IT NEWS

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Data leak site BreachForums is back, boasting Live Nation/Ticketmaster user data. But is it a trap?
• The Ticketmaster “breach”—what you need to know
• Ticketmaster confirms customer data breach
• How to tell if a VPN app added your Windows device to a botnet
• Beware of scammers impersonating Malwarebytes
• How to turn off location tracking on iOS and iPadOS
• How to turn off location tracking on Android
• pcTattletale spyware leaks database containing victim screenshots, gets website defaced

Last week on ThreatDown:

• Okta suffers more credential stuffing attacks
• Operation Endgame—the largest ever battering for botnets
• North Korean threat actor behind new ransomware
• Akira ransomware gang: Who they are and how to prevent infection
• 140 Ascension facilities still reeling from ransomware attack
• Ticketmaster, Santander Bank breaches linked to Snowflake hack, threat actor claims

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.

Live Nation Entertainment has confirmed what everyone has been speculating on for the last week: Ticketmaster has suffered a data breach.

In a filing with the SEC, Live Nation said on May 20th it identified “unauthorized activity within a third-party cloud database environment containing Company data (primarily from its Ticketmaster L.L.C. subsidiary)” and launched an investigation.

The third party it refers to is likely Snowflake, a cloud company used by thousands of companies to store, manage, and analyze large volumes of data. Yesterday, May 31st, Snowflake said it had “recently observed and are investigating an increase in cyber threat activity” targeting some of its customers’ accounts. It didn’t mention which customers.

In the SEC filing, Live Nation also said:

On May 27, 2024, a criminal threat actor offered what it alleged to be Company user data for sale via the dark web. We are working to mitigate risk to our users and the Company, and have notified and are cooperating with law enforcement. As appropriate, we are also notifying regulatory authorities and users with respect to unauthorized access to personal information.

The user data likely refers to the sales ad for 560 million customers’ data that was posted online earlier this week by a group calling themselves ShinyHunters. The data was advertised for $500,000 and says it includes customer names, addresses, emails, credit card details, order information, and more.

Bleeping Computer says it spoke to ShinyHunters who said they already had interested buyers, and believed one of the buyers that approached them was Ticketmaster itself.

Ticketmaster says it has begun notifying its users of the breach. We are likely to hear more in the coming days, and will update you as we do.

For now, Ticketmaster users should keep an eye on their credit and bank accounts for an unauthorized transactions and follow our general data breach tips below.

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.

Scan for your exposed personal data

While the Ticketmaster data is yet to be published in full, it’s likely you’ve had other personal information exposed online in previous data breaches. You can check what personal information of yours has been exposed with our Digital Footprint portal. Just enter your email address (it’s best to submit the one you most frequently use) to our free Digital Footprint scan and we’ll give you a report.

On May 29, 2024, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had dismantled what was likely the world’s largest botnet ever. This botnet, called “911 S5,” infected systems at over 19 million IP addresses across more than 190 countries. The main sources of income for the operators, who stole a billions of dollars across a decade, came from committing pandemic and unemployment fraud, and by selling access to child exploitation materials.

The botnet operator generated millions of dollars by offering cybercriminals access to these infected IP addresses. As part of this operation, a Chinese national, YunHe Wang, was arrested. Wang is reportedly the proprietor of the popular service.

Of the infected Windows devices, 613,841 IP addresses were located in the United States. The DOJ also called the botnet a residential proxy service. Residential proxy networks allow someone in control to rent out a residential IP address which then can be used as a relay for their internet communications. This allows them to hide their true location behind the residential proxy. Cybercriminals used this service to engage in cyberattacks, large-scale fraud, child exploitation, harassment, bomb threats, and export violations.

To set up this botnet, Wang and his associates provided users with free, illegitimate VPN applications that were created to connect to the 911 S5 service. Unaware of the proxy backdoor, once users downloaded and installed these VPN applications, they unknowingly became part of the 911 S5 botnet.

