Information Technology Security

By Bill Toulas,  Bleeping Computer A malicious campaign targeting Android devices worldwide utilizes thousands of Telegram bots to infect devices with SMS-stealing malware and steal one-time 2FA passwords (OTPs) for over 600 services. Zimperium researchers discovered the operation and have been tracking it since February 2022. They report finding at least 107,000 distinct malware samples associated with the campaign. The cybercriminals are motivated by financial gain, most likely using infected devices as authentication and anonymization relays. Telegram entrapment The SMS stealer is distributed either through malvertising or Telegram bots that automate communications with the victim. In the first case, victims are led to pages mimicking Google Play, reporting inflated download counts to add legitimacy and create a false sense of trust. On Telegram, the bots promise to give the user a pirated application for the Android platform, asking for their phone number before they share the ...

By Jak Connor,  Tweaktown Apple has been accused of "intentionally crippling" web apps, so users are forced into downloading native search apps such as Safari. The accusations come from Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who explained in a post that web apps on iPhone are forced to use WebKit to develop web-based apps, and within this WebKit are a slew of problems that Apple has reportedly ignored for approximately 15 years. Apple guidelines dictate that all apps listed on the App Store are prevented from unrestricted public channels, hence developers turning to web-based applications as a workaround. The Telegram founder says Apple forces developers to use WebKit for all browsers on iOS, which means users can't simply download Firefox or Chrome to get around the issues. Additionally, since no improvements are being issued for the WebKit so developers can improve the performance/experience of web-based apps, it seems that Apple is attempting to steer users to Safari where it c...

By Sergiu Gatlan,  Bleeping Computer Cloudflare says a massive outage that affected more than a dozen of its data centers and hundreds of major online platforms and services today was caused by a change that should have increased network resilience. "Today, June 21, 2022, Cloudflare suffered an outage that affected traffic in 19 of our data centers," Cloudflare said after investigating the incident. "Unfortunately, these 19 locations handle a significant proportion of our global traffic. This outage was caused by a change that was part of a long-running project to increase resilience in our busiest locations." According to user reports, the full list of affected websites and services includes, but it's not limited to, Amazon, Twitch, Amazon Web Services, Steam, Coinbase, Telegram, Discord, DoorDash, Gitlab, and more.

By ,  Reuters MILAN, May 15 (Reuters) - Italian police thwarted hacker attacks by pro-Russian groups during the May 10 semi-final and Saturday final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin, authorities said on Sunday. Ukraine's Kalush Orchestra won the contest with their entry "Stefania", riding a wave of public support to claim an emotional victory that was welcomed by the country's president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. read more During voting and the performances, the police cybersecurity department blocked several cyber attacks on network infrastructure by the " Killnet " hacker group and its affiliate "Legion", police said. The police also gathered information from the pro-Russian group's Telegram channels to prevent other critical events and identified the attacks' geographic location. On May 11, "Killnet" claimed an attack on the websites of several Italian institutions, including the Senate, Italy's upper house of parliament, ...

By Joseph Henry, Tech Times Lapsus$ operations started earlier this year when the control lasted for 25 consecutive minutes, according to Okta. Previously, the access management firm said that the data breach might have affected many systems. However, the recent finding reveals that the impact of the incident appears to be "significantly smaller" compared to the previous assumptions. Only two customers were hit by the hackers at that time. Lapsus$ Breach Only Impacts Two Customers Okta clarifies that the previous finding of the impact of the Lapsus$ hacking incident is only "significantly smaller" than its suspected maximum impact. According to Okta's blog post published on Tuesday, Apr. 19, the investigation concludes that the impact of the Lapsus$ hacking incident only hit two customer tenants. Initially, the event took place on Jan. 21, but it was only on March 22 when Okta understood what really happened during the system breach. The anonymous cybersecuri...