IT News

Ukrainian law enforcement officials announced Wednesday that they had arrested several individuals involved in criminal activity committed by the Clop ransomware gang, a cybercriminal gang that helped popularize the “double extortion” model of not only threatening to encrypt a victim’s files, but also threatening to release confidential data that was stolen in an earlier breach.

According to a press release issued by Ukrainian authorities, law enforcement officials also shut down infrastructure that was used to spread the cybercrime gang’s ransomware, which was first spotted in February of 2019 as a new variant of the Cryptomix family.  

“Together, law enforcement has managed to shut down the infrastructure from which the virus spreads and block channels for legalizing criminally acquired cryptocurrencies,” the press release reportedly said, according to a translation from BleepingComputer. “Law enforcement officers conducted 21 searches in the capital and Kyiv region, in the homes of the defendants, and in their cars.”

Ukrainian law enforcement reportedly said that the Clop ransomware gang has caused roughly $500 million in financial damages, and that the individuals arrested could face up to eight years in prison.

As seen in a video of the arrests, Ukrainian officers were aided by investigators from South Korea. BleepingComputer reported that the arrest effort also included coordination from officials in the United States. In the video, nearly $30,000 are laid out in the floor, in $100 bills, and several cars, including a Mercedes Benz, a Tesla, and a Lexus, are taken away.

The international coordination effort represents at least the second time this year that countries have come together to fight cybercrime. In January, a coalition of countries collaborating through Europol helped take down Emotet by also attacking its infrastructure.

But whereas the Emotet takedown seems to have caused a significant disruption to that cyberthreat, the arrests made against Clop could present a smaller roadblock. That’s because, according to the cybersecurity company Intel 471, none of the actual members of the Clop ransomware gang were caught.

Instead, the arrests involved money launderers, Intel 471 said.

“The law enforcement raids in Ukraine associated with CLOP ransomware were limited to the cash-out/money laundering side of CLOP’s business only,” Intel 471 told BleepingComputer. “We do not believe that any core actors behind CLOP were apprehended and we believe they are probably living in Russia.”

The arrests also represent the second time in weeks that authorities have targeted a cybercrime gang by following the money. In early June, the US Department of Justice announced that it had recovered the majority of the ransom payment made by Colonial Pipeline to its attackers, the cybercriminal group called Darkside. By tracking the ransomware payment through the public Bitcoin ledger, the Department of Justice and the FBI managed to retrieve 63.7 bitcoins.

Cryptocurrencies have long been abused to fund cybercrime, and, perhaps with the recent retrieval of Colonial Pipeline’s ransom payment, that intersection will continue to be closely scrutinized. If so, it would fall in line with the Ransomware Task Force’s recommendations made in April, which suggested that governments lean further into regulating cryptocurrency.

While Clop was not particularly active last year—it did not enter our top 10 malware threats for businesses or consumers in 2020—the operators behind the ransomware still found ways to squeeze their victims. Inspired last year by the ransomware group Maze, Clop infiltrated company networks to steal sensitive data and then demanded that those organizations pay a ransom to keep the data secret. But this year, Clop refined that tactic by targeting corporate executives’ machines, hoping that executives would have more access to sensitive files and data. The idea was simple: Better access to sensitive data, better chance that a victim will pay to keep that data from being published.

As of Wednesday afternoon, according to BleepingComputer, Clop’s Tor payment site and data leak site were still operational.

The post Clop stopped? Ransomware gang loses Tesla and other treasures in police raid appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Apple has fixed two vulnerabilities in Safari’s WebKit component, announcing it is aware of a report that they may have been actively exploited. Both vulnerabilities could be abused by maliciously crafted web content that could lead to arbitrary code execution: In other words, the bugs let rogue websites do things on your phone without your permission.

Letting users of its products know that vulnerabilities are being actively exploited is a new approach for Apple. It has always been reluctant to provide much context in its security bulletins and only recently started adding information about whether vulnerabilities are being used in the wild.

WebKit

WebKit is the web browser engine used by Safari, Mail, App Store, and many other apps on macOS, iOS, and Linux. The vulnerable WebKit version is available for: iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, and iPod touch (6th generation). 

This is the 9^th actively-exploited zero-day patched by Apple this year. Seven of them were related to WebKit. One was a GateKeeper bypass, and the other a TCC bypass. Gatekeeper is designed to ensure that only trusted software runs on your Mac, and Apple’s TCC  protection is built to safeguard privacy.

CVEs

Publicly disclosed computer security flaws are listed in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database. The two vulnerabilities that were reported to be abused in the wild are:

• CVE-2021-30761: A memory corruption issue.
• CVE-2021-30762: A use after free issue.

Both vulnerabilities have been submitted by an anonymous researcher. It is not known whether they were both submitted by the same researcher.

