Author Archives: Patrick Howell O'Neill

Forever 21 announces payment card data breach

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American clothes retailer Forever 21 suffered a data breach, the store said on Tuesday, when an unauthorized party accessed payment card data from some of its stores. The breach was found so recently that complete findings are not yet available. The Los Angeles, California-based company contracted an unnamed cybersecurity firm to assist the post-breach investigation. “Because of the encryption and tokenization solutions that FOREVER 21 implemented in 2015, it appears that only certain point of sale devices in some FOREVER 21 stores were affected when the encryption on those devices was not in operation,” a spokesperson said in a statement. The investigation is focused on in-store transactions from March 2017 to Oct. 2017. The store advises customers to closely watch their credit card statements for any usual activity. Founded in 1984, Forever 21 operates more than 815 stores in 57 countries with retailers in the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, and […]

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U.S. CERT issues report on remote hacking tool used by North Korea

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U.S. authorities issued a report Tuesday identifying a remote administration trojan (RAT) they say is used by the North Korea-based hackers to attack the aerospace, telecommunications and finance industries. The tool, called FALLCHILL, is used by a group that the Department of Homeland Security refers to as Hidden Cobra. That group is more popularly known as Lazarus Group, North Korea’s most active hacking group. The group has been widely accused of attempting multibillion-dollar bank thefts in 18 countries and aggression against “media, aerospace, financial, and critical infrastructure sectors in the United States and globally.” Hidden Cobra has used FALLCHILL since 2016 “to target the aerospace, telecommunications, and finance industries,” U.S. officials say, citing “trusted third-party reporting.” Lazarus Group is the result of a years-long national effort to develop and deploy hacking capabilities by North Korea. “They have switched across different domains,” Jon R. Lindsay, a professor at the Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, told CyberScoop earlier this year. […]

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DHS prepares for possible legal action over Kaspersky directive

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The Department of Homeland Security is continuing to remove Kaspersky Lab software from federal systems after finding that 15 percent of federal agencies detected it on their systems, DHS’s assistant secretary for cybersecurity Jeanette Manfra told Congress Tuesday. The hearing, held by the House’s Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s Subcommittee on Oversight, focused on the September DHS directive to remove Kaspersky Lab software from federal systems. Tuesday’s hearing comes after a similar Kaspersky-focused hearing on Capitol Hill held last month. DHS is preparing for possible legal action from Kaspersky. Late Friday night, Kaspersky Lab delivered a long written response to Homeland Security’s directive banning software from the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm. Lawyers from DHS are reviewing the response. “The company hopes that DHS will reconsider the repercussions of its Directive in light of the facts presented, and Kaspersky Lab continues to consider all of its possible options,” a Kaspersky Lab spokesperson told CyberScoop. […]

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Tor’s ex-director thinks ISS World gets a bad rap

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The man who was once in charge of overseeing Tor will soon turn to law enforcement in order to explain how to de-anonymize the service’s users. Andrew Lewman, once revered as a giant in the world of hacking and privacy activism, is slated to headline the ISS World conference in Malaysia, a controversial surveillance tech and government trade show that features hacking heavyweights like Italy’s Hacking Team, Germany’s FinFisher and Israel’s NSO Group. Lewman will be attending as vice president of dark web intelligence firm DarkOWL (previously OWL Cybersecurity). Although it’s one of the most contentious conferences in tech, Lewman says ISS World isn’t nearly as bad as it’s made out to be by critics. “I don’t think ISS World is controversial at all,” he said. “I think it’s a training exercise. If you’re working with law enforcement, that’s where they go to learn about the cool new technology.” “It’s like RSA for law enforcement,” he […]

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Crooks sending fake Apple emails in order to unlock stolen iPhones

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Thieves who are stealing iPhones have started to use a clever step to increase their profit margins. Criminals are sending phishing emails to theft victims wherein they pretend to be an Apple representative in order to steal the victim’s Apple ID and password. Once that’s stolen, the phone can be unlocked and sold for a much higher price. New research from cybersecurity firm Trend Micro shows the tactic is growing in popularity to the point where it supports a growing ecosystem of crime-as-a-service businesses to support enterprising crooks. Two popular tools in particular help turn stealing iPhones into a scaleable business. The AppleKit (sold with the Apple inspired tagline “Simple But Powerful”) is a web panel that keeps close track of victims, phished credentials and stolen devices. Developed and sold by a hacker named Mustapha Othman, the tool has its origins in Arab-language hacking forums. AppleKit is sold for around $300. The […]

