Month: June 2017

Birthday Reminder looks benign but the devil’s in the details: Hooks DNS, serves dodgy ads

June 23, 2017

The strange behavior of a simple Windows application caught our attention and sparked ESET’s analysis of previously undocumented malware. A contact at the Norwegian HealthCERT —  following a question about this from the regional healthcare provider Sykehuspartner — reached out to us asking about DNS queries to domains with the format [0-9a-f]{60}.smoke. There is no .smoketop level domain, … More Birthday Reminder looks benign but the devil’s in the details: Hooks DNS, serves dodgy ads

Industroyer: ICS were developed decades ago with no security in mind

June 21, 2017

On December 17th, 2016, the Ukrainian capital Kiev was hit by a blackout for about 75 minutes. Local investigators later confirmed that the energy outage was caused by a cyberattack. Shortly thereafter, ESET researchers analyzed a sophisticated new malware, which is the main suspect in this case. They have named it Industroyer – the biggest threat to Industrial Control … More Industroyer: ICS were developed decades ago with no security in mind

Web-hosting firm agrees to pay over $1 million to ransomware extortionists

June 20, 2017

Nayana, a South Korean web hosting firm, was hit hard by a ransomware attack earlier this month which hit over 153 of its Linux servers, and impacting over 3,400 websites the company hosts for its business customers. Nayana’s systems are thought to have been hit by a Linux variant of the Erebus ransomware, designed to … More Web-hosting firm agrees to pay over $1 million to ransomware extortionists

British hacker admits stealing satellite data from US Department of Defense

June 16, 2017

A British computer hacker has admitted breaking into a US military communications system and stealing the ranks, usernames, phone numbers, and email addresses of over 800 employees as well as IMEI data related to 30,000 satellite phones. 25-year-old Sean Caffrey, of Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, pleaded guilty at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday to offences under … More British hacker admits stealing satellite data from US Department of Defense