Memory corruption issue

Memory corruption bugs occur when a program’s memory is modified in a way that was not anticipated by the programmers. When used by an attacker, a memory corruption bug can become a serious security vulnerability that might allow an attacker to leak sensitive information or execute arbitrary code. The generic term “memory corruption” is often used to describe the consequences of writing to memory outside the bounds of a buffer, or to memory addresses that are invalid.

Use after free

Use-After-Free (UAF) is a vulnerability related to incorrect use of dynamic memory during program operation. If after freeing a memory location, a program does not clear the pointer to that memory, an attacker can use the error to hack the program. Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.

Apple

As is customary, Apple did not provide details on the zero-day attacks, which appear to be aimed at a range of older models of iPhones. It’s remarkable that Apple disclosed that these vulnerabilities are being used in the wild as this has not been its habit until recently.

“For our customers’ protection, Apple doesn’t disclose, discuss, or confirm security issues until an investigation has occurred and patches or releases are available. Recent releases are listed on the Apple security updates page.”

Waiting to disclose issues until a patch is available certainly makes sense, but keeping under wraps how serious an issue is, is a different case. Whether this new habit of letting customers know that vulnerabilities are actively being abused is here to stay remains unknown, but it brings Apple more inline with industry norms. From our perspective it is progress. Not in the least because it gives users a perspective into the urgency of getting the necessary patches.

Stay safe, everyone!

The post Patch now! Apple fixes in-the-wild iPhone vulnerabilities appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Microsoft will terminate support for Windows 10 Home and Pro on 14 October 2025, a decade after the original Windows 10 was brought to market. Although some may claim that a Microsoft document has been “quietly edited” over the weekend to reflect this “sudden change”, this reveal isn’t new. In fact, based on a Wayback Machine screen capture of the same page, Windows Central has pointed out that this reveal has been on the Microsoft page since September 2020.

Nevertheless, this renewed interest on Windows 10 has come almost three weeks after the Microsoft Build 2021 event in late May, where Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella teased of something big in the works: a “next generation of Windows” (Hint: It won’t be called Windows 11). Furthermore, this end-of-life cycle reveal has happened at least a week before a new Windows digital event on 24 June 2021.

And soon we will share one of the most significant updates to Windows of the past decade to unlock greater economic opportunity for developers and creators. I’ve been selfhosting it over the past several months, and I’m incredibly excited about the next generation of Windows. Our promise to you is this: we will create more opportunity for every Windows developer today and welcome every creator who is looking for the most innovative, new, open platform to build and distribute and monetize applications. We look forward to sharing more very soon.

Transcription of Nadella’s keynote, reproduced from Windows Central, during the Build 2021 event

Microsoft hasn’t hinted on when this new OS will be revealed to the public, much less made available in the market, but Nadella admitted that he has been testing it for months. We don’t know what it will contain, but Windows is still the platform of choice for most businesses, and therefore the platform of choice for most malware—including the most dangerous forms, like ransomware—so we’d be surprised if it doesn’t include something designed to tackle that head on.

The company also expects the transition from the would-be-retired Windows 10 to the new desktop OS would take around four years. History suggests that’s optimistic. Windows XP reached the end of its life seven years ago.

This matters, because the end of life means an end of patches, and a progressively worsening security situation for any organisations that don’t migrate in time. The time to start planning is now.

And if there is anything we’ve learned about end-of-life cycles and support, it’s this: Scammers and fraudsters have made it a point to use news like this to lure potential victims into either downloading malware disguised as a legitimate file or to steal pertinent information and credentials. So, while we prepare for this transition, let’s not forget to also keep our eyes open. Stay informed, and stay safe!

The post Windows 10 to retire in four years (or 52 Patch Tuesdays, in sysadmin years) appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Although sharing your day’s highlights in snapshots and videos on Instagram can be entertaining, some people claim to feel happier after deleting their accounts. Consuming media tailor-made to make other people’s lifestyles appear alluring can be addictive for some and induce anxiety in others. Not only do people delete Instagram for their wellbeing, but they remove it for privacy concerns. Hackers, scammers, and stalkers can use the photo and video sharing social networking platform to target others, and Instagram is part of Facebook’s advertising panopticon.

For any of these reasons, a number of Instagram users decide to take a break from the platform at some point, either temporarily or permanently. If you do, remember that you will lose the following data permanently when you delete your Instagram account:

• Profile
• Photos
• Videos
• Comments
• Likes
• Followers

You can sign up with the same username again after deleting your Instagram account. However, this won’t be possible if someone else has created an account with the same username. Hypothetically, someone could impersonate you after you leave by creating an account with the same username. That’s why you may want to disable your account rather than delete it.

How do I disable my Instagram account temporarily?

To hide your account, profile, photos, comments, and likes, you can opt to disable your Instagram account instead of erasing it. Disabling it is easy and requires a web browser on a computer, tablet, or mobile phone. Unfortunately, you can’t use an Instagram app to disable Instagram.