Sometimes the VPN applications were bundled with games and other software and installed without user consent.

For this reason, the FBI has published a public service announcement (PSA) to help users find out if they have been affected by this botnet.

Users can start by going over this list of malicious VPN applications associated with the 911 S5 botnet:

• MaskVPN
• DewVPN
• PaladinVPN
• ProxyGate
• ShieldVPN
• ShineVPN

If you have one of these VPN applications installed, sometimes you can find an uninstaller located under the Start menu option of the VPN application. If present, you can use that uninstall option.

If the application doesn’t present you with an uninstall option, then follow the steps below to attempt to uninstall the application:

• Click on the Start menu (Windows button) and type “Add or remove programs” to bring up the “Add and Remove Programs” menu.
• Search for the name of the malicious VPN application.
• Once you find the application in the list, click on the application name, and select the “Uninstall” option.

Once you have uninstalled the application, you will want to make sure it’s no longer active. To do that, open the Windows Task manager. Press Control+Alt+Delete on the keyboard and select the “Task Manager” option or right-click on the Start menu (Windows button) and select the “Task Manager” option.

In Task Manager look under the “Process” tab for the following processes:

• MaskVPN (mask_svc.exe)
• DewVPN (dew_svc.exe)
• PaladinVPN (pldsvc.exe)
• ProxyGate (proxygate.exe, cloud.exe)
• ShieldVPN (shieldsvc.exe)
• ShineVPN (shsvc.exe)

If found, select the service related to one of the identified malicious software applications running in the process tab and select the option “End task” to attempt to stop the process from running.

Or, download Malwarebytes Premium (there is a free trial) and run a scan.

Whether you’re using the free or paid version of the app, you can manually run a scan to check for threats on your device. 

1. Open the app.
2. On the main dashboard, click the Scan button.
3. A progress page appears while the scan runs.
4. After the scan finishes, it displays the Threat scan summary.
   • If the scan detected no threats: Click Done.
   • If the scan detected threats on your device: Review the threats found on your computer. From here, you can manually quarantine threats by selecting a detection and clicking Quarantine.
5. Click View Report or View Scan Report to see a history of prior scans. After viewing the threat report, close the scanner window.

If neither of these options, including the Malwarebytes scan, resolve the problem, the FBI has more elaborate instructions. You can also contact the Malwarebytes Support team to assist you.

We don’t just report on privacy—we offer you the option to use it.

Privacy risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep your online privacy yours by using Malwarebytes Privacy VPN.

Scammers love to bank on the good name of legitimate companies to gain the trust of their intended targets. Recently, it came to our attention that a cybercriminal is using fake websites for security products to spread malware. One of those websites was impersonating the Malwarebytes brand.

The download from the fake website was an information stealer with a filename that resembled that of the actual Malwarebytes installer.

Besides some common system information, this stealer goes after:

• Account tokens
• Steam tokens
• Saved card details
• System profiles
• Telegram logins
• List of running process names
• Installed browser lists and their version
• Credentials from the browser “User Data” folder, Local DB an autofill
• Cookies from the browser
• List of folders on the C drive

This is just one scam, but there are always others using our name to target people. We regularly see tech support scammers pretending to be Malwarebytes to defraud their victims.

Some scammers sell—sometimes illegal—copies of Malwarebytes for prices that are boldly exaggerated.

Others will try and phish you by sending you a confirmation mail of your subscription to Malwarebytes.

And sometimes when you search for Malwarebytes you will find imposters in between legitimate re-sellers. Some even use our logo.

In this case, Google warned us that there was danger up ahead.

The site itself was not as convincing as the advert, and some poking around in the source code told us the website was likely built by a Russian speaking individual.

