1. Advisory issued by Microsoft for Mitigating DDE Attacks
Microsoft published a security advisory on October 8, 2017 informing on how users can protect themselves against recent attacks abusing the Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) protocol. It is designed for exchanging data between Office and other Windows applications. The research analysts recently warned that the hackers can abuse DDE fields to create documents that load malicious resources from an external server. The technique can be used as a substitute for macros in attacks involving documents. DDE has been abused by various threats, included by cyber criminals who are making a profit using Locky ransomware and others known for targeting high-profile organizations.
2. How Supermarket Voucher Scam works with Whatsapp
Supermarket Vouchers are the latest bait used by cyber criminals with WhatsApp to trick people into handing over their personal information by tempting them with bogus supermarket vouchers. Earlier, messenger app was used to send fake vouchers to people, claiming to be from trusted sources. The messages normally offer hundreds of pounds in savings so long as the user followed a link to an online survey asking for personal details. This scam is nothing but phishing where criminals pose as representatives from reputed organizations to gain personal details.
3. Accidental bug may have frozen digital coin worth $280 million in crypto-currency wallet
Millions of dollars might have frozen on a crypto-currency wallet because someone triggered a bug by mistake. Parity, a crypto-currency wallet provider announced an alert on November 6, 2017 that it has found a vulnerability in its wallet that allowed users to change code and become the owners of wallets. The company also added that someone deleted its code and locked all tokens contained within. As a result, the users are now unable to move funds out of the wallet. The coding error affects the wallets that require one user to sign other’s transaction before it is added to the block chain.
Credit: CNBC News
4. Seoul’s War Plan hacked by North Korea
North Korean computer hackers have stolen hundreds of classified military documents from South Korea including detailed wartime operational plans. The hackers broke into South’s military network last September and recently took hostage of 235GB sensitive data. Among the leaked documents that had operational plans for October 2017, “decapitation” procedure is one of the important ones is the attacks on leader Kim Jong-Un.
5. Cyber Espionage Group Sowbug stealing data
An infamous hacking and cyber-espionage group has conducted few highly targeted attacks against a host of government organizations in South America and Southeast Asia to steal their confidential data. Till date, Sowbug seems to have focused mainly on government entities in South America and Southeast Asia and has infiltrated organizations in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Brunei and Malaysia. Interestingly, this group is well organized and is capable of infiltrating multiple targets one by one and often operates outside the targeted organizations. Though it is not clear how Sowbug hackers manage to gain a foothold in computer networks. The researchers suggested the hackers have made use of fake and malicious software updates of Windows or Adobe Reader.
