More Pop. It’s been a week since I transitioned my computing capacity to the Linux distribution Pop!_OS. I wrote a review of how it is going so far.
The “industry” is finally starting to catch on to what law enforcement has been saying since the beginning of the ransomware scourge - paying the ransom rewards the criminals and perpetuates the act. A very worth read published in The Guardian paper asks the question - are insurance providers responsible for the continuation of ransomware? Yes, but not entirely.
There be sharks out there…
There are plenty of fish in the sea but unfortunately sharks too. And pirahana’s too. Interpol reported four million online dating fraud and abuse attacks were reported in 2020. The new trend is not reshipping scams but investment fraud that used a fake stock trading app.
You were watched!
No, they were actually watching you. In this disturbing guilty plea we learn the “they” was actually an employee from home security company ADT who added himself to customers accounts and watched them inside their homes. ADT acknowledged the subject monitored the accounts of 220 customers. This went on for over four years! Just a reminder to continuously monitor your account to see who is registered as a user.
Android and Fraud…
Datavisor released it’s most recent Digital Fraud Trends Report. Of no surprise, social network platform fraud has the highest growth rate. The report contains a section titled “Fraud Rates by Channel and Device” which notes “85% of total users are from Android”. Unfortunately, the report doesn’t explain that means. Is that 85% of the victims or 85% of the fraudsters? Regardless, the report is a good read and contains some valuable insights.
From the Archives
This Cyberscoop article is from 2017 but I just found it and the information is just as pertinent today. The author explains why the instant messenger service Jabber is the gold standard communication tool with the Russian cybercrime community. It will be interesting to see how this changes with the rise of Signal and Telegram. A bit of trivia, Jabber was created in 1999 making it one of the oldest messaging services.
The Rest…
The World Economic Forum (WEF) released their 2021 Global Risk Report.
Email security firm Proofpoint details the ways attackers are using Google Forms to bypass email security protections. They also provide a list of email addresses that have been documented with the attacks so you can add them to your block lists.
Criminals targeted global businesses with a phishing campaign which bypassed the Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection. The campaign allowed the threat actors to collect credentials from over a thousand individuals. Unfortunately, they stored them in plain text on a insecure server which allowed others to find them.
Emsisoft released their State of Ransomware Report including updated stats from 2020 attacks. Victims included 113 governments, 560 healthcare facilities, and 1,681 educational organizations.
Radware issued a warning that DDOS extortionists are upping their game due to the increased value of bitcoin. They claim that many prior victims are being re-attacked.
Cool Tool
Use any device with screen as a second screen for your computer. Deskreen turns that old iPad or android tablet into a second monitor. As always… consider the security of your data first! But this is an open source project and the code is available for inspection.
Cool Job
Financial Crimes Investigator - Bryn Mawr Trust
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