How to avoid brand scams

It’s easy to see how people can fall for fake brand notices. Here are some things that can help you avoid scams that use our name:

• Download software directly from our sites if you are not sure of the legitimacy of the ones offered to you.
• Check that any emails that appear to come from Malwarebytes are sent from a malwarebytes.com address.
• If you have any questions or doubts as to the legitimacy of something, you can contact our Support team.

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

Earlier this week, a cybercriminal group posted an alleged database up for sale online which, it says, contains customer and card details of 560 million Live Nation/Ticketmaster users.

The data was offered for sale on one forum under the name “Shiny Hunters”. ShinyHunters is the online handle for a group of notorious cybercriminals associated with numerous data breaches, including the recent AT&T breach.

The post says:

“Live Nation / Ticketmaster

Data includes

560 million customer full details (name, address, email, phone)

Ticket sales, event information, order details

CC detail – customer last 4 of card, expiration date

Customer fraud details

Much more

Price is $500k USD. One time sale.”

The same data set was offered for sale in an almost identical post on another forum by someone using the handle SpidermanData. This could be the same person or a member of the ShinyHunters group.

According to news outlet ABC, the Australian Department of Home Affairs said it is aware of a cyber incident impacting Ticketmaster customers and is “working with Ticketmaster to understand the incident.”

Some researchers expressed their doubts about the validity of the data set:

While others judged it looks legitimate based on conversations with involved individuals, and studying samples of the data set:

Whether or not the data is real remains to be seen. However, there’s no doubt that scammers will use this opportunity to make a quick profit.

Ticketmaster users will need to be on their guard. Read our tips below for some helpful advice on what to do in the event of a data breach.

You can also check what personal information of yours has already been exposed online with our Digital Footprint portal. Just enter your email address (it’s best to submit the one you most frequently use) to our free Digital Footprint scan and we’ll give you a report.

All parties involved have refrained from any further comments. We’ll keep you posted.

Protecting yourself from 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 any contacts 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.

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.

Android devices come with location services. Some apps need access to location services to function properly. However, there may be reasons why you don’t want your device to be located, often because you don’t want to be found and the device is always with you.

Depending on who you are trying to hide your location from, there are several levels of hiding your location.

Disclaimer: the exact instructions for your make and model of Android device may look a bit different.

Turn off location for particular apps

There are apps active on most Android devices that could give away the location of the device. To check which apps have access to your device’s location:

• Swipe down from the top of the screen.
• Find the Location icon
• Touch and hold Location.
• Tap App location permissions.
• Under Allowed all the time, Allowed only while in use, and Not allowed, find the apps that can use your device’s location.
• To change the app’s permissions, tap it. Then, choose the location access for the app.
• If you see any apps that you don’t recognize, be sure to turn the permission off.

Turn off location entirely

Alternatively, you can turn Location off entirely:

• Swipe down from the top of the screen.
• Find the location icon
• If it’s highlighted, tap it to turn it off.
• You’ll see a warning that some apps may not function properly. Confirm by tapping Close.

Turn off Find My Device

Find My Device is a service which makes your device’s most recent location available to the first account activated on the device. Find My Device is included with most Android phones, and it’s automatically turned on once you add a Google account to your device.

How to turn off Find My Device:

• Open Settings.
• Tap (Biometrics &) Security.
• Tap Find My Device, then tap the switch to turn it off.

Turning off Find My Device may backfire if you ever truly need to find your device because you lost it. But if someone may have the login credentials for the Google account associated with the phone, you may want to turn it off.

The last resort is to turn your phone off.

Even in airplane mode, GPS on your phone is still working. As long as a phone isn’t turned off, it’s possible to track the location because the device sends signals to nearby cell towers. Even when it’s turned off, the service provider or internet provider can show the last location once it’s switched back on.

We don’t just report on phone security—we provide it

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your mobile devices by downloading Malwarebytes for iOS, and Malwarebytes for Android today.

On iOS and iPadOS, location services are typically turned on when you first set up your device. However, there may be reasons why you don’t want your device to be located, perhaps because you don’t want to be found but need to keep the device with you.

