Up to 83% of known compromised passwords would satisfy regulatory requirements
On Tuesday, Specops, a provider of password management and authentication solutions, released findings from its latest research of over 800 million known compromised passwords. The findings showed that up to 83% of passwords that appear in compromised password databases would satisfy regulatory password standards. The passwords were compared to the regulatory standard rules of NIST, HIPAA, PCI, GDPR and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre. The full report is available at specopssoft.com.
(Specops)
Broadcom confirms deal to acquire VMware
Following up on a story we brought you on Tuesday, chipmaker Broadcom has ended speculation about its plans to acquire VMware. It has confirmed that it will purchase the virtualization and multicloud software firm for $61bn. In a statement, the company said the Broadcom Software Group will be renamed VMware, and their software portfolios will effectively be merged.
Experts warn of rise in ChromeLoader malware hijacking users’ browsers
A new malvertising tool has become very busy of late. ChromeLoader is a “pervasive and persistent browser hijacker that modifies its victims’ browser settings and redirects user traffic to advertisement websites,” said Aedan Russell of Red Canary in a new report. “ChromeLoader is a rogue Chrome browser extension and is typically distributed in the form of ISO files via pay-per-install sites and baited social media posts that advertise QR codes to cracked video games and pirated movies.”
Google shut down caching servers at two Russian ISPs
Two Russian internet service providers (ISPs) have been told by Google that “the global caching servers on their network have been disabled.” A caching server is an ISP-bound node for fast serving Google content faster to internet subscribers and maintain high access reliability even during outages, which helps with high bandwidth material like popular YouTube content that can be strored up in advance to load more quickly and thus giving subscribers a better connection experience. Russian news outlets attempted to confirm which entities have been affected by this sudden move and verified that Radiosvyaz (Focus Life) and МФТИ-Телеком (MIPT Telecom) are currently affected by Google’s decision.
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New ERMAC 2.0 Android malware steals accounts, wallets from apps
Version 2.0 of the ERMAC Android banking trojan has been released and this now increasing the number of applications targeted from 378 to 467, clearly providing a wider range of apps used to steal account credentials and crypto wallets. “The goal of the trojan is to send stolen login credentials to threat actors, who then use them to take control of other people’s banking and cryptocurrency accounts and conduct financial or other forms of fraud.” Members of darknet sites can purchase ERMAC at a subscription rate of $5,000 per month. This is a steep increase in price – by $2,000 – over the price tag of the first version which reflects the upgrade in features as well as its popularity.
Users of Tails OS warned away until Tor browser flaw is fixed
The maintainers of the Tails project (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) warn users that the Tor Browser bundled with the OS could expose their sensitive information. “Tails is a security and privacy-oriented Linux distribution, with a portable operating system that protects against surveillance and censorship.” The root cause of the alert consists of two critical zero-day issues, tracked as CVE-2022-1802 and CVE-2022-1529, in the Firefox browser that were addressed by Mozilla in May. “The vulnerabilities were reported by Manfred Paul during the Pwn2Own 2022 hacking contest that took place in Vancouver last week.”
Suspected phishing email crime boss apprehended in Nigeria
Interpol and police in Africa have arrested a Nigerian man suspected of running a multi-continent business email compromise ring. The arrest is part of a year-long, counter-BEC initiative code-named Operation Delilah “that involved international law enforcement, and started with intelligence from cybersecurity companies Group-IB, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, and Trend Micro.”