Tag Archive for: CLIENTS.

VRChat to Implement Easy Anti-Cheat, Barring the Use of Modded Clients

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A move that has drawn significant criticism from the community.

VRChat will receive what is possibly one of its most controversial patches in the next few days. According to a new blog post released by the game’s developer, VRChat will now implement the Easy Anti-Cheat program to permanently bar the use of modded clients. Developer VRChat, Inc. has stated that the decision to implement EAC comes from wanting to protect users, as “modified clients” have become a huge problem for VRChat in many ways.

With the EAC implementation, modified clients of VRChat will be blocked. Here’s a snippet of what EAC will combat once it’s fully integrated into VRChat:

Malicious client modifications are responsible for a massive amount of issues for both our team and our users. We’ve been listening to you cry out for a solution to being harassed, griefed, and constantly crashed, so we’re taking further steps to address one of the roots of the problem. Every month, thousands of users have their accounts stolen, often due to running a modified client that is silently logging their keystrokes as well as other information. These users – often without even realizing it! – run the risk of losing their account, or having their computers become part of a larger botnet.

While the developer wants to protect its users from various hackers, the decision to implement EAC has not gone over that well within the community. At the time of writing, VRChat is currently experiencing a surge of negative reviews in its home platform Steam, where players are quite unhappy that they will not be able to modify the game as they please.

The players’ issues with EAC’s implementation are quite understandable as well. Besides barring client modification, EAC will also stop the use of the most harmless mods, which have been a focal selling point in the VRChat community. Indeed, it has been the main draw of the social game, one that makes it more popular than its competitors, such as Facebook’s own Metaverse. The disappearance of its customizability is a serious point of contention amongst the community and something the developers will most likely see a significant backlash on.

VRChat is currently…

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Ransomware attack targets Professional Finance Co., affecting 657 health care clients

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A ransomware attack against Professional Finance Co. Inc., a Greeley-based accounts-receivable management company, has resulted in a data breach potentially affecting 657 of the company’s health-care-provider clients and almost two million individuals.

The breach, with more than 1.9 million individuals potentially affected, represents the second-biggest data breach affecting health care companies so far in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Breach Portal. A March attack against Shields Health Care Group Inc. of Massachusetts affected more than 2.4 million individuals.

The Professional Finance breach already has prompted four federal lawsuits accusing the company of failing to exercise reasonable care in securing customer and employee data. The lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court in Denver and are seeking class-action status.

The ransomware attack occurred Feb. 26, but Professional Finance did not begin informing client health care providers until May 5, according to a Notice of Cybersecurity Incident posted on the company’s website.

“On Feb. 26, 2022, PFC detected and stopped a sophisticated ransomware attack in which an unauthorized third party accessed and disabled some of PFC’s computer systems,” according to the incident report. “PFC immediately engaged third party forensic specialists to assist us with securing the network environment and investigating the extent of any unauthorized activity. Federal law enforcement was also notified. The ongoing investigation determined that an unauthorized third party accessed files containing certain individuals’ personal information during this incident. PFC notified the respective health care providers on or around May 5, 2022.”

The company issued a press release about the data breach July 1.

PFC said it had “found no evidence that personal information has been specifically misused.” But data potentially accessed by the cyber attacker includes first and last name, address, accounts-receivable balance and information regarding payments made to accounts, according to the company. Additionally, date of birth, Social Security number, health insurance and medical-treatment…

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Up To 366 Clients Had Data ‘Acted Upon’ in Lapsus$ Hack

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As many as 366 Okta customers might have had their data ‘acted upon’ following the Lapsus$ cyberattack against the identity security giant’s customer support subcontractor.

“A small percentage of customers – approximately 2.5 percent – have potentially been impacted and whose data may have been viewed or acted upon,” Okta Chief Security Officer David Bradbury wrote in an update posted at 9:31 p.m. ET Tuesday.

The San Francisco-based company didn’t provide details around how these customers were impacted but said affected customers will receive a report that shows the actions performed on their Okta tenant during the period in question. Okta said impacted customers might want to complete their own analysis, noting the report the company is providing should allow clients to assess the situation for themselves.

[Related: Okta Breached By Lapsus$, Exposing Customer Data, Group Claims]

“Our customers are our pride, purpose, and #1 priority,” Bradbury wrote in the update. “We take our responsibility to protect and secure customers’ information very seriously. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience and uncertainty this has caused.”

The cyberattack came to light early Tuesday when data extortion gang Lapsus$ posted screenshots to its Telegram channel of what it alleged was data from Okta customers. Lapsus$ claimed it acquired “superuser/admin” access to Okta.com and used that to access Okta’s customer data. Okta’s stock fell $2.98 (1.76 percent) to $166.43 per share in trading Tuesday, and another $0.04 in after-hours trading.

The screenshots Lapsus$ published online were taken from a computer used by a Sitel employee, which Okta contracts with for customer support work. The hacker obtained remote access to the Sitel support engineer’s computer using remote desktop protocol (RDP) and was able to control the machine. The machine was logged into Okta at the time of compromise, though there wasn’t account takeover.

The majority of support engineering tasks are performed using an internally built application called SuperUser, which allows for the performing of basic management functions on Okta customer tenants. The threat actor had…

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190 Mainers’ data exposed in hack of web company that serves far-right clients

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Financial and credit card information belonging to almost 200 Maine residents has been compromised in the hack of a web services company that’s popular with far-right groups.

The 190 Maine residents are among 110,000 people nationwide whose details were leaked in a breach of information from Epik, according to a data breach notice filed with the Maine Attorney General’s office last week. 

The information released through the hack has unmasked some Epik customers as operators behind websites supporting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and promoting Holocaust denial. 

The compromised information included financial account numbers or credit and debit card numbers, including security codes, access codes, and other passwords needed to gain access to those accounts and cards. 

There were no other identifying details about the Mainers whose data were leaked in the data breach notice filed with the attorney general’s office. 

Almost 10 years’ worth of data from Epik customers, including payment information, domain purchases and transfers, email addresses, and account credentials, were captured, according to Anonymous, the decentralized internet hacking collective that claimed responsibility for the Sept. 13 hack. 

Epik discovered the breach two days later, on Sept. 15.

“We have retained multiple cybersecurity partners to investigate the incident, secure our services, help affected users, and notify you, law enforcement, and other relevant authorities,” Epik wrote in a letter to customers. “We are continuing to communicate with relevant authorities and other stakeholders as well.” 

The company, based outside of Seattle, Washington, said it would offer affected Epik users free credit monitoring until Sept. 15, 2023. 

Epik has been criticized for providing services to extremist groups and websites that had been barred from using other web hosting services for hosting racist and anti-Semitic content, such as the Proud Boys and the social media sites Gab, Parler and 8chan. 

Amazon Web Services cut off Parler’s web service earlier this year due to its links to Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, and 8chan and Gab have been linked to men responsible…

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