There are a few options to hide your location from prying eyes.

Please note: I will only mention iOS from here on, but the instructions are almost the same for iPadOS.

Turn off location services by app

Some apps will not work properly without location services, but it’s certainly worth checking which ones are actually using them.

• Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services.
• If Location Services is on, you will see a list of apps with permissions.

• Scroll down to select an app.
• Now you can tap the app and select an option of Never, Ask Next Time Or When I Share, While Using the App, or Always.
• From here, apps should provide an explanation of how they will use your location information. Some apps might offer only two options.

Turn location services off entirely

You can turn Location Services on or off at Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services. Move the slider control to the left to turn Location Services off.

Note that turning Location Services of will also disable the Find My feature for the device.

Turn off Find My iPhone

Find My iPhone allows a user to track their devices. It allows you to locate the device from another device, make it play a sound if you are close, and even remotely erase your device if you suspect it has fallen in the wrong hands.

To disable Find My iPhone:

• Go to Settings
• Select your account name.
• Choose Find My
• Turn the feature off. You will need to enter your iCloud password.

An iPhone can still be tracked in some cases, even if it is in Airplane Mode. The only way tracking is not possible is to turn the iPhone off completely.  And even then, since iOS 15, iPhone models 11 and up will transmit their location even when powered off if the Find My Network is enabled in your settings.

To turn off Find My network:

• Go to Settings
• Select your account name.
• Choose Find My
• Turn Find My network off.

We don’t just report on phone security—we provide it

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your mobile devices by downloading Malwarebytes for iOS, and Malwarebytes for Android today.

Notorious data leak site BreachForums appears to be back online after it was seized by law enforcement a few weeks ago.

At least one of BreachForums domains and its dark web site are live again. However, questions have been raised over whether it is a genuine attempt to revive the forums once again or set up as a lure by law enforcement to entrap more data dealers and cybercriminals.

The administrator of the new forum posts under the handle ShinyHunters, which is a name associated with the AT&T breach and others, and believed to be the main administrator of the previous BreachForums.

Yesterday, ShinyHunters posted a new dataset for sale that allegedly stems from Live Nation/Ticketmaster.

“Live Nation / Ticketmaster

Data includes

560 million customer full details (name, address, email, phone)

Ticket sales, event information, order details

CC detail – customer last 4 of card, expiration date

Customer fraud details

Much more

Price is $500k USD. One time sale.”

But, an avatar and a handle are easily copied, and there are a few things that raised our spidey-senses that something is up.

First, the data set was offered for sale on another dark web forum by a user going by SpidermanData with the exact same text.

Second, this data set seems way too big for its nature. Live Nation and Ticketmaster are big enough to be considered a monopolist, but 560 million users seems like a stretch.

After looking at the shared evidence, security researcher CyberKnow tweeted:

“While there is some new data in the shared evidence there is also old customer information, making it possibly this is a series of data jammed together.”

Third, a new feature is that visitors need to register before they can see any content. Why would the administrators change that?

And, last but not least, would the FBI let the cybercriminals regain control over the domains that easily? That would be quite embarrassing.

So, we dare conclude that this dataset’s goal is to generate some attention and act as a lure to let old forum users know that BreachForums is alive and kicking. But who is running the show, is the question that we hope to answer soon.

Stay tuned for updates on this developing story.

Protecting yourself from 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 any contacts 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.
• Set up identity monitoring. Identity monitoring alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online, and helps you recover after.

Check if your data has been breached

Our Digital Footprint portal allows you to quickly and easily check if your personal information has been exposed online. Just enter your email address (it’s best to submit the one you most frequently use) to our free Digital Footprint scan and we’ll give you a report.

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.

The idea behind the software is simple. When the spying party installs the stalkerware, they grant permission to record what happens on the targeted Android or Windows device. The observer can then log in on an online portal and activate recording, at which point a screen capture is taken on the target’s device.