1. Log into your Instagram account from a web browser.
2. Click your profile picture on the top right of the screen.
3. Click Profile followed by Edit Profile.
4. Find Temporarily disable my account on the bottom right after scrolling down.
5. Pick an option from the drop-down menu that says Why are you disabling your account?
6. Enter your password.
7. Hit Temporarily Disable Account to hide your account until you’re ready to reactivate it.

How to download your Instagram data on a Computer, Android, or iPhone

You may want to back up your pictures, videos, and posts from Instagram before deleting your account. Once you delete your account, your media is irrecoverable. Here is how to get a copy of everything you’ve shared on Instagram:

1. Click or tap your profile picture and then find Settings.
2. Click Privacy and Security on a computer or tap Security on Android or iPhone.
3. Click Request Download on a computer or tap Download Data on your mobile device.
4. Enter your email address, Instagram account password and use the Request Download option.
5. Wait for an email from Instagram titled Your Instagram Data. Instagram says that it can take up to 48 hours to send the email.
6. Use the link in the email to download your data.
7. You can contact Instagram directly if you’ve lost your username or password and need access to your data.

How do I delete my Instagram account on a computer?

Log into your Instagram account. Follow this link to get to the Delete your account page. Pick from one of the listed reasons explaining why you want to delete your account. Re-enter your password and delete your account for good.

How do I delete my Instagram account on my iPhone or Android device?

Deleting an Instagram account through a mobile app isn’t possible. You may find it easier to delete it on a computer and remove the mobile app. You can use the following steps, but they eventually lead you to a hyperlink on a web browser.

1. Start the Instagram app on your phone.
2. Tap the Profile icon.
3. Go to the Profile page and tap Settings.
4. Scroll down to Help Center and tap Basics.
5. Hit Getting Started and then scroll through the options until you find Delete Your Account
6. Select How do I delete my account and follow the hyperlink to your web browser.
7. You may need to enter your Instagram password and choose a reason for deleting your account.
8. Hit Permanently deactivate my account and then tap OK.
9. Uninstall Instagram from your iPhone.

How do I make my Instagram account more secure?

While many users are concerned about scams on Instagram, or the threat of having their accounts hacked—they also don’t want to delete or deactivate their accounts. Thankfully, there is a compromise. Here are some measures that may help you improve your security and privacy on Instagram:

• Set a long, unique password.
• Enable two-factor authentication by clicking Security > Two-Factor Authentication > Get Started.
• Consider making your account private, so that only approved followers can see it. You can do this in your privacy settings by clicking Settings > Privacy > Account Privacy and toggling Private account.
• You may also want to visit the Comments or Story option under Settings > Privacy to manage how followers interact with your posts.
• Check the Add Automatically option under Privacy > Tags to stop tagged photos from being added to your profile.
• Check the authenticity of the accounts you follow by hitting the three-dot menu on a profile and selecting About this Account. Watch out for red flags like frequent username changes and more.
• Don’t hesitate to block, mute, restrict, or remove followers that affect your peace of mind or try to breach your account security.
• Use good antivirus/anti-malware software on whatever device you use to access your Instagram account. In case you accidentally click on something malicious, you’ll have protection for your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

The post How to delete your Instagram account appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

One year ago, as countless employees settled into new routines for working from home (WFH), a Reddit user shared a video online of a strange contraption: A wire coat hanger bent out of shape, one side gripping an external USB mouse, the other side latched onto an oscillating fan. As the fan swished left and then right, so, too, did the USB mouse.

What was the point? The device, the Reddit user suggested, was a low-tech defense against workplace surveillance.

“WFH Tip #2: How to always appear online,” read the video’s title.

This laughable attempt to subvert digital workplace monitoring was a bit of a joke, but the video spotlighted an unfortunate reality facing WFH employees today. Rather than being trusted to accomplish their jobs out of physical view, a startling number of employees are being tracked and measured through privacy-invasive software which can surveil their web browsing habits, track their app usage, monitor their screen time—periodically capturing screen images—and even transcribe their phone calls.

The fascination with digital workplace surveillance software—sometimes called “bossware”—is increasing, according to a recent survey funded by ExpressVPN, in collaboration with Pollfish. Of the 2,000 employers surveyed, 57 percent “implemented employee monitoring software in the past six months.” Of those that had not deployed such software, 59 percent said they were “very or somewhat likely” to do so in the future.

But employers should caution themselves against likely pushback, as employees in the survey repeatedly expressed contempt for the tools and the behavior it enabled.

“It’s micro-management,” said one anonymous survey respondent, according to the key highlight report from ExpressVPN. “As long as my productivity is acceptable and my work is getting done, it shouldn’t matter how I pass the time while waiting for an active job to pick up.”

Employers can’t feign ignorance about this, either. According to the the ExpressVPN survey, while 78 percent of employers admitted to using employee monitoring software to track their employees, even more—83 percent—believe there are “ethical concerns” with that type of software.

