Archive for author: makoadmin

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• 100 million US citizens officially impacted by Change Healthcare data breach
• Pinterest tracks users without consent, alleges complaint
• After concerns of handing Facebook taxpayer info, four companies found to have improperly shared data
• LinkedIn bots and spear phishers target job seekers
• Upload a video selfie to get your Facebook or Instagram account back
• This industry profits from knowing you have cancer, explains Cody Venzke (Lock and Code S05E22)
• Internet Archive attackers email support users: “Your data is now in the hands of some random guy”

Last week on ThreatDown:

• Why ransomware gangs want you to keep using that GPON router

Stay safe!

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In April, we reported that a “substantial proportion” of Americans may have had their health and personal data stolen in the Change Healthcare breach. That was based on a report provided by the UnitedHealth Group after the February cyberattack on its subsidiary Change Healthcare.

The attack on Change Healthcare, which processes about 50% of US medical claims, was one of the worst ransomware attacks against American healthcare and caused widespread disruption in payments to doctors and health facilities.

UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty estimated the attack compromised the data of a third of US individuals when he testified before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill on May 1, 2024 in Washington, DC.

He wasn’t exaggerating. Yesterday, Change Healthcare reported a number of 100,000,000 affected individuals on the breach portal of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the HHS confirmed that it prioritized and opened investigations of Change Healthcare and UnitedHealth Group, focused on whether a breach of protected health information (PHI) occurred and on the entities’ compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Rules. OCR did this because of the cyberattack’s unprecedented impact on patient care and privacy.

On July 19, 2024, Change Healthcare filed a breach report with OCR that identified 500 individuals as the “approximate number of individuals affected.” This is the minimum number of individuals affected that results in a posting of a breach on the HHS Breach Portal, and it was perhaps cited because Change Healthcare still needed to determine the actual number of impacted users.

Acting Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the US Department of Health & Human Services Melanie Fontes Rainer said about 140 million people were affected by large breaches in 2023, up from 51 million in 2022. And 2024 looks even worse, she added:

“And this year, with both the Change breach and Ascension breach, we expect that number to potentially double or go higher.”

Affected people can visit a dedicated website at changecybersupport.com to get more information or call 1-866-262-5342 to set up free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.

Protecting yourself after a data breach

There are some actions you can take if you are, or suspect you may have been, the victim of a data breach.

• Check the vendor’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the vendor to find out what’s happened, and follow any specific advice they offer.
• Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
• Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop or phone as your second factor. Some forms of two-factor authentication (2FA) can be phished just as easily as a password. 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
• Watch out for fake vendors. The thieves may contact you posing as the vendor. Check the vendor website to see if they are contacting victims, and verify the identity of anyone who contacts you using a different communication channel.
• Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
• Consider not storing your card details. It’s definitely more convenient to get sites to remember your card details for you, but we highly recommend not storing that information on websites.
• Set up identity monitoring. Identity monitoring alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online, and helps you recover after.

Check your digital footprint

Malwarebytes has a new free tool for you to check how much of your personal data has been exposed online. Submit your email address (it’s best to give the one you most frequently use) to our free Digital Footprint scan and we’ll give you a report and recommendations.

Pinterest has received a complaint from privacy watchdog noyb (None of your business) over the unsolicited tracking of its users.

Pinterest allows you to pin images to virtual pinboards; useful for interior design, recipe ideas, party inspiration, and much more. It started as a virtual replacement for paper catalogs to share recipes, but has since grown into a visual search and e-commerce platform.

With the growth came the advertisers, and what their goals with the platform were. And as we are all undoubtedly aware, targeted and especially personalized advertising is much more effective than regular advertising.

So, like many other social media platforms before it, Pinterest claimed to have a legitimate interest in using personal data without asking for consent.

The “legitimate interest” argument comes from one of the six lawful bases granted in the European Union’s (EU’s) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which states that processing of personal data is allowed if it is:

“…necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject.”

Social media platforms have a habit of claiming to need that ability for economic reasons, to improve their service, or to safeguard security of both users and the platform. But in every case I know of, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled against platforms using personal data without consent.

Pinterest users are not made aware of the fact that they can turn off “ads personalisation” under the “privacy and data” settings, according to the complaint. This setting is turned on by default, allowing Pinterest to use information from visited websites and from other third parties to show users personalized ads.

When a complainant filed an access request to find out what data Pinterest had about her, she received a copy of her data on the same day, but quickly realized that it didn’t include any information about the recipients of her data.

Two additional requests made her none the wiser about the categories of data that were shared with third parties, which means that Pinterest failed to adequately respond to the access request under Article 15(1)(c) of the GDPR.

