Seniors: How to Keep Your Retirement Safe from Online Scams
The growing number of internet crimes targeting senior adults is mind-blowing. In 2021, more than 92,000 people over the age of 60 reported losses of $1.7 billion, according to IC3, the FBI’s Internet Crime division. That number reflects a 74 percent increase in losses from 2020. These numbers tell us a few things. They tell […] more…Operators of Counter Antivirus Service Scan4You Sentenced
In May 2017, one of the biggest facilitators of cybercrime, Scan4You, went offline after the two main suspects, Ruslans Bondars and Jurijs Martisevs, were arrested in Latvia and extradited to the U.S. by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In May 2018, the case against the Scan4You’s operators concluded in a Virginia federal courtroom. The […] more…Operators of Counter Antivirus Service Scan4You Convicted
In May 2017, one of the biggest facilitators of cybercrime, Scan4You, went offline after the two main suspects, Ruslans Bondars and Jurijs Martisevs, were arrested in Latvia and extradited to the U.S. by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In May 2018, the case against the Scan4You’s operators concluded in a Virginia federal courtroom. The […] more…Pentagon Looks to Counter Ever-stealthier Warfare
The US military has for years enjoyed a broad technological edge over its adversaries, dominating foes with superior communications and cyber capabilities. Now, thanks to rapid advances by Russia and China, the gap has shrunk, and the Pentagon is looking at how a future conflict with a “near-peer” competitor might play out. Air Force Secretary […] more…Detecting Attacks that Exploit Meltdown and Spectre with Performance Counters
by David Fiser and William Gamazo Sanchez Exploits for the notorious Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities may still just be working proofs of concept (PoC) or reportedly experimented on for now, but it’s only a matter of time before threat actors fully weaponize them. Meltdown and Spectre are pervasive, affecting machines built as early as 1995. […] more…The Case for 2FA by Default for WordPress
Administrator panel compromises are one of the most common attacks that everyday WordPress website admins face. We work with thousands of clients who have encountered attacks on their websites and I’ve long ago lost count of the number of times that I’ve told clients that the point of entry was their WordPress login page. Brute […] more…Lock Down & Level Up: Protect Your Online Gaming from Hackers
As a gamer, you love the stuff you’ve racked up over the years—that rare Fortnite skin from six seasons ago, a complete set of Tier 20 armor in World of Warcraft, or a Steam account loaded with your favorite titles. Hackers love it too. Because they can make money off it. Hackers have been stealing […] more…Spam and phishing in 2021
Figures of the year In 2021: 56% of e-mails were spam 77% of spam was sent from Russia with another 14.12% from Germany Our Mail Anti-Virus blocked 148 173 261 malicious attachments sent in e-mails The most common malware family found in attachments were Agensla Trojans Our Anti-Phishing system blocked 253 365 212 phishing links Safe Messaging blocked 341 954 […] more…The life cycle of phishing pages
Introduction In this study, we analyzed how long phishing pages survive as well as the signs they show when they become inactive. In addition to the general data, we provided a number of options for classifying phishing pages according to formal criteria and analyzed the results for each of them. The resulting data and conclusions […] more…The story of the year: ransomware in the headlines
In the past twelve months, the word “ransomware” has popped up in countless headlines worldwide across both print and digital publications: The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, the New York Times. It is no longer just being discussed by CISOs and security professionals, but politicians, school administrators, and hospital directors. Words like Babuk and REvil […] more…WIRTE’s campaign in the Middle East ‘living off the land’ since at least 2019
Overview This February, during our hunting efforts for threat actors using VBS/VBA implants, we came across MS Excel droppers that use hidden spreadsheets and VBA macros to drop their first stage implant. The implant itself is a VBS script with functionality to collect system information and execute arbitrary code sent by the attackers on the […] more…Threats to ICS and industrial enterprises in 2022
Continuing trends In recent years, we have observed various trends in the changing threat landscape for industrial enterprises, most of which have been evolving for some time. We can say with high confidence that many of these trends will not only continue, but gain new traction in the coming year. Further evolution of cyberthreats as […] more…Cyberthreats to financial organizations in 2022
First of all, we are going to analyze the forecasts we made at the end of 2020 and see how accurate they were. Then we will go through the key events of 2021 relating to attacks on financial organizations. Finally, we will make some forecasts about financial attacks in 2022. Analysis of forecasts for 2021 […] more…Ransomware in the CIS
Introduction These days, when speaking of cyberthreats, most people have in mind ransomware, specifically cryptomalware. In 2020–2021, with the outbreak of the pandemic and the emergence of several major cybercriminal groups (Maze, REvil, Conti, DarkSide, Avaddon), an entire criminal ecosystem took shape, leading to a mounting worldwide wave of attacks on large organizations with pockets […] more…Great R packages for data import, wrangling, and visualization
The table below shows my favorite go-to R packages for data import, wrangling, visualization and analysis — plus a few miscellaneous tasks tossed in. The package names in the table are clickable if you want more information. To find out more about a package once you’ve installed it, type help(package = "packagename") in your R […] more…IT threat evolution in Q2 2021. PC statistics
These statistics are based on detection verdicts of Kaspersky products received from users who consented to providing statistical data. Quarterly figures According to Kaspersky Security Network, in Q2 2021: Kaspersky solutions blocked 1,686,025,551 attacks from online resources across the globe. Web antivirus recognized 675,832,360 unique URLs as malicious. Attempts to run malware for stealing money […] more…More information
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