The pandemic’s productivity panic

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, as thousands of companies shifted to WFH models, a certain panic arose regarding potential, lowered productivity. The combination of removing workers from a potentially collaborative in-office environment, expecting them to simultaneously tackle childcare and work, and hoping they can manage the stress of a global pandemic, often led corporate leaders to believe that their employees’ productivity would slow to a crawl.

Those concerns, it appears, led to increased demand for digital workplace surveillance software.

According to reporting from Wired in October of last year:

“As working from home has flourished, so too has employee monitoring software. Programs such as Time Doctor, ActivTrak, Teramind and the dystopian-sounding StaffCop have all seen huge upticks in demand. Remote teams are now watched through their webcams via always-on video services like Sneek. In the office-free world, bosses can now clandestinely scan screenshots, login times and keystrokes at will to ensure their workforce is keeping its focus and productivity.”

The sentiments of employers captured in the ExpressVPN survey sound similar. As the survey authors wrote, “the biggest driver behind employers’ growing interest in surveillance is their uncertainty and unease about the status of their company and whether employees are doing what needs to be done to maintain overall business performance.”

That showed up in the data with the following numbers:

• 74 percent of employers said “remote work makes them feel a lack of control over their business”
• 57 percent “don’t trust their employees to work without in-person supervision”
• 59 percent “don’t trust their employees to work without digital supervision”

Considering this broad, shared concern in potentially lowered activity, then, it is quite strange that survey after survey after survey have shown there is little truth to it.

When Microsoft commissioned KRC Research, Boston Consulting Group, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to survey 9,000 respondents across Europe last August who started working in more hybrid and remote models, 39 percent said they felt equally productive, 34 percent said they felt somewhat more productive, and 10 percent said they felt significantly more productive.

When Mercer surveyed 800 employers last year, 94 percent said “productivity has remained the same or improved since employees began working remotely.”

And when Malwarebytes Labs asked 200 managers, directors, and C-suite executives in IT and cybersecurity roles across the United States about their biggest struggles with shifting to a WFH model, only 2.5 percent said they experienced “significantly lower” productivity.

The data is not there, but that does not seem to matter for the managers who are making the decision to surveil their employees. Instead, the decisions seem to be carried on intangible unease. In fact, according to the ExpressVPN survey, 69 percent of employers said they “feel uneasy about remote work because they can’t observe employees in person”

Well, what are the employees feeling?

Employee pushback

When employees know they are being surveilled, they do not just dislike it. They consider it damaging to their relationship with the employers.

• 43 percent of employees said the use of these tools “is a violation of trust”
• 28 percent said it “makes them feel unappreciated”
• 26 percent said it “makes them feel resentment”

Further, 59 percent of employees reported feeling “stress and/or anxiety about their employer surveilling their online activity.” The reasons for that stress vary—from 41 percent wondering “whether they’re being watched” to 36 percent feeling “pressure to work longer hours in general. But, critically, 20 percent of employees said they “feel dehumanized as a result of workplace surveillance.”

These are heavy terms, and employers should recognize that when their employees begin to feel like this, they have a strong chance of losing them. According to the survey results, 54 percent of employees said “they’d be likely to quit if their employer and/or boss implement surveillance measures.”

But for the employees who will not quit, the picture is not any brighter. Instead, employers will likely find themselves fighting against employees who are subversively rolling out anti-surveillance measures that they either look up online or devise themselves (need we remember the Reddit user’s renegade partnership between their home fan and their USB mouse?). According to the survey, 31 percent of employees who know they are surveilled said they use “anti-surveillance software,” and 25 percent “researched hacks to fake online activity.”

Surprisingly, almost half of surveilled employees—49 percent—said they “pretended to be online while actually doing non-work activities.”

This is the pushback that employers can expect for voluntarily wrecking their employees’ trust. Remember, many employees reported feeling resentment about being surveilled. It stands to reason that an employee who resents their employer will have little qualms about tricking them, wasting their time, and half-assing it until they can find a new job.

After all, what’s the point of putting in professional work if you won’t be treated like a professional? The popularity on Reddit alone isn’t worth it.

The post Working from home? You’re probably being spied on appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Are you seeing some pattern here?

In what could be a called “shocking news” on Friday, BleepingComputer revealed that the gang behind the Avaddon ransomware shut down its operations after releasing more than 2,000 decryption keys to the technology news site.

BleepingComputer claimed they received an anonymous tip purporting to be from the FBI, containing a password and a link to a password-protected ZIP file.

If you may recall, Avaddon is a big game hunting (BGH), ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) tool that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) warned organizations about last month.

Malwarebytes detects this ransomware as Ransom.Avaddon.

