From The Blog
-
ConnectWise Slash and Grab Flaw Once Again Shows the Value of Input Validation We talk to Huntress About its Impact
Written by Sean KalinichAlthough the news of the infamous ConnectWise flaw which allowed for the creation of admin accounts is a bit cold, it still is one that…Written on Tuesday, 19 March 2024 12:44 in Security Talk Read 684 times Read more...
-
Social Manipulation as a Service – When the Bots on Twitter get their Check marks
Written by Sean KalinichWhen I started DecryptedTech it was to counter all the crap marketing I saw from component makers. I wanted to prove people with a clean…Written on Monday, 04 March 2024 16:17 in Editorials Read 1568 times Read more...
-
To Release or not to Release a PoC or OST That is the Question
Written by Sean KalinichThere is (and always has been) a debate about the ethics and impact of the release of Proof-of-Concept Exploit for an identified vulnerability and Open-Source…Written on Monday, 26 February 2024 13:05 in Security Talk Read 1102 times Read more...
-
There was an Important Lesson Learned in the LockBit Takedown and it was Not About Threat Groups
Written by Sean KalinichIn what could be called a fantastic move, global law enforcement agencies attacked and took down LockBit’s infrastructure. The day of the event was filled…Written on Thursday, 22 February 2024 12:20 in Security Talk Read 1071 times Read more...
-
NetSPI’s Offensive Security Offering Leverages Subject Matter Experts to Enhance Pen Testing
Written by Sean KalinichBlack Hat 2023 Las Vegas. The term offensive security has always been an interesting one for me. On the surface is brings to mind reaching…Written on Tuesday, 12 September 2023 17:05 in Security Talk Read 2121 times Read more...
-
Black Kite Looks to Offer a Better View of Risk in a Rapidly Changing Threat Landscape
Written by Sean KalinichBlack Hat 2023 – Las Vegas. Risk is an interesting subject and has many different meanings to many different people. For the most part Risk…Written on Tuesday, 12 September 2023 14:56 in Security Talk Read 1839 times Read more...
-
Microsoft Finally Reveals how they Believe a Consumer Signing Key was Stollen
Written by Sean KalinichIn May of 2023 a few sensitive accounts reported to Microsoft that their environments appeared to be compromised. Due to the nature of these accounts,…Written on Thursday, 07 September 2023 14:40 in Security Talk Read 2112 times Read more...
-
Mandiant Releases a Detailed Look at the Campaign Targeting Barracuda Email Security Gateways, I Take a Look at What this all Might Mean
Written by Sean KalinichThe recent attack that leveraged a 0-Day vulnerability to compromise a number of Barracuda Email Security Gateway appliances (physical and virtual, but not cloud) was…Written on Wednesday, 30 August 2023 16:09 in Security Talk Read 2090 times Read more...
-
Threat Groups Return to Targeting Developers in Recent Software Supply Chain Attacks
Written by Sean KalinichThere is a topic of conversation that really needs to be talked about in the open. It is the danger of developer systems (personal and…Written on Wednesday, 30 August 2023 13:29 in Security Talk Read 1877 times Read more...
Recent Comments
- Sean, this is a fantastic review of a beautiful game. I do agree with you… Written by Jacob 2023-05-19 14:17:50 Jedi Survivor – The Quick, Dirty, and Limited Spoilers Review
- Great post. Very interesting read but is the reality we are currently facing. Written by JP 2023-05-03 02:33:53 The Dangers of AI; I Think I Have Seen this Movie Before
- I was wondering if you have tested the microphone audio frequency for the Asus HS-1000W? Written by Maciej 2020-12-18 14:09:33 Asus HS-1000W wireless headset impresses us in the lab
- Thanks for review. I appreciate hearing from a real pro as opposed to the blogger… Written by Keith 2019-06-18 04:22:36 The Red Hydrogen One, Possibly One of the Most “misunderstood” Phones Out
- Have yet to see the real impact but in the consumer segment, ryzen series are… Written by sushant 2018-12-23 10:12:12 AMD’s 11-year journey to relevance gets an epic finish.
Most Read
- Microsoft Fail - Start Button Back in Windows 8.1 But No Start Menu Written on Thursday, 30 May 2013 15:33 in News Be the first to comment! Read 116516 times Read more...
- We take a look at the NETGEAR ProSafe WNDAP360 Dual-Band Wireless Access Point Written on Saturday, 07 April 2012 00:17 in Pro Storage and Networking Be the first to comment! Read 87451 times Read more...
- Synology DS1512+ Five-Bay NAS Performance Review Written on Tuesday, 12 June 2012 20:31 in Pro Storage and Networking Be the first to comment! Read 82005 times Read more...
- Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 Design And Feature Review Written on Sunday, 19 August 2012 22:35 in Enthusiast Motherboards Be the first to comment! Read 80319 times Read more...
- The Asus P8Z77-M Pro Brings Exceptional Performance and Value to the Lab Written on Monday, 23 April 2012 13:02 in Consumer Motherboards Be the first to comment! Read 70964 times Read more...