Based on this, noyb has filed a complaint with the French data protection authority (CNIL). The grounds of that complaint are that Pinterest violated Article 6(1) GDPR by processing the complainant’s personal data for personalized advertising on the basis of legitimate interest, and violated Article 15(1)(c) GDPR by failing to provide access to the categories of data shared with third parties.

To turn off personalized ads on Pinterest:

• Log in to your Pinterest account
• Click the chevron-down icon at the top-right corner to open your menu
• Click Settings
• Select Privacy and data
• Adjust your personalization settings
• Click Save.

Pinterest reminds users that this setting does not apply to information about purchases you initiate on Pinterest. More information about this setting is available in Pinterest’s Help Center.

We don’t just report on threats – we help protect your social media

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your social media accounts by using Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection.

Four tax preparation software companies failed to comply with government rules that require the sharing of tax-related info to be done only with specific disclosures and full tax-payer consent, according to an audit released by the Treasure Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) in the United States.

“According to Treasury Regulation § 301.7216-3, tax return information may not be used or disclosed except as specifically permitted or when the taxpayer provides consent.”

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) partners with tax professionals and other entities that assist taxpayers in meeting their tax obligations. Before partnering with these professionals and entities, the IRS conducts suitability checks. But the IRS does not have awareness of the full scope of information that an online provider routinely collects, beyond what is filed with the IRS, or shared with third parties.

Further, the guidance for obtaining taxpayer consent to use or disclose taxpayer information does not specifically address the use of pixels, such as those used by Facebook and Google to track information on a website.

These pixels are basically a piece of code that website owners can place on their website. The pixel collects data that helps businesses track conversions from ads, optimize ads, build target audiences for future ads, and re-market to people that have already taken some kind of action on their website. That’s nice for the advertisers, but the combined information of all these pixels potentially provides the recipients with an almost complete portrait of your browsing behavior.

The audit was performed after TIGTA received a congressional letter raising concerns about the data sharing practices of online tax filing companies. This letter spoke of data sharing methods that used a pixel to capture an individual’s entries on the online tax filing companies’ website, which then sent data entered for the preparation of online tax returns to a third party to focus marketing and advertisement efforts to each user.

In other words, information that is highly regulated was collected and shared outside the rules of those regulations, which could have allowed for invasions of privacy.

TIGTA acknowledged that it shared similar concerns and that it was in the process of conducting a separate but related review.

TIGTA did not disclose the names of the four companies that were the subject of these investigations, but in a follow-up letter from 3 senators and a member of congress they mention TaxSlayer, H&R Block, TaxAct, and Ramsey Solutions.

The review found that the audited companies’ consent statements did not comply with the requirements of Treasury Regulation § 301.7216. Specifically, the consent statements did not clearly identify the intended purpose of the disclosure and the specific recipient(s) of the tax return information.

Based on the results TIGTA advised the IRS to update their revenue procedure to include language that consent statements must identify the purpose of disclosure and specific recipient(s); evaluate whether any updates are needed to the guidance regarding data sharing practices, e.g., the use of pixels; and identify and implement potential solutions that will ensure that online providers comply with the regulatory requirements of taxpayer consent statements.

The IRS has taken actions to address the previously reported deficiencies with the suitability check processes and procedures for tax preparation companies. For example, the IRS:

• Updated procedures to ensure consistency with initial and continuous suitability checks.
• Established a consistent adjudication process for applicants with a criminal history.
• Modified procedures to systemically create cases requiring research and resolution for tax compliance issues.
• Modified procedures to accept only electronic fingerprint cards.

We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your—and your family’s—personal information by using identity protection.

Microsoft’s social network for professionals, LinkedIn, is an important platform for job recruiters and seekers alike. It’s also a place where criminals go to find new potential victims.

Like other social media platforms, LinkedIn is no stranger to bots attracted to special keywords and hashtags. Think “I was laid off”, “I’m #opentowork” and similar phrases that can wake up a swarm of bots hungry to scam someone new.

Bots are problematic as they not only create a poor user experience but also present real security risks. Perhaps even more insidious are customized phishing attempts, where fraudulent LinkedIn accounts directly reach out to their victim via the premium InMail feature. In this case, it’s all about harvesting personal information from targets of interest.

In this article, we review recent observations and provide tips for job seekers and users of the platform in general.

Hungry bots

Online bots are so common that they transcend every possible industry: advertising, music and concerts, social media, games, and more. There are even companies whose entire business model is to disrupt and contain bots. The impact of bots depends on which point of view you are taking, as it can range from simple nuisance, to opinion swaying, costly fraud, and a lot more in between.