Avaddon ransomware attack victims

While various sectors in Australia were noted to be particularly targeted, the Avaddon strain has been instrumental in the successful network compromise of the Asian division of the AXA Group, one of the biggest cyber insurance companies in the world. Avaddon threat actors were able to extract information about what appears to be client info: passports, bank account information, ID cards, contracts, fraud-related hospital files, and other medical reports containing sensitive data about patients, and more.

Coincidentally, this attack came close to a week after the insurance giant announced that it would cease covering customers in France who pay up after being attacked by ransomware. An insurance company refusing to cover for any monetary loss over a cyberattack will no doubt significantly increase the likelihood of victim companies refusing to cough up money to ransomware gangs.

Schepisi Communication, an Australia-based telecom service provider, was also hit by Avaddon last month after its platinum partner, Telstra, fell victim to a ransomware attack by the same group. The criminals claimed to have access to data of a large amount of SIM cards, mobile devices, contracts, and banking information to name a few. When the company refused to pay the demand, their official website was downed by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, taking their website offline for several days.

Avaddon threat actors are also not one to shy away from going after organizations in the healthcare industry. According a threat report from eSentire, a leading Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service provider, Avaddon has targeted the Capital Medical Center in Washington, Bridgeway Senior Healthcare in New Jersey, and an intensive care online network.

A domino effect? Or a simple coincidence?

After DarkSide called it quits from the pressures of the US government following their attack against Colonial Pipeline, reading about Avaddon—considered to be a “second tier ransomware operator”—would make one think that there is cause for celebration. Indeed, this is a win and something we should be grateful for.

Let us not forget, however, that any time a ransomware gang decides to shut down, more gangs appear (If you’re on Twitter and follow several malware/ransomware hunters, you’ll agree).

It is also a known fact that ransomware actors have the habit of rebranding under the guise of shutting down—or to simply avoid US sanctions—so it won’t be far off to think that this is all a ruse. And speaking of sanctions, as of this writing, there is nothing that links Avaddon’s demise to the increased attention the US government has given ransomware groups lately. It’s likely then that this is all just part of the normal flow of events when groups give up from time to time. That said, this could be one of those wait-and-see scenarios.

Nonetheless, we welcome any ransomware gang quitting as good news. But perhaps, at the same time, we’re also left wondering: Is there a quiet chaos going on right now within and among the underground ransomware gangs? Will they start dropping like flies? Will we be left with our old, insecure ways if or when ransomware attacks do plummet?

Well, let’s wait and see.

The post Another one bites the dust: Avaddon ransomware group shuts down operation appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Amazon SIdewalk starts sharing your WiFi data tomorrow, thanks
• White hat, black hat, grey hat hackers: what’s the difference?
• Can two VPN “wrongs” make a right? Lock and Code S02E10
• DOJ recovers pipeline ransom, signals more aggressive approach to cybercrime
• 800 arrests after police dupe crime groups into using backdoored phones
• TrickBot indictment reveals the scale and complexity of organised cybercrime
• Microsoft fixes seven zero-days, including two PuzzleMaker targets, Google fixes serious Android flaw
• How to clear cookies
• Russia accused of hacking Dutch police during MH17 investigation
• How a Resident Evil image leaked in a ransomware attack ended up in the middle of a $12 copyright claim
• Cloud vs on premise: 3 reasons the cloud is winning
• How to deactivate or delete your Facebook account

Other cybersecurity news

• Hackers steal wealth of data from game giant EA (Source: VICE)
• JBS USA pay $11 million ransom to ransomware attackers (Source: JBS USA)
• China arrests over 1,000 for using cryptocurrency to help launder proceeds of phone scams (Source: The Register)
• Philippine investigators accuse ex-Wirecard COO of fraud, cybercrime (Source: France 24)
• UK promises tougher line on cybercrime (Source: Computer Weekly)
• Some banks could do more to protect customers from phishing scams, says Which? (source: Wales Online)
• The coming AI hackers (Source: Harvard Business Review)
• Hackers steal 26m account logins for Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix and more (Source: Metro)
• This phishing email is pushing password-stealing malware to Windows PCs (Source: ZDNet)
• Researchers discover Stem Audio smart speaker eavesdropping risk (Source: The Daily Swig)

Stay safe, everyone!

The post A week in security (June 7 – June 13) appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

People worldwide use Facebook to connect with friends and family, and to engage in pointless debates with strangers over moderately amusing cat videos. But while some feel that the social media platform is an essential part of life, others find the data scandals and privacy issues disconcerting. For those who wish to take a break from Facebook either temporarily or permanently, instructions for deleting or deactivating your account are below.

Deleting your Facebook account

How to delete your Facebook account from a browser

Removing Facebook for good is easier than you think. Follow this link to the page that allows you to end your account permanently. Click Delete Account, enter your password, and your account is gone forever. But before you do, consider downloading a copy of the information you have stored on Facebook, including photos, videos, and more. Here is an official guide from Facebook that can help.

