YouTube Channels Are Being Used to Spread Malware

Cryptominer, malicious videos, malware, NirCmd, Ophtek, redline stealer, YouTube, , , , , ,
04
Oct 2022

Following the discovering of a malware campaign spreading through YouTube channels, it appears that no corner of the internet is immune from hackers.

It’s increasingly common for businesses to run a YouTube channel as part of their marketing efforts, with over 60% of businesses regularly uploading videos. And with YouTube regularly attracting 5 billion daily video views, you can see why it’s an attractive target for threat actors. Thankfully, you can’t be hacked simply by watching a video on YouTube. However, you do need to consider the legitimacy of each video’s content and, more importantly, how safe the embedded links within these videos are.

How Does YouTube Spread Malware?

This latest threat to online safety appears, at present, to be concentrating on YouTube gaming channels, with a specific focus on those which cover games including Final Fantasy, FIFA and Spider-Man. The malware involved is what’s known as a malware bundle i.e. it contains several different strains of malware, with RedLine being the most dominant piece of malware.

The malware spreads through YouTube by uploading malicious videos to infected channels. These malicious videos may appear to be on-brand with the channel e.g. links to cheats for FIFA, but the payload will actually be the same malware which has infected the channel. Therefore, this malware bundle can spread through numerous niche-specific channels by using the same content.

What Does the Malware Bundle Do?

The malware contained within this attack comprises several different attack methods:

  • RedLine: the most substantial piece of malware found in the attack, RedLine harvests confidential data from those it infects e.g. downloading login credentials, accessing cryptocurrency wallets and extracting data entered into web browsers.
  • NirCmd: this application is, in fact, a genuine piece of software, but it’s one which provides the threat actors with a layer of stealth. Once activated, NirCmd conceals the activities of the malware it’s bundled with and makes the attack difficult to identify.
  • Cryptominer: interestingly, a cryptominer which hijacks the resources of the victim’s graphics card is also included. This is considered interesting as the attack targets gamers, a demographic who are likely to possess powerful graphics cards.

Staying Safe on YouTube

YouTube is a crucial asset in the business world, but this recent attack demonstrates it also carries security risks. Your organization may not run a gaming channel, but it’s likely this template will soon be replicated in other niches. Accordingly, it’s essential that you follow these two important practices:

  • Doublecheck links: when viewing videos on YouTube, it’s vital that you treat their links in the same way you would in an email. Always hover your mouse over any links (and that includes those in the video description) to reveal the true destination, copy and paste links into Google to highlight any existing concerns and, finally, ask an IT professional to verify them before clicking.
  • Regularly check your video library: if your organization hosts a YouTube channel, it’s recommended you keep an eye on the videos uploaded to it. The sudden appearance of videos you have no record of uploading may be the only indicator you have that your channel has been hacked.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

Read More

Sality Malware Delivers More than Recovered Passwords

block social media, download privileges, malware, Ophtek, password recovery, Sality, social media advertising, , , , , ,
20
Jul 2022

Forgetting a password is frustrating, so the promise of a password recovery tool is tempting. Until, that is, you find out it’s packed full of malware.

If something online sounds too good to be true, then it usually is – see the numerous adverts on YouTube which promise to make you $50k a month with minimal effort. And this is exactly the case with the Sality malware. Naturally, Sality doesn’t advertise itself as malware. Instead, it bundles itself stealthily, as a hidden extra, alongside a password recovery tool for Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS). Whilst the tool does indeed help you to extract passwords, the presence of Sality opens a whole world of digital pain.

The Lowdown on Sality

Sality, in its earliest form, is believed to have been online for nearly 20 years, so it’s certainly not a new threat. However, over the years, its evolution has led to its modern variant becoming a nasty piece of malware. At present, it’s making its way into people’s PCs thanks to relatively crude, yet tempting adverts on social media sites. Advertising itself as a free download, the tool will retrieve passwords for PLC and ICS – through a vulnerability in the system’s firmware – but it also activates the Sality malware.

To understand how Sality operates, you first need to know what a peer-to-peer (P2P) botnet is. Used to generate huge amounts of processing power – usually for cracking passwords or mining cryptocurrency – a P2P botnet obtains this power by hijacking large numbers of PCs. These hijacked PCs are then forced to work together on the same task – after all, 1,000 PCs mining cryptocurrency are going to achieve their objective a lot quicker than a single PC. It appears that Sality is currently focused on cryptocurrency, but there is nothing to stop threat actors unleashing more powerful attacks e.g. taking entire IT systems down.