We recently observed fake LinkedIn accounts that prey on those just laid off. Within minutes of a post, dozens of accounts start replying with links or requests to be added as a connection.

The use of certain hashtags was already known to attract bots, and the #opentowork one is no different. Ironically, even a recruiter was previously swamped with similar messages and questioned whether they might have to refrain from ever having to use the hashtag again:

The battle between HR and the bots was featured in a Brian Krebs article from a couple of years ago. While the accounts we saw in the most recent campaign were not labeled as recruiters directly, they often pointed to other profiles that were. In the majority of cases, scammers used the name of real people and their pictures to create new accounts.

It appears their primary goal may be to gain connections by pretending to help a job seeker. This may increase the supposed authenticity of their profile and make it harder to shut them down.

LinkedIn did take action sometime after we witnessed the original spam wave. Many of the accounts indeed disappeared and comments were removed. It’s unclear whether this was a result of user reports, LinkedIn’s own algorithms, or a combination of both.

Fine tuning anti-fraud algorithms requires constant calibration, and isn’t without casualties. Some content creators have been banned due to “false positives”, eroding the trust and dedication they put into the platform.

You’ve got InMail

While bots are annoying, they are usually so predictable and noisy that they can be spotted from miles away, especially when they duplicate their own comments on the same post. More dangerous are personalized requests that come directly into a user’s inbox.

It’s the same idea of a fake recruiter, but the profile looks more credible and scammers are using paid accounts. In fact, the ability to send a message to a user who’s not in your circle of contacts, is one of LinkedIn’s feature for going premium, called InMail.

In the image seen above, an alleged Amazon recruiter going by the name “Kay Poppe”, sent a direct message about a unique job opportunity at Amazon Web Services. The so-called recruiter’s profile picture looks to be AI-generated, and the name Kay Poppe vaguely reminds us of “K-pop”, the Korean pop music phenomenon. Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but we couldn’t help but think of North Korea’s relentless phishing attempts.

This was not a standard, copy-paste message but rather a carefully crafted one based on the victim’s job profile. The link shortener they used was related to their current position and was the hook to get them to visit a fake LinkedIn page showing a number of documents related to that role. None of the links to the documents actually load what they claim to be, instead they are meant to be a segway to a page hosting a phishing kit.

In this particular instance, this is the Rockstar2FA phishing-as-a-service toolkit used to harvest Google credentials. As more and more people are using two-factor authentication, criminals have come up with their own methods to bypass 2FA. While it is recommended to avoid SMS-based verification and instead use a one-time password (OTP) app, users can still get social engineered into entering the temporary code into a phishing page.

Stealing a Google account is usually only the first step in longer chain leading to a full compromise. Many people use their Google email as a recovery address for a number of other online accounts. This can allow a criminal to reset as many passwords as they can get their hands on before the victim even realizes what’s happened. It’s also not unusual to get locked out of your account and then struggle to regain control of it.

Fish in a larger pod

Scammers are notorious for targeting the vulnerable, and one could say that after losing a job you probably feel this way. All too eager to regain employment, you may jump at the first opportunity and engage in a conversation that could end badly.

Many of the bots spamming via comments tie back to some kind of fraud such as the advance-fee scam where you need to pay an up-front fee in order to receive goods or services. Some job offers are also too good to be true, and you could unknowingly participate in illegal activities by helping to funnel and launder money.

The more targeted phishing attempts are dangerous not only for the individual in question but also for the company they work for. This may be the case if you are not actively looking for a new job, and as such compromising you could in turn have further consequences, such as getting an entry point into an entire organization.

Whether you are looking for a job or already have one, you should expect to get contacted by some unknown third-party at some point. Treat every such inquiry with suspicion and caution. Remember that on the internet, not everyone is who they pretend to be.

Also, consider passkeys, a newer form of authentication that was specifically designed to move away from passwords and be less prone to phishing attacks. They rely on a private-public key exchange between a device and the service’s login page removing the need to enter passwords or codes.

If you ever fall victim to a scam, time is of the essence. Immediately:

• be on the lookout for unusual account changes
• proactively do a full password sweep
• reach out to your bank and credit card company
• inform your contacts who may receive fraudulent messages coming from you

We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your—and your family’s—personal information by using identity protection.

Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram says its testing new ways to use facial recognition—both to combat scams and to help restore access to compromised accounts.

The social media giant is testing the use of video selfies and facial recognition to help users get their hijacked accounts back. Social media accounts are often lost when users forget their password, switch devices, or when they inadvertently or even willingly give their credentials to a scammer.

