It’s common knowledge that attackers often use email as a delivery mechanism for their malicious activity — which can range from enticing victims to click a phishing URL or download a malicious attachment. To support these activities, attackers seek out tools that assist in the mass sending of malspam (malicious spam) emails from a compromised website. PHP scripts like Leaf PHPMailer are well suited for[…]

On May 31, 2019 the cybercriminals behind the GandCrab ransomware did something unusual within the world of malware. They announced they were shutting down operations and potentially leaving millions of dollars on the table. “All good things come to an end” they wrote in a self-congratulatory post appearing on a notorious cybercrime forum. Since launching in January 2018, GandCrab’s authors claimed to have brought in[…]

Picture this: You’ve spent the last few weeks working on a tribute video for a friend’s 30th wedding anniversary. You collected photos and video clips and edited them together, laying over a soundtrack of their favourite songs. It was a real labour of love. When you finally finish the project, you go to copy the file onto a DVD and—what the?—a strange message pops up.[…]

Exploits: they’re not your mama’s cyberthreats. At one point in the not-so-distant past, exploits were responsible for delivering 80 percent of malware to people’s systems. But exploits seem to be experiencing a lull today. Does this mean they’re gone for good and we can all let down our guard? Or is this simply the calm before the storm? Let’s break down this stealthy threat so[…]

1. Use unique passwords for all your accounts What: Stop kidding yourself that you only re-use passwords on accounts that don’t matter, or that you have an unbreakable password scheme that no one else can guess. Every single thing with a password needs to have a unique password, shared with nothing else. Why: Services get hacked, with entire databases of passwords published in the open.[…]

From Yahoo, MySpace and TalkTalk to Ashley Madison and Adult Friend Finder, personal information has been stolen by hackers from around the world. But with each hack there’s the big question of how well the site protected its users’ data. Was it open and freely available, or was it hashed, secured and practically unbreakable? From cleartext to hashed, salted, peppered and bcrypted, here’s what the[…]

2016 was the year of ransomware, with hackers focusing their attention on exploiting Internet users and businesses around the world for profit. According to the FBI, cyber extortion losses have skyrocketed and ransomware was on track to become a $1 billion a year crime in 2016. Our research shows no sign of this security nightmare slowing down in 2017. Hackers are becoming more advanced, and[…]

Bad news if you were hoping to stay safe online: the number of victims of identity theft rose by 57% in the last year, according to fraud prevention service Cifas. But unlike previous rises, the victims of identity theft are no longer targeted by fraudsters digging through rubbish bins for bank statements, or by hackers installing keyloggers on compromised PCs. Instead, according to Cifas, the[…]

UK credit card details are on sale for as little £1 each online, the Guardian has learned, as fears rise over the security of personal data in the wake of the TalkTalk cyber-attack. More than 600,000 individuals had their personal details stolen from UK companies in 2014, according to the Financial Times, underlining the scale of online crime in this country. It is likely that[…]

It does not surprise me that Dido Harding was clueless about TalkTalk’s IT system failure. It is quite normal for managers to claim to be in control of IT systems until such time as they are exposed by events to not be in control at all. They typically delude themselves with assurances that “best practices” have been adopted. The problem with these best practices for managing[…]