How Do You Handle a Sality Infection?

While Sality may have been around for some time, it hasn’t learned every trick in the book. For example, not only will it throttle an infected PCs performance by using 100% of its CPU, it also triggers numerous Windows Defender alerts. However, it does have enough sense to scan any PC it lands on for anti-virus software before shutting down any identified tools. Therefore, it’s crucial that you follow preventative approaches to avoid Sality:

  • Do Not Trust Online Adverts: legitimate password recovery tools are unlikely to be advertised on social media sites. If you have forgotten your password, then you should contact the software developers for advice. Alternatively, you can create secure backups of your passwords with an app such as Google’s Password Manager.
  • Remove Download Privileges: almost every malware threat involves a malicious download and, as such, it makes sense for your organization to limit the number of downloads taking place. By limiting download privileges to, for example, line managers, you will minimize the chances of malware being downloaded by mistake.
  • Block Social Media: if you want to make sure that you are specifically limiting the risk of Sality, you can simply block access to social media sites from within your organization’s network. However, be aware that Sality is likely to be lurking elsewhere on the internet.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

Read More

SessionManager Malware Targets Microsoft Exchange Servers

IIS, malware, Ophtek, security, SessionManager, Windows vulnerability, , , , ,
12
Jul 2022

A new piece of malware has been found to be targeting Microsoft Exchange servers operated by both military and government organizations all over the world.

Discovered by security giants Kaspersky, who also gave the malware its name, SessionManager appears to have been at large since March 2021, but its existence has only just been confirmed. It’s believed that SessionManager was created by Gelsemium, a relatively new hacking group who have already conducted a number of serious cyber-attacks.

Naturally, you would expect military and government organizations to have some of the strongest cybersecurity measures in place. And they do. However, there’s not a single IT infrastructure which can be described as 100% secure. And, as SessionManager has proved, where there are vulnerabilities, there’s a way in.

How Does SessionManager Operate?

At the start of 2021, Kaspersky revealed details of ProxyLogon, a series of vulnerabilities discovered in Microsoft Exchange. As a result of these vulnerabilities, threat actors were presented with an opportunity to install malicious modules into web server software for Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS). And this is exactly how the SessionManager module came to be embedded within numerous organization’s servers.

Once installed, the threat actors were able to use SessionManager to carry out the following tasks:

  • Carry out remote command execution on affected devices
  • Gain quick and easy access to email accounts within the organization
  • Install further malware to maximize the way in which servers were compromised
  • Using infected servers to manipulate traffic moving across the network

As SessionManager has managed to operate without detection for over a year, it has been able to harvest signification amounts of sensitive data and take control of high-level networks. Even after SessionManager’s discovery, security experts have been slow to move, with Kaspersky commenting that a popular file scanning service was still failing to detect SessionManager. Accordingly, SessionManager remains active in the digital wild and maintains its threat.

What If You’re Infected with SessionManager?

Even if you do discover that your network has been infected by the SessionManager module, deleting it is not enough to fully rid yourself of it. Instead, you will need to go through the following:

  • The most important step to take first is to disable your IIS environment
  • Use the IIS manager to identify all references to the SessionManager module and ensure that these are fully removed
  • Update your IIS server to eliminate any known vulnerabilities and leave it fully patched
  • Restart your IIS environment and run a final check for any traces of SessionManager

If, of course, you want to prevent vulnerability threats such as SessionManager being enabled in the first place, then you need a conscientious approach to updates. The sooner you can install a firmware upgrade or a security patch, the sooner you can plug security holes in your IT infrastructure.

Sure, we live in a fast-paced world and it’s easy to forget minor tasks such as installing upgrades, but with automate installs a viable option, there’s not really an excuse. Therefore, keep your organization’s network safe by automating updates and enjoying the peace of mind this brings.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

Read More

ZuoRAT Malware: A New Threat to Routers

malware, Ophtek, router, security, Trojans, Updates, ZuoRAT Malware, , , , , , ,
05
Jul 2022

Small businesses rely on routers to keep themselves and their customers connected. But this relationship could now be at risk due to the ZuoRAT malware.