Another reason for Meta to use facial recognition are what it calls “celeb-bait ads.” Scammers often try to use images of public figures to trick people into engaging with ads that lead to fraudulent websites.

Since it’s trivial to set up an account that looks like a celebrity, scammers use this to attract visitors for various reasons, ranging from like-farming (a method to raise the popularity of a site or domain) to imposter scams, where accounts that seem to belong to celebrities reach out to you in order to defraud you.

Meta’s existing ad review system uses machine learning to review the millions of ads that are run across Meta platforms every day. With a new facial recognition addition to that system, Meta can compare faces in the ad to the public figure’s Facebook and Instagram profile pictures, and then block them if it’s fake.

According to Meta:

“Early testing with a small group of celebrities and public figures shows promising results in increasing the speed and efficacy with which we can detect and enforce against this type of scam.”

Over the coming weeks, Meta intends to start informing a larger group of celebs who have been used in scam ads that they will be enrolled into the new scheme and allow them to opt out if that’s what they want.

The problem of celeb-bait ads is a big one and I applaud Meta for trying to do something about it. The account recovery by video selfie, however, is something I’m far less fond of.

The idea of using facial recognition on social media is not new. In 2021, Meta shut down the Face Recognition system on Facebook as part of a company-wide move to limit the use of facial recognition in their products.

In the newly-announced system, the user can upload a video selfie, and Meta will use facial recognition technology to compare the selfie to the profile pictures on the account they’re trying to access. This is similar to identity verification tools you might already use to unlock your phone or access other apps. 

I do have a few questions though:

• With the current development of deepfakes, how long will it take for this technology to be used for the exact opposite? Stealing your account by showing the platform a deepfake video of your face.
• Do I want to provide Meta with even more material that might end up getting used to train its Artificial Intelligence (AI) models? Although Meta claims to delete the facial data after comparison, there are concerns about the collection and temporary storage of biometric information.
• People have a tendency to post their best pictures and not change them as they grow older. Is a comparison always possible?
• Is normalizing the use of biometrics for something as trivial as social media really necessary? Right now I only use a video selfie to approve bank transfers of over 1000 Euro (US$ 1075).  

There are probably good reasons why Meta is not implementing this option in the UK or the EU, because it needs to “continue conversations with regulators” first. The same is true for Illinois and Texas, likely due to stricter privacy laws in these states.

Surely there are better ways to reclaim a stolen account. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

We don’t just report on threats – we help protect your social media

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your social media accounts by using Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection.

This week on the Lock and Code podcast…

On the internet, you can be shown an online ad because of your age, your address, your purchase history, your politics, your religion, and even your likelihood of having cancer.

This is because of the largely unchecked “data broker” industry.

Data brokers are analytics and marketing companies that collect every conceivable data point that exists about you, packaging it all into profiles that other companies use when deciding who should see their advertisements.

Have a new mortgage? There are data brokers that collect that information and then sell it to advertisers who believe new homeowners are the perfect demographic to purchase, say, furniture, dining sets, or other home goods. Bought a new car? There are data brokers that collect all sorts of driving information directly from car manufacturers—including the direction you’re driving, your car’s gas tank status, its speed, and its location—because some unknown data model said somewhere that, perhaps, car drivers in certain states who are prone to speeding might be more likely to buy one type of product compared to another.

This is just a glimpse of what is happening to essentially every single adult who uses the Internet today.

So much of the information that people would never divulge to a stranger—like their addresses, phone numbers, criminal records, and mortgage payments—is collected away from view by thousands of data brokers. And while these companies know so much about people, the public at large likely know very little in return.

Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel with the ACLU, about how data brokers collect their information, what data points are off-limits (if any), and how people can protect their sensitive information, along with the harms that come from unchecked data broker activity—beyond just targeted advertising.

“We’re seeing data that’s been purchased from data brokers used to make decisions about who gets a house, who gets an employment opportunity, who is offered credit, who is considered for admission into a university.”

Tune in today to listen to the full conversation.

Show notes and credits:

Intro Music: “Spellbound” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Outro Music: “Good God” by Wowa (unminus.com)

Listen up—Malwarebytes doesn’t just talk cybersecurity, we provide it.

Protect yourself from online attacks that threaten your identity, your files, your system, and your financial well-being with our exclusive offer for Malwarebytes Premium for Lock and Code listeners.

Those who hacked the Internet Archive haven’t gone away. Users of the Internet Archive who have submitted helpdesk tickets are reporting replies to the tickets from the hackers themselves.

Internet Archive, most known for its Wayback Machine, is a digital library that allows users to look at website snapshots from the past. It is often used for academic research and data analysis. Earlier in October, the Internet Archive suffered from a data breach and DDoS attack.

