Tag Archive for: blocks

Nigeria blocks 73 million mobile phones in security clampdown

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C onstance Chioma calls her son every morning to check that he is safe while studying in northeast Nigeria, a region plagued by deadly attacks by Islamist insurgents and armed kidnappings.

Earlier this month, she could not get through.

She later realised her SIM card was one of about 73 million – more than a third of the 198 million in Nigeria – which have been barred from making outgoing calls because they have not been registered in the national digital identity database.

“I could not concentrate at work; I was uneasy and constantly asking myself if he was safe,” said Chioma, a 57-year-old teacher in Owerri city in southeast Nigeria.

“With the rising insecurity in the north, not speaking with my son makes me afraid.”

Nigeria is among dozens of African countries including Ghana, Egypt and Kenya with SIM registration laws that authorities say are necessary for security purposes, but digital rights experts here say increase surveillance and hurts privacy.

Nigeria has been rolling out 11-digit electronic national identity cards for almost a decade, which record an individual’s personal and biometric data, including fingerprints and photo.

The National Identity Number (NIN) is required to open a bank account, apply for a driver’s license, vote, get health insurance, and file tax returns.

In 2020, Nigeria’s telecommunications regulator said every active mobile phone number must be linked to the user’s NIN. It repeatedly extended the deadline until March 31 this year.

The government said outgoing calls were being barred from April 4 here from any mobile phone numbers that had not complied.

Millions of Nigerians have not registered their SIM cards, for reasons ranging from concerns over privacy here to problems reaching registration centres or not having a NIN.

“There have been no reasonable explanations as to why we have to link NIN to our SIM,” said Nneka Orji, a journalist in southeast Nigeria who has not registered her SIM.

“For that reason, I am not ready to do that,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

She now relies on WhatsApp to make calls, even though not all of her contacts use the messaging service.

The spokesperson for the government’s National…

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Do ransomware gangs know more about file storage than you do? Find out more at Nasuni CloudBound21 – Blocks and Files

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PROMO If you’re still not convinced of the need to re-examine your whole approach to file management, perhaps a ransomware attack will change your mind.

Ransomware merchants don’t just rely on working their way into your systems and locking your data. They know that any company large enough to pay a reasonable ransom will have a backup system in place. Which is why if they get the opportunity, they’ll happily bide their time, crippling your data protection systems well before they put the full lock on your production systems.

But even if they don’t hijack your data protection systems, they know restoring traditional backups is a laborious process that’s going to take hours, days or even weeks. And they know that a few millions in ransomware suddenly starts to look like a good deal as compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars that downtime costs for even medium-sized enterprises.

 The old rules of data protection simply don’t apply anymore, which is why you should register (for free!) for Nasuni CloundBound21, which runs online from September 28th to 30th.

Nasuni CloudBound21 features powerful keynote sessions, deep dive breakout sessions, industry panels and more, designed to equip you with tangible takeaways during a time zone that aligns to your availability.

Highlights include keynotes with David Totten, CTO, US Partner System, Microsoft on September 28th and Lakshmi Sharma, Director Product Management, Network Experience, Performance, Reliability and Solutions at Google Cloud on September 29th.

Also on September 29th, you can dive deep into the world of ransomware, with a panel featuring Randy Kerns, Primary and Secondary Analyst at Evaluator Group, Jerome Wendt, President/Founder of DCIG and Nasuni CTO Andres Rodriguez.

 Additional sessions to focus on how your file storage strategy underpins and interacts with other key issues, such as digital transformation, VDI and an increasingly hybrid workforce. You’ll also learn how you can potentially realise massive cost savings on your file management and storage.

Plus, because nothing beats hearing from your peers, there will be innovative networking sessions.

And…

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Sophos Discovers Malware That Blocks The Pirate Bay

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(Photo: Getty Images)

Sophos has revealed new malware with a curious goal: preventing its victims from pirating software. The company says this digital vigilante, which is similar to a malware family discovered over a decade ago, modifies the infected system’s HOSTS file to block access to The Pirate Bay and other piracy-related sites.

“Modifying the HOSTS file is a crude but effective method to prevent a computer from being able to reach a web address,” SophosLabs Principal Researcher Andrew Brandt says in a blog post. “It’s crude because, while it works, the malware has no persistence mechanism. Anyone can remove the entries after they’ve been added to the HOSTS file, and they stay removed (unless you run the program a second time).”

The malware is said to spread via the Discord communications platform by masquerading as pirated copies of popular games. Brandt says it’s also distributed over BitTorrent in bundles “named after popular games, productivity tools, and even security products” that include other files whose sole purpose is to make the malware “appear to have originated with a well-known file sharing account on ThePirateBay.”

After the malware is downloaded it sends two HTTP GET requests to a now-inactive domain. The first request fetches a second payload called “ProcessHacker.jpg” that includes a kill-switch to prevent the malware from operating on devices containing files named “7686789678967896789678” and “412412512512512.” The files themselves can be empty; they simply have to use those names.

The second request “uses a query string to send the filename of the executable that was run to the website’s operators,” Brandt said, which would have allowed them to learn more about what kinds of files people are trying to pirate. That effort appears to have been dropped—Brandt says the server to which the HTTP GET requests were sent “no longer responds to requests, nor has a DNS record.”

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Sophos has updated its security products to defend against this malware. Brandt says anyone who’s already been affected by the campaign can manually restore their access to the websites it blocked by running Notepad as an administrator and “modifying the…

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Weird Malware Called Oddball Blocks You From Accessing Piracy Sites Instead Of Hacking Device; What Kind of Sorcery is This?

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A weird malware is currently confusing some security experts and researchers. The reason behind this is that this new computer virus seems to have no interest in hacking your device. 

Weird Malware Blocks You From Accessing Piracy Sites Instead Of Hacking Device: Here's How Oddball Works

(Photo : Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Instead, the new Oddball malware blocks explicitly you from accessing piracy websites. Based on its process, some researchers claimed that this could even be a good malware since it can stop people from downloading or viewing paid content for free. 

As of the moment, piracy is still an issue since it can prevent the original creators of new songs, movies, apps, and other things from raising incomes. But, there’s a chance that this new malware could somehow help solve this problem. 

Specifically, involved security researchers confirmed that the new Oddball computer virus blocks infected computers from visiting these illegal websites. However, they did not confirm if the malware can also prevent clean devices. 

Weird Malware Oddball’s Details 

As of the moment, many hacking groups are developing malware and ransomware that could allow them to breach companies’ systems. These include the new ransomware targeting iConstituent, as well as the REvil’s malware. 

Weird Malware Blocks You From Accessing Piracy Sites Instead Of Hacking Device: Here's How Oddball Works

(Photo : Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

Related Article: BUSTED: Ukraine Ransomware Gang Known for Hacking Universities Arrested

But, the new Oddball is not like these computer viruses. According to Threat Post’s latest report, the new malware modifies the HOSTS file on the infected system.

Security experts explained that this method is quite efficient since it can stop the device from access a certain web address, which is the main goal of Oddball. 

However, many techie users can easily prevent the malware’s effect since it has no persistence mechanism. 

“This seems to be a fresh trick on an old attack of compromising people attempting to download pirated software and media,” explained Netenrich’s Threat Intelligence Advisor John Bambenek. 

“In this case though, it seems to be an individual or group trying to protect intellectual property, but make no mistake, this is still clearly criminal behavior,” added the security…

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