Symantec Releases Findings on Android Malware Research

Symantec announced its publication of new research conducted by the firm titled, “Motivations of Recent Android Malware.” The report provides an analysis of the current monetizations schemes behind the malware targeting the Android mobile computing platform, as well as future schemes.

The report presented the top mobile malware monetization schemes observed by Symantec and includes premium rate number billing…

Energy Department Lab Suffers Cyber Attack

A lab maintained by the Energy Department was forced to shut down its website and suspend Internet service after the discovery of a cyber attack.

Hackers broke into the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s website, in an attempt to steal privileged information and gain access into the lab’s computer system.

A follow-up attack targeted employees, some of which were vulnerable to an email scam and resulted in malware…

Credit Card Clearing House Hacked Says Security Researchers

An underground credit card clearing house has been hacked, according to Trend Micro security researchers. Leaked data from the hack include employee emails and recorded phone calls.

“A group of hackers recently published detailed information from an underground credit card company,” writes Feike Hacquebord, an advanced Threats Researcher with Trend Micro.  “On July 23, an anonymous group claimed to have compromised a server of an online…

Researchers Find Botnet Used to Steal Banking Information

Security researchers have discovered a botnet which appeared to control around 100,000 users in the United Kingdom. The cyber criminals running the botnet appear to be based in Eastern Europe and have been using the botnet to carry out financial fraud.

Researchers with Trusteer, a secure browsing service provider, discovered a Zeus version 2 botnet being used to collect banking login credentials, credit and debit card information, bank statements, account…

Angelina Jolie Used by Scammers to Distribute Malware

Cyber criminals, who are always quick to latch onto the latest trend to disseminate spam, have taken to using the launch of Angelina Jolie’s new film, Salt. The criminals are placing infected QuickTime files on file-sharing sites purporting to be related to the new movie.

Users who attempt to download the files receive a prompt to download “update codecs,” which are actually Trojan infected files. The trap appears…

Cyber Criminals Utilize Social Networks to Control Bots

Researchers at RSA FraudAction Research Lab have recently discovered a banking Trojan being hosted by a public social networking site. Any site which allows users to upload any type of content is vulnerable to the Trojan’s configurations, RSA says.

“The Lab recently traced a social network profile that contained encrypted instructions for a variant of the Brazilian…

Paraguyan Government Website Hosts Phishing Data

Phishing gangs are growing increasingly bold, evinced by researchers finding phishing data on website owned by the Paraguyan government. Sunbelt researchers discovered that a website belonging to the Paraguyan government is hosting data on banks and insurance companies in the United Kingdom gathered through phishing attacks.

The researchers have notified the website owners regarding the data cache. Typically, researchers will sit on the data and try to learn…

Banks Under Siege in Eastern Europe

A group of cyber criminals are placing banks in Russia and the Ukraine under siege with a next-generation exploitation kit that hacks the authentication system and uses a denial of service attack.

The attacks use a revised version of BlackEnergy, which was commonly used in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. The criminals are using the new and improved version to transfer funds from electronic bank accounts and then attack…

Botnet Targeting Mexicans Taken Down by Owner

A botnet that was being used to target Mexicans has been taken down, apparently by the cyber criminal who set it up, according to TrendMicro. “The botnet appears to have been taken down by the owners themselves,” writes Ranieri Romera, a senior threat researcher with TrendMicro.

“The botnet’s controllers sent out new instructions to all of the active bots,” Romera writes. “One of the effects of this was to…

Cyber Crooks Look Best in Handcuffs

Police in Romania have arrested 70suspected cyber criminals who are thought to be members of criminal gangs running scams using compromised eBay accounts. The login credentials were allegedly obtained in a series of phishing scams and the compromised accounts were used to “sell” non-existent luxury items.

Buyers would provide the money but never receive the goods in return. At least 800 people in Europe, North America and New Zealand are…