What goes around comes around, you might say. As you may have read many times before on our blog, some spyware companies have a surprisingly low standard of security .

In 2021, we reported that “employee and child-monitoring” software vendor pcTattleTale hadn’t been very careful about securing the screenshots it sneakily took from its victims’ phones. A security researcher found an issue while using a trial version of pcTattleTale, noticing that the company uploaded the screenshots to an unsecured online database (meaning anyone could view the screenshots as they weren’t protected by any form of authentication—such as a user name and password).

Last week another security researcher, Eric Daigle, found the company appears to have learned nothing from its previous security issue. Daigle found that pcTattleTale’s Application Programming Interface (API) allows any attacker to access the most recent screen capture recorded from any device on which the spyware is installed. Despite repeated warnings from Daigle and others, no improvements were made.

Then, yet another researcher found yet another bug in pcTattletale which allowed them to gain full access to the backend infrastructure. This allowed them to deface the website and steal the AWS credentials which turned out to be the same for all devices. Amazon has now locked pcTattletale’s entire AWS infrastructure.

After a quick sweep, stalkerware researcher, Maia Crimew stated:

“pcTattletale currently holds over 17 terabytes of victim device screenshots (upwards of 300 million of them from over 10 thousand devices), with some of them dating back to 2018.”

According to 2023 research from Malwarebytes, 62 percent of people in the United States and Canada admitted to monitoring their romantic partners online in one form or another, from looking through a spouse’s or significant other’s text messages, to tracking their location, to rifling through their search history, to even installing monitoring software onto their devices.

Given the low security of the apps available to home users, this is extremely concerning. Installing monitoring software is not just a huge invasion of privacy, there is a big chance that it will backfire.

Removing stalkerware

Malwarebytes, as one of the founding members of the Coalition Against Stalkerware, makes it a priority to detect and remove stalkerware-type apps from your device. It is good to keep in mind however that by removing the stalkerware-type app you will alert the person spying on you that you know the app is there.

Because the apps install under a different name and hide themselves from the user, it can be hard to find and remove them. That is where Malwarebytes can help you.

1. Open your Malwarebytes dashboard
2. Tap Scan now
3. It may take a few minutes to scan your device.

 If malware is detected you can act on it in the following ways:

• Uninstall. The threat will be deleted from your device.
• Ignore Always. The file detection will be added to the Allow List, and excluded from future scans. Legitimate files are sometimes detected as malware. We recommend reviewing scan results and adding files to Ignore Always that you know are safe and want to keep.
• Ignore Once: A file has been detected as a threat, but you are not sure whether to add it to your Allow List or delete. This option will ignore the detection this time only. It will be detected as malware on your next scan.

On Windows machines Malwarebytes detects pcTattleTale as PUP.Optional.PCTattletale.

We don’t just report on phone security—we provide it

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your mobile devices by downloading Malwarebytes for iOS, and Malwarebytes for Android today.

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• How AI will change your credit card behind the scenes
• Criminal record database of millions of Americans dumped online
• Microsoft AI “Recall” feature records everything, secures far less
• How to remove a user from a shared Android device
• How to remove a user from a shared Mac
• How to remove a user from a shared Windows device
• Your vacation, reservations, and online dates, now chosen by AI: Lock and Code S05E11
• What is real-time protection and why do you need it?
• Financial institutions ordered to notify customers after a breach, have an incident response plan

Last week on ThreatDown:

• Patch now! Critical vulnerability in Veeam’s Backup Enterprise Manager
• Carbon Black and Broadcom: Acquisition, Symantec, and what’s next
• “Linguistic Lumberjack” vulnerability impacts all major cloud providers
• Threat actors ride the hype for newly released Arc browser
• Update now! GitHub patches critical vulnerability in Enterprise Server
• How to get CIPA compliant with Web Content Filtering
• Gootloader walkthrough

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.