How to delete your Facebook account from the iPhone app

1. Start the Facebook app on your iPhone.
2. Tap the three-lined icon (hamburger menu).
3. Tap Settings & Privacy.
4. Tap Settings.
5. Tap Account Ownership and Control.
6. Tap Deactivation and Deletion.
7. Tap Delete Account.
8. Delete your Facebook app for good measure.

How to delete your Facebook account from the Android app

1. Start the Facebook app on your Android device.
2. Tap the three-lined icon (hamburger menu).
3. Tap Settings & Privacy.
4. Tap Settings.
5. Tap Account Ownership and Control.
6. Tap Deactivation and Deletion.
7. Tap Delete Account.
8. Delete your Facebook app for good measure.

The cons of deleting your Facebook account

Deleting your Facebook account can certainly feel liberating. You don’t have to worry about managing your privacy or consuming seemingly endless social media content. But rather than a permanent deletion, some people prefer to take a break from Facebook by deactivating their account for the following reasons:

• You won’t be able to access Facebook again unless you create a new account.
• It’s impossible to use Messenger without a Facebook account.
• Some accounts that you entered through Facebook Login may malfunction. You may need to contact those apps and websites or create new accounts.
• You’ll permanently lose your data unless you download a copy. 
• You’ll lose your app purchases, achievements, and more related to your Facebook login on Oculus.  

Can you undelete Facebook if you change your mind?

Facebook says that it needs up to 90 days from the start of the deletion request to remove everything you’ve posted permanently. It may even keep some data in backup storage for legal issues as part of its data policy. It also offers a 30-day grace period after you erase your account. Here is how to cancel your account deletion within 30 days:

1. Log in to your Facebook account.
2. Hit Cancel Deletion.

Deactivating your Facebook account

Deactivating your Facebook is a temporary measure. After you deactivate your account, your Facebook page, including your intro, photos, friends, and posts, is hidden. No one can send you friend requests either. However, your messages are still visible to their recipients. Here are some advantages of deactivating your Facebook instead of deleting it:

• Your photos, videos, and posts are hidden but not permanently deleted.
• Facebook Messenger is still fully accessible.
• You can still access accounts through Facebook Login.
• You can reactivate Facebook whenever you please by logging in.

How to deactivate your Facebook account from a browser

The same link that allows you to erase your account also allows you to deactivate your account. Hit Deactivate Account and then enter your password to lose access to Facebook temporarily. Alternatively, you can use the following steps:

1. Select Settings & Privacy from the drop-down menu on the top right.
2. Click Settings.
3. Click Your Facebook Information.
4. Click Deactivation and Deletion.
5. Select Deactivate Account and hit Continue to Account Deactivation.
6. Enter your password and deactivate your account.

How to deactivate your Facebook account from the iPhone app

1. Start the Facebook app on your iPhone.
2. Tap the three-lined icon (hamburger menu).
3. Tap Settings & Privacy.
4. Tap Settings.
5. Tap Account Ownership and Control.
6. Tap Deactivation and Deletion.
7. Tap Deactivate account.

How to deactivate your Facebook account from the Android app

1. Start the Facebook app on your Android device.
2. Tap the three-lined icon (hamburger menu).
3. Tap Settings & Privacy.
4. Tap Settings.
5. Tap Account Ownership and Control.
6. Tap Deactivation and Deletion.
7. Tap Deactivate Account.

Tips for using Facebook safely

We understand that some users don’t want to deactivate or delete Facebook, but still have safety concerns. There are steps you can take to better manage your privacy and security on Facebook. Here are some tips that may help:

• Set a long, unique password for your Facebook account. You can use a trusted password manager to make the task easier.
• Avoid oversharing information on Facebook. Threat actors can use it for social engineering.
• Be careful when accepting friend requests. Limit posts to trusted friends and not the public.
• Limit the audience of old posts on your Timeline by clicking General > Privacy > Your Activity > Limit Past Posts.  
• Stop Facebook from using your data to show you tailored ads by clicking General > Ads > Ad Settings.
• Manage third-party apps that have access to your data by clicking General > Apps and Websites.
• Beware of social media scams and be careful which links you click on Facebook or in Messenger.

The post How to deactivate or delete your Facebook account appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Thanks to the vast rollout of COVID-19 vaccines to millions of people in the US and Europe, some of us are finally seeing some semblance of a return to normalcy. And organizations, who have experienced first-hand the struggle to stay afloat during months of struggle, are expecting to transition back to how things were.

For some, a life back to normal means employees commuting back to workplaces. Empty cubicles will slowly start filling up again. And face-to-face meetings, either a big group in a conference room or a small one in a coffee shop, will be A Thing once again.

But what about those employees who prefer to work from home, or at least to have the option? And what of businesses happy to be liberated from the constraints of physical workspaces? It seems there are many of both.

