorious  for carrying malware itself.

The FBI’s release didn’t cite any examples of such activity, but said the trickery usually comes through QR codes that have been altered, either onscreen or on a printed page.

“A victim scans what they think to be a legitimate code but the tampered code directs victims to a malicious site, which prompts them to enter login and financial information,” the FBI said. The bureau did not respond to a request from CyberScoop to provide more detail.

The bureau is warning consumers to double-check any URL generated by a QR code, and to be cautious about using them in general, especially for making payments.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore says it is considering supervisory action against Southeast Asia’s second largest bank, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), which was criticised for its incident response to a widespread phishing scheme across the island nation.

“Monetary Authority Singapore (MAS) takes a serious view of the recent phishing scams involving OCBC Bank. They have significantly impacted several customers. OCBC has acknowledged that its incident response and customer service should have been better. MAS has been following up with the bank on these and broader issues relating to the incident,” said MAS deputy managing director Ms Ho Hern Shin in a statement to The Register.

The phishing scheme first appeared at the start of December 2021 and became more aggressive through the holiday period. By the end of the month, the Singapore Police Department reported the scam had affected 469 customers and taken over SG$8.5m (US$6.3m/ £$4.62m).

Victims receive an unsolicited SMS that appears to be from the bank and asks the account holder to click a link to resolve account issues. Once that link is clicked, victims are redirected to a fake bank website where they provide their login details. They won’t know they’ve been scammed until they receive a notification of unauthorized transaction charged to their account.

“Once the funds have been fraudulently transferred out of the victim’s bank account, it would be challenging and difficult to recover the stolen monies,” said the police in a canned statement .

Aditya Birla Fashion today addressed the data breach on its portal and sought to assure its customers that no sensitive information was compromised.

On Monday, it was reported that the company’s database was hacked into and information was made public by a hacker group. Initial reports had claimed that the information leaked included customer information including names, phone numbers, addresses, dates of birth, order histories, credit card details, and passwords, and details of employees, including salary details, religion, and marital status.

In a letter to its customers, the company sought assure its customers that no sensitive information was leaked and advised them to change their passwords. The company said there was an “information security incident entailing illegal access to customer (data)base and profile Info of some customers (was) released In some cyber forums”.The company stated that no “financially sensitive information, with respect to payment modalities” was compromised.The company, which reported a revenue of Rs 5,181.14 crore in in the previous financial year, claims to be the country’s largest “pure-play fashion powerhouse with an elegant bouquet of leading fashion brands and retail formats”.