Displaying items by tag: Social Engineering
Social Manipulation as a Service – When the Bots on Twitter get their Check marks
When I started DecryptedTech it was to counter all the crap marketing I saw from component makers. I wanted to prove people with a clean and simple way of understanding what a product could and could not do. I also wanted to counter the massive amounts of FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) that was thrown around from different players in that industry. When I stepped away from the PC component market and began covering the industry I worked in (cybersecurity) I continued this, but only in a narrow way. I did not cover the horrible marketing and FUD efforts that I saw on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (now X). Well… now, things have changed. I am not going to just watch the shit marketing and FUD get pushed around so, to quote John Wick, Yeah, I guess I am back. I will be diving into a recent misuse of X Premium in a marketing effort on behalf of a few major studios. (I will get to gaming, cybersecurity, and other FUD as well).
Vishing Efforts in South Korea get a Boost from new “Letscall” Malware
Social engineering efforts via voice calls (Vishing) is nothing new. The use of phone calls for malicious activity is pretty old and include such popular scams as extended car warranties, IRS collection attempts, and the ever popular “there is a complaint against you”. These are just a few of the consumer scams that have been in play and are still in play. On the corporate side there are even more which target general employees and support personnel to either gain entry or enable some form of financial fraud. Sadly, this pivot is also seriously under managed by most organizations, with few providing any preventative training and most not testing this attack vector to determine exposure.
Flaws in Microsoft Teams External Tenant Handling Allow for Easy Malware Distribution
You have to love Microsoft Teams. Teams is the Frankenstein Monster of Microsoft’s Lync, which then became Skype for Business, and then morphed into the problematic service we now know as Teams. The journey from Lync to Teams has been a mishmash of features added in and removed while trying to maintain the semblance of feature parity with the products that came before it. One of the big pushes for teams was the integration of SharePoint for file storage and collection. SharePoint integration has been and continues to be a HUGE push from Microsoft in all of their MS365 products and it is not always for the better.
Hackers Compromise MailChimp to Pivot to Crypto and Finance
Over the weekend news surfaced that indicated users of Trezor hardware crypto wallets had received emails claiming Trezor had been breached and urging the user to reset their PIN as soon as possible. The emails turned out to be a phishing campaign that leveraged the compromise of MailChimp marketing tools. The latter was confirmed by MailChimp on Sunday after Trezor made the statement following the large number of reports on the phishing emails.
Voice is an often overlooked big threat vector as phone fraud rises – part I
Def Con 25, Las Vegas, NV –
Your phone rings and you check the number as a precaution against marketing calls and it looks like it is from your office. The voice on the other end says that there is an issue on the network and they need your assistance to troubleshoot. The person is calm, friendly and helpful so you agree to assist. By the time it is all done you have in advertently given away vital information about your network to a potential attacker.
HSBC's DDoS raises questions on how companies treat these events.
One cool thing about working in IT is that things are very predictable. You generally know how a system or application will react if you do this or that to it. This is how people find and use exploits in software and even hardware. You look at how an application works and identify ways you can use those processes against it. It is like digital judo. However, what many people do not really get is that this also works when setting up a larger organization for an attack. If you can track how they will respond to a particular threat, you can use it against them in very interesting ways.
New LinkedIn phishing email making the rounds
It seems that LinkedIn cannot catch a break. After a rather large data breach that resulted in the theft of a large number of user account information (including unsalted passwords protected by an outdated encryption scheme) there is now a new phishing email making the rounds that is aimed specifically at LinkedIn users. Although phishing emails that target users of social networks are nothing new this one is the first that we have seen that targets LinkedIn users and also appears to be sent directly to LinkedIn user email addresses.
False news about Olympic scandal used to spread malware
Leveraging the hype around the 2012 Olympics in London cyber criminals are pushing out malware via spam emails claiming that Gabrielle Douglas, who won a gold medal in Women's Gymnastics All Around, will face lifetime ban from sport. Obviously they are expecting that false news about doping scandals will help a lot in spreading the malware. The email is suggesting a link that will open up a false youtube page and prompt you to download Adobe Flash plugin to view the content. Sophos, which first reported on this spam, detects the malware as Troj/Agent-XIK and Troj/JSRedir-IA.
New Twitter Malware Tries to Exploit Our Own Curiosity and Desire To See Ourselves On The Internet
Remember the Faceboook malware we warned you about? You remember the one that relied on the fact that people love to see pictures of themselves on the internet? Well it looks like either the same group that was behind that malware or another equally clever group has moved from Faceboook to Twitter. We have heard multiple reports of tweets showing up that claim to have a link to a picture of the user. Unfortunately due to the widespread use of shortened links it is hard to spot many malicious payloads. Fortunately in this case you can identify the bad link by the .ru at the end… for now.
New Facebook Malware Poses As A Posted Picture Notification E-Mail
If you have been around computers for long you might remember the “I Love You” malware or the Nimda malware. Both of these relied on our habits of opening up links and attachments without out considering the email or subject. What made Nimda and I Love You even more dangerous is that they came from people we know. Now it looks like there is a new Facebook malware running around the internet. The new malware that was caught by Sophos Labs takes advantage of user trust of links claiming to have posts about them. It is an often used form of social engineering that has been effective ever since some of the first Spam malware hit the net.