The normal we knew of may no longer fit the kind of normal organizations have adjusted for. Remote working during the pandemic has made leadership roles in organizations understand that connectivity—making company data and resources available for all employees who need them, no matter where they are, while keeping that data as secure as possible—is what they and every business really need.

The Cloud, in other words.

Cloud adoption

“Cloud” is a term used to describe a vast network of remote servers located around the world linked together to form a contiguous platform for computer services that can be subdivided and scaled with ease. It has been around for nearly two decades, and organizations adapting a Cloud strategy have been on the uptick, pre-pandemic. And the lockdowns and (some imposed) mandatory work from home (WFH) measures during the pandemic have only accelerated Cloud adoption even further.

It is noted that enterprises are the big spenders on Cloud computing. Yet, many have yet to embrace the Cloud—particularly those in the SMB sector. According to the Small & Medium Business Trend Report from Salesforce, “digital forward SMBs”—or SMBs that have invested in technology, including the cloud, to drive customer interaction and growth—were better equipped to handle the pandemic.

If you’re still on the fence about whether you should move your data and operations to the Cloud, or you’re locked in the “on-premise versus Cloud” debate on which one is better, we have identified below the three main reasons why organizations, regardless of size, are migrating to the Cloud.

1. Cost efficiency

Setting up servers and making sure that they are physically secure, have uninterrupted power and air conditioning, and are loaded with properly licensed, patched and updated software is no small task. There are high, upfront fees, a multitude of things can go wrong, and it is hard to scale. And the lifetime costs aren’t small either: From electricity bills and maintenance, to that dreaded “end of life” for both hardware and software. When it comes to this kind of computing infrastructure, economies of scale matter, and almost no business can compete with the scale of Cloud providers like Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

Suffice to say, many organizations are opting not to worry about servers and server rooms at all, and instead choosing to pay for what they use by using Cloud infrastructure like AWS, or Cloud services, like Office 365.

2. Security and compliance

Cloud service providers, especially the big-named ones like Amazon and Microsoft, boast of having excellent and powerful security in place by default. And Cloud service providers have made it a point to make their security as robust as possible, relieving businesses of many of the basics they struggle with, such as backups, single sign-on, encryption, firewall configuration, and consistent security updates—you name it. The Cloud doesn’t mean you can forget about security, but it can make it much easier to do the right thing.

The same robustness can be said about the physical security of their servers. It would be extremely hard for intruders to physically break into servers that house an organization’s precious data. Cloud providers keep data safe from physical destruction by keeping it in multiple places, and keep it safe from theft by investing in layers of physical security, like fences, guards, surveillance cameras, and biometric access systems.

Security in the Cloud also reduces the attack surface for insider threats because employees and contractors cannot go in and out of rooms they’re not supposed to go to.

When it comes to disasters—and by this, we mean natural and local ones—locations of on-premise servers are expected to withstand whatever nature can throw at it, may these be floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and even your random lava spill. However, many on-premise operators don’t have the redundancies they need, seeing them as not cost efficient. On the other hand, redundancy is built into a Cloud or hybrid configuration.

Lastly, we’d like to mention that many Cloud providers comply with various security, privacy, and data protection regulations. In the US, we have the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) among others. Other countries have their own standards that a Cloud provider complies to as well.

The security advantage of Cloud services was graphically illustrated in March this year, after Microsoft released patches for four zero-days being exploited by a group dubbed Hafnium. The patches were quickly reverse engineered by multiple criminal groups and automated attacks began soon after. The attacks turned unpatched Exchange servers into backdoors that could be used to steal data or launch ransomware inside company networks. IT teams dropped everything to find and patch their vulnerable servers, Microsoft released a flurry of tools to help, and the FBI even took the highly unusual step of remotely cleaning up some of the compromised servers.

What was notable about the incident is that it affected on-premise servers with Exchange, but not not the Cloud version. The “patch gap”, the often months-long gap between a patch being made available and it being used—the gap that criminals were so ruthlessly exploiting—simply didn’t exist in the Cloud.

3. Flexibility

The Cloud allows enormous flexibility, whether you’re adapting quickly to good news or bad. Famously, the Cloud allows services to scale up extremely quickly, avoiding many of the technical problems that can come from growing too fast or becoming suddenly popular.

It can also help when businesses are faced with a sudden, unexpected and challenging situation, as many were in April 2020 as COVID spread around the world. Dyer Brown, a Boston-based architectural firm, is an SMB that adopted the Cloud prior to 2020 and was able to successfully and fully shift their entire workforce to remote work. Employees were able to access important files wherever they were, thus, productivity and collaboration weren’t sacrificed. This flexibility afforded by the Cloud not only made it possible for their 50 employees to work offsite but also take care of sick family members, home school kids, and focus on their health more.

It has also been made apparent that flexibility with work schedule due to working remotely has become a make-or-break factor for employees on whether they should stick with their current company or move to a new one. Some even welcome pay cuts in exchange for working from home.