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As cryptocurrencies grow, so does the demand to track their users

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If bitcoin is a roller coaster ride with dizzying heights and rapid drops, one thing is clear: The original cryptocurrency carnival keeps attracting new riders. The price is up, trade volume is rising and new money buys in daily.   As a result, the business of bitcoin surveillance is booming. Governments are just barely coming to terms with how bitcoin works, but they want track newer cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash that were designed for anonymity beyond what’s available with bitcoin. Elliptic, a United Kingdom-based financial technology startup, launched with one basic goal: Trace bitcoins, identify illegal activity and sell ongoing visibility to governments and private companies to track the currency’s movement. This is possible because bitcoin is inherently transparent, with every unique transaction published on a public ledger, known as the blockchain, that anyone can access. Successfully analyzing the blockchain has become big business. Police use Elliptic’s technology to investigate crime. […]

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants to bring back bill that bans strong encryption

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., says it’s time to bring back the encryption legislation she wrote in 2016 that would effectively ban strong encryption as it exists today, Politico reports. Feinstein and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., introduced the Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016 early last year following the San Bernardino mass shooting. While the FBI butted heads with Apple over law enforcement’s inability to get into the phone of one of the shooters, Feinstein’s bill was met with great controversy but little legislative support. Never formally introduced, the bill eventually went away until this week following the FBI’s struggles to unlock an iPhone used by the gunman in Sunday’s mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas. “I think we ought to move that bill,” Feinstein told Politico this week. Burr and Feinstein are the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Last year, Burr argued that current […]

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Google Chrome introduces new security measures against malvertising

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Google Chrome will boast new anti-malvertising security features in new versions of the browser to be released in 2018. The Chrome security team announced the changes on Thursday in a post singling out offenders who “use the flexibility and power of the web to take advantage of users and redirect them to unintended destinations.” The new defenses aim to block users from being redirected to URLs without the consent of either the user or website owner. Forced redirects are a common tactics of malvertisers in efforts to make money and possibly infect victims with malware. The new features are considered follow ups to Chrome’s pop-up blocker and autoplay protections in that they protect users against “unwanted content” that may be either technically dangerous or merely incredibly annoying. Chrome 64, due in January 2018 will block URL redirections triggered by iframes that are almost always used by malicious advertising. Users will stay on […]

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NATO will establish new cyber command centers

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NATO will establish new cyber command centers allowing the transatlantic alliance to incorporate cyber weapons and security across the board in operational planning, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced on Wednesday. NATO has been operating within the cyber domain for over a decade at locations like the NATO Cyber Range and the Estonian Cyber Defense Center of Excellence. Last year, the alliance published a mutual cyber defense pledge to ensure alliance members keep pace with the rapid moving domain. In June, the alliance declared cyber an operational domain. In the following month, NATO extended cybersecurity help to Ukraine in the wake of NotPetya ransomware largely targeting Ukrainian institutions. “We are now integrating cyber effects into NATO missions and operations to respond to a changed and new security environment where cyber is part of the threat picture we have to respond to,” Stoltenberg said. “In any military conflict cyber will be an integral part and therefore we […]

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Day trader indicted for hacking into brokerages and placing unauthorized trades

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A Pennsylvania-based day trader who broke  into victims’ online securities brokerage accounts and placed unauthorized trades was indicted Wednesday on hacking and fraud charges. Between Sept. 2014 and May 2017, Joseph Willner, 42, is accused of being part of a larger conspiracy that stole money from victims’ accounts in order to fund authorized trades. Willner and co-conspirators allegedly hacked into victims’ accounts and bought publicly-traded stock from Willner at artificially high prices. “After using the victims’ accounts to purchase the stock, Willner and his co-conspirators then re-purchased the stock from the victims’ accounts at market or below-market prices,” a Department of Justice release said. “This series of fraudulent trades usually took place within minutes, and Willner immediately profited based on the difference between his artificially high short sale price, and the lower price at which he subsequently re-purchased the stock.” Federal prosecutors say the scheme earned over $700,000 in profit and resulted in […]

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