For online communication to work, data needs to move from one computer network to another. And this is exactly what a router does. By directing traffic across the internet, a router can be used to deliver emails, transfer files and stream videos between PCs. Without a router, you simply won’t be able to send or receive data. So, as you can see, they’re an essential part of any small organization’s IT network. Unfortunately, this is the type of IT necessity which hackers love to interfere with. And the ZuoRAT malware does this with a disturbingly sophisticated ease.

The Lowdown on ZuoRAT

ZuoRAT is a strain of malware which takes advantage of vulnerabilities in routers produced by the popular manufacturers Cisco, Netgear, DrayTek and Asus. By exploiting these vulnerabilities, ZuoRAT can access local area networks (LAN) and harvest network traffic from the infected devices. This information is then transmitted to a remote ‘command and control’ server, so, for example, any login credentials which pass through your router will be transmitted to the hacker’s server.

However, ZuoRAT doesn’t stop at hijacking LAN traffic; it downloads additional malware in the form of two further remote access trojans (RAT). These RATs are used to infect devices connected to the network and facilitate the spread of the infection even further. This could, in theory, lead to the infected network being converted into a botnet or, worse still, allow the spread of ransomware across the network.

Although ZuoRAT is relatively new, it has been active in the digital wild since April 2020, and this has given it plenty of time to exploit a wide range of routers. It’s also important to point out that ZuoRAT made its debut at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Given that it targets SOHO (small office/home office) routers, ZuoRAT was perfectly placed to attack employees who were working at home with limited IT support. As a result, it has been presented with an opportunity to steal sensitive data with relative ease.

Protecting Your Network from ZuoRAT

Due to the way in which it was designed – a custom build through the complex MIPS architecture – ZuoRAT is not detected by conventional anti-malware software. Therefore, if you own a router made by the affected manufacturers, it’s crucial that you make sure the associated software is up-to-date and fully patched. As ever, monitoring network traffic is a smart move as this will allow you to flag up any suspicious activity.

Final Thoughts

Threats such as ZuoRAT present numerous problems to organizations, most notably due to their multi-pronged attack strategy and stealthy nature. However, it also demonstrates a perfect example of why you need to manage updates relating to your IT equipment. Implementing an upgrade strategy which takes advantage of automated processes has never been more important.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

Read More

5 Forms of Hacking Which You May Not Be Familiar With

Free WiFi, Hacking, malicious code, malicious extensions, malicious links, malicious websites, Ophtek, , , , , ,
21
Jun 2022

All organizations are at risk of being hacked, and that’s why we’re familiar with the most common forms of hacking. But what about the lesser-known hacks?

With 300,000 new strains of malware being created every day, it comes as no surprise to discover that some of these are less familiar than others to PC users. And it’s this lack of familiarity which makes them so dangerous. Not only is it harder to be on your guard against them, but there’s also the small problem of not knowing how to remove them from an infected system. However, a little bit of education goes a long way. And that’s why we’re going to give you the lowdown on 5 forms of hacking which you may not be familiar with.

The Hacks You Need to Know About

Attack strategies such as phishing and ransomware are well known, so it’s time to learn about the lesser known cyberattacks you need to be prepared for:

  1. SQL Injection Attacks: SQL is a common coding language used to design and manage databases, many of which are connected to a public facing website. Typically, these databases will hold significant amounts of secure data e.g. personal details and financial information. As a result, these are highly attractive targets for hackers. Attacks are made on these databases by injecting malicious SQL code and manipulating the server’s responses in numerous ways. This strategy allows hackers to gain access to unauthorized information and steal it.
  • Fake Public Wi-Fi: hackers will go as far as setting up a fake public Wi-Fi which uses your company’s name or one that sounds similar. For example, a visitor to a Starbucks café, may detect a wireless network with a name such as “St@rbucks Free Wi-Fi” and assume it’s genuine. However, connecting to a public connection such as this opens a whole world of potential trouble. And, don’t forget, your own employees are also at risk of connecting their work devices to a fake Wi-Fi network, the result of which will expose your genuine network.

As with the most common forms of hacking, understanding the basics of good IT security is the most effective way to minimize the chances of these rarer attacks.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

Read More
1 … 9 10 11 12 13 … 29