This is something organizational leaders will need to consider seriously.

The post Cloud vs on premise: 3 reasons the Cloud is winning appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Back in November, gaming giant Capcom suffered a ransomware attack. In its press notification, it mentioned the various types of data potentially grabbed by their attackers. Things took an ominous turn when they refused to pay the ransom, and the group behind the attack said that was the wrong move. Capcom had the chance to “save data from leakage”; they did not take it. Sure enough, a whole collection of files were leaked soon after.

The threat of data drops from scorned ransomware groups is now a common extortion tactic. What we couldn’t have predicted here, is one of the ramifications of said drop. Time to wind things forward to June 2021 and a date with a lawsuit. The twist? The lawsuit isn’t aimed at the ransomware authors, but the compromised company.

Of data drops and research collections

I used to work in and around game / movie development a long time ago. We were incredibly low budget, and did very low budget things. An invaluable source of help at the time were resource guides and collections. Essentially: Big books filled with work compiled by visual artists, composers, designers, whoever. If you were lucky, the book came with a CD loaded with material from the book. Even luckier? You could use the contents for your own work for free. If the project was commercial, you’d typically pay a license fee of some kind.

There were also companies which curated content from multiple artists, and made sure all the licensing behind the scenes was watertight. Where this often went wrong was if the disc went walkabout away from the book.

Organisations would end up with discs lying around in desks, with nobody sure of the source / who had paid for licensing. If someone ripped disc contents, you’d then end up with self-burnt CDs lying around the place which appeared to be in-house creations. You have to be incredibly careful where resource materials are concerned.

If you’re wondering how this ties into the ransomware attack, I’m about to fill in the blanks.

The unintended consequence of a data leak

An artist in this case is seeking $12m in damages from Capcom, claiming Capcom used their imagery from a resource book / CD in a number of its video game titles. This has all come about off the back of the data leak from the ransomware hack. At least one of the images from the stolen and leaked files shares the same file name as what appears to be an identical image from the book’s CD-ROM.

The Juracek Vs Capcom document can be seen here, along with multiple examples of images potentially making their way into games. Sadly, it doesn’t go into detail on the most fascinating part…whether or not the artist became aware as a result of the data breach and subsequent leak. Most reports simply say the artist is using the breach as part of their evidence. There’s also the question of how they became aware of the images in the dump in the first place.

If I had to guess, incredibly knowledgeable fans saw the high resolution images, wondered where they came from, and perhaps got in touch with the creator. This isn’t an unusual thing to happen. Back in the mid 90s I tracked down the music composer for a AAA game series on Japanese language message boards, in order to tell them how cool their music is. It’s a lot easier to do things like this these days which may be a blessing or a curse, or perhaps a bit of both.

However you stack it up, it promises to be a fascinating day in court. This story raises some other issues, too.

Turning a negative into a positive

Some ransomware groups have tried to mix it up a bit in the realm of PR. They present themselves as Robin Hood style renegades, robbing the rich to give to the poor…or, more specifically, giving to charities. An interesting tactic, except charities face all sorts of problems if they’re gifted ill-gotten gains. As mentioned elsewhere, there’s every possibility the “we’re being helpful, honest” approach is merely a ruse to keep up the pretence of respectability. Here, though, we run into a bit of a problem.

The artist in question has made what they feel to be a valid complaint, and are having their day in court as a result. Being able to tie specific file names from their CD-ROM to named files in Capcom folders off the back of the hack? That probably strengthens their case quite a bit.

Put simply, these ransomware authors…and anyone else, for that matter…can now point to this story as evidence that they did in fact “help” someone in indirect fashion.

New frontiers in the ransomware world

The fallout from the attack could prompt a new ransomware tactic. It’s not a stretch to think breachers will go looking for copyright / related violations. After all, some ransomware groups have already shown an interest in how they can weaponize the data they’ve stolen, beyond simply leaking it.

With so many ways to tie found materials to the original source online, they may view this as an easy PR win. On top of all the other issues with ransomware, we probably don’t need its authors yelling “Look! We’re helping!” every time a new leak hits. When a creator is potentially $12 million out of pocket, it becomes increasingly tricky to argue against it.

Sure, this is still potentially another way for people who don’t actually care about helping people to act as if they do. But if the end result is the same and someone does benefit, it doesn’t really matter a whole lot. As far as the ransomware authors are concerned, they’ll have a collection of individuals telling everyone how cool they are.

It’s to be hoped we don’t end up fighting a PR war on top of the technical battle already raging across networks everywhere. I’m not sure I agree that “any publicity is good publicity”, but good publicity certainly is. So in case anyone is tempted to offer ransomware operators the benefit of the doubt, let’s not forget they’re same organised crime gangs that think little of attacking hospitals.

The post How a Resident Evil image leaked in a ransomware attack ended up in the middle of $12m copyright claim appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.