During that breach the attackers were able to steal a user authentication database containing 31 million records.

While the Wayback Machine is almost fully functional again, in a recent turn of events the attackers have started replying to those users that have opened a support ticket with the Internet Archive.

This is one of the replies a user reported:

“It’s dispiriting to see that even after being made aware of the breach 2 weeks ago, IA has still not done the due diligence of rotating many of the API keys that were exposed in their gitlab secrets.

As demonstrated by this message, this includes a Zendesk token with perms to access 800K+ support tickets sent to info@archive.org since 2018.

Whether you were trying to ask a general question, or requesting the removal of your site from the Wayback Machine—your data is now in the hands of some random guy. If not me, it’d be someone else.

Here’s hoping that they’ll get their shit together now.”

An Application Programming Interface (API) token is like a special pass that allows a computer program or app to access and use services provided by another program or website. It is used as proof that the user or app has permission to access the service.

It appears as if the Internet Archive uses Zendesk to manage its support tickets. Having the Internet Archive’s Zendesk token would certainly explain why the hackers can reply to customer tickets.

Changing a Zendesk API token is not very hard, but it can have unexpected consequences, so it may require some advance planning to minimize potential disruptions. This could be why the Internet Archive may not have gotten round to it yet. But not changing API keys that would grant the attackers access to the organization’s important infrastructure like Zendesk would be a serious omission.

On October 18, 2024, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, posted an update stating the stored data of the Internet Archive is safe and work on resuming services safely is in progress.

“We’re taking a cautious, deliberate approach to rebuild and strengthen our defenses. Our priority is ensuring the Internet Archive comes online stronger and more secure.”

So far, the Internet Archive has not responded to the new developments, and the motivation for the attacks on the Internet Archive remain unclear. We’ll keep you posted.

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Unauthorized data access vulnerability in macOS is detailed by Microsoft
• 23andMe will retain your genetic information, even if you delete the account
• “Nudify” deepfake bots remove clothes from victims in minutes, and millions are using them
• Tor Browser and Firefox users should update to fix actively exploited vulnerability
• AI scammers target Gmail accounts, say they have your death certificate
• Election season raises fears for nearly a third of people who worry their vote could be leaked
• Robot vacuum cleaners hacked to spy on, insult owners

Last week on ThreatDown:

• Exchange Server 2016 and 2019 have less than a year to live
• How threat actors use AI

Stay safe!

Our business solutions remove all remnants of ransomware and prevent you from getting reinfected. Want to learn more about how we can help protect your business? Get a free trial below.

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team disclosed details about a macOS vulnerability, dubbed “HM Surf,” that could allow an attacker to gain access to the user’s data in Safari. The data the attacker could access without users’ consent includes browsed pages, along with the device’s camera, microphone, and location.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-44133 was fixed in the September 16 update for Mac Studio (2022 and later), iMac (2019 and later), Mac Pro (2019 and later), Mac Mini (2018 and later), MacBook Air (2020 and later), MacBook Pro (2018 and later), and iMac Pro (2017 and later).

It is important to note that this vulnerability would only impact Mobile Device Management (MDM) managed devices. MDM managed devices are typically subject to centralized management and security policies set by the organization’s IT department.

Microsoft has dubbed the flaw “HM Surf.” By exploiting this vulnerability an attacker could bypass the macOS Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) technology and gain unauthorized access to a user’s protected data.

Users may notice Safari’s TCC in action when they browse a website that requires access to the camera or the microphone. They may see a prompt like this one:

What Microsoft discovered was that Safari maintains its own separate TCC policy which it maintains in various local files.

At that point Microsoft figured out it was possible to modify the sensitive files, by swapping the home directory of the current user back and forth. The home directory is protected by the TCC, but by changing the home directory, then change the file, and then making it the home directory again, Safari will use the modified files.

The exploit only works on Safari because third-party browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge do not have the same private entitlements as Apple applications. Therefore, those apps can’t bypass the macOS TCC checks.

Microsoft noted that it observed suspicious activity in the wild associated with the Adload adware that might be exploiting this vulnerability. But it could not be entirely sure whether the exact same exploit was used.

“Since we weren’t able to observe the steps taken leading to the activity, we can’t fully determine if the Adload campaign is exploiting the HM surf vulnerability itself. Attackers using a similar method to deploy a prevalent threat raises the importance of having protection against attacks using this technique.”

We encourage macOS users to apply these security updates as soon as possible if they haven’t already.

Malwarebytes for Mac takes out malware, adware, spyware, and other threats before they can infect your machine and ruin your day. It’ll keep you safe online and your Mac running like it should.