Welcome to this week's Cyber Security Week in Review, where Cisco Talos runs down all of the news we think you need to know in the security world. For more news delivered to your inbox every week, sign up for our Threat Source newsletter here.
Top headlines this week
- Email provider VFEmail says it suffered a “catastrophic” cyber attack. The company warned that about 18 years’ worth of customers’ emails may be permanently gone. “Every file server is lost, every backup server is lost. Strangely, not all VMs shared the same authentication, but all were destroyed. This was more than a multi-password via ssh exploit, and there was no ransom. Just attack and destroy,” VFEmail representatives said in a statement.
- Russia is considering isolating itself from the global internet. The Kremlin is experimenting with a new practice of only routing the country’s web requests through the country and not internationally. The country will run a test later this year in an effort to test its cyber defenses.
- Apple released fixes for multiple security flaws in iOS. Two of the vulnerabilities, which were discovered by Google’s threat research team, were being exploited in the wild. The bugs could allow an attacker to escalate their privileges and eventually completely take over a device.
From Talos
- Microsoft released its monthly security update this week, disclosing a variety of vulnerabilities in several of its products. The latest Patch Tuesday covers 69 vulnerabilities, 20 of which are rated “critical,” 46 that are considered “important” and three that are “moderate.” This release also includes a critical security advisory regarding a security update to Adobe Flash Player.
- Adobe released security updates for several of its products, including Flash and Acrobat Reader. Cisco Talos specifically discovered a critical remote code execution vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. An attacker could cause a heap overflow by tricking the user into opening a specially crafted PDF, which would allow the attacker to gain code execution privileges.
- A new tool from Talos can allow you to study the effect of cyber attacks on oil pump jacks. We released a 3-D printed, small-scale model of a pump jack that can be “hacked” from a smartphone, causing it to eventually overheat. We’ll also be taking this exhibit on the road over the course of the year.
Malware roundup
- A new variant of the Astaroth trojan is targeting Brazil via multiple spam campaigns. Once infected, the malware can steal users’ personal information and uses several deobfuscation techniques to make it more difficult to detect. The spam emails are also hitting users in parts of Europe.
- Credit unions across the U.S. received phishing emails last week targeting anti-money laundering efforts. The phony emails claim to have information on unauthorized wire transfers and ask them to open a PDF that displays the alleged transaction and contains a link to a malicious web page. The attackers used information that’s believed to only be available to the National Credit Union Administration.
- Google removed a cryptocurrency-stealing malware from its store. The malicious app disguised itself as the legitimate MetaMask service. Once downloaded, it would steal login credentials to steal users’ Ethereum funds.
The rest of the news
- Blockchain technology could be useful in detecting deepfake videos, specifically in police body cameras. A new tool called Amber Authenticate runs in the background of cameras to record the hashes of the video, which would appear different a second time if the user had edited the video. All of these results are recorded on the public blockchain.
- India requested Facebook give its government a backdoor into the WhatsApp messaging app. This would require Facebook to give the government access to users’ encrypted messages that were originally secret.
- Two U.S. senators are requesting an investigation into foreign VPN services. The senators say the companies could pose a national security risk.
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