Tag Archive for: upgrade

St. Anthony to upgrade city cybersecurity after hacking attempt | Local News

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The City of St. Anthony will be upgrading its email and computer system threat protection after an unsuccessful hacking attempt that occurred last month.

“They were knocking at our door,” said City Clerk Patty Parkinson. “They were there trying to get in.”

During the city council meeting on April 22, Parkinson announced to the council that she got a call from the FBIa informing her that hackers were trying to gain access to the city’s online system.

“At first when I got the call I was like ‘yeah right, whoever you are —Mr. FBI’,” Parkinson said. “Here we are in little St. Anthony, Idaho but the thing that’s happening is they’re getting people. That’s how they make their money and they’re busy.”

Ransomware is a type of malicious software or malware, used by hackers, that prevents an individual, agency or business from accessing computer files, systems or networks, according to the FBI. Hackers then demand a ransom for the return of access.

In 2019, the city of Riviera Beach, Florida, paid nearly $600,000 in ransom to hackers who took control of the city’s computer system.

The city has had hackers attack its website before. Parkinson said she once got a call from an anonymous hacker that wanted a ransom payment to give back control to the city’s website in 2016. She did not give in to the ransom and told the hackers the city would handle its business physically, informing them that they could have the website.

Little did the hackers know they had taken control of the website for St. Anthony, Idaho when they were trying to take over the website for St. Anthony, Minnesota, she said.

“I finally drove down to them that we weren’t St. Anthony, Minnesota. The next day everything was fine, up and running. Didn’t cost us a dollar,” Parkinson said.

The hackers were angry at a St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer who shot a black man at a traffic stop and wanted to retaliate against the city and its police department by taking control of the city’s website, Parkinson said. The officer was charged with second-degree manslaughter but was found to be not guilty.

“After that, I walked into…

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APT10 targets Japanese entities. Purple Fox gets an upgrade. Android malware poses as system update.

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At a glance.

  • APT10 targets Japanese entities.
  • Purple Fox gets an upgrade.
  • Android malware poses as system update.
  • Vulnerable mobile apps.

APT10 targets Japanese entities.

Kaspersky describes a cyberespionage campaign that ran from March 2019 to the end of December 2020. The campaign targeted Japan and entities related to Japan, particularly the country’s manufacturing industry. The researchers “assess with high confidence” that China’s APT10 is behind the operation. The threat actor gained access by exploiting vulnerabilities in Pulse Connect Secure VPNs or by using previously stolen credentials.

Kaspersky says the actor used a unique loader dubbed “Ecipekac” to deliver fileless malware. The researchers explain, “This campaign introduced a very sophisticated multi-layer malware named Ecipekac and its payloads, which include different unique fileless malware such as P8RAT and SodaMaster. In our opinion, the most significant aspect of the Ecipekac malware is that, apart from the large number of layers, the encrypted shellcodes were being inserted into digitally signed DLLs without affecting the validity of the digital signature. When this technique is used, some security solutions cannot detect these implants. Judging from the main features of the P8RAT and SodaMaster backdoors, we believe that these modules are downloaders responsible for downloading further malware that, unfortunately, we have not been able to obtain so far in our investigation.”

Purple Fox gets an upgrade.

Guardicore is tracking a malware campaign dubbed “Purple Fox” that’s recently added a new propagation method. The malware was discovered in 2018, and would spread via exploit kits and phishing emails. In late 2020, however, the malware operators began gaining access by brute-forcing exposed SMB services:

“While it appears that the functionality of Purple Fox hasn’t changed much post exploitation, its spreading and distribution methods – and its worm-like behavior – are much different than described in previously published articles. Throughout our research, we have observed an infrastructure that appears to be made out of a hodge-podge of vulnerable and exploited servers hosting the initial payload of the malware,…

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Buy (or upgrade) Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac and get 10 Mac apps for free worth over $700!

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Buy or upgrade to Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac before February 28, 2020 and get a bundle of ten Mac apps — worth over $700 — for free.

Regular readers will know that I’m a huge fan of Parallels Desktop for Mac. It’s the best way to run Windows 10 on a Mac, and not only that, I believe it turns a Mac into the best Windows 10 machine you can buy.

But this bundle takes this one app, and supercharges it with a package of other superb performance, productivity, security, and creativity apps.

Check this out: Extreme weather forecast? Essential gear for when the power goes out

Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac bundle

So, what do you get as part of this bundle?

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  • Acronis True Image 2021 Premium: Backup and disk management tool (one-year subscription which includes 1TB of Acronis Cloud Storage)
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  • Parallels Toolbox for macOS or Windows: A suite of over 30 tools and utilities to help you get more done on your Mac (one-year subscription)
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A new license costs $64.99, while an upgrade is $49.99. But be quick, the offer ends February 28, 2020 (11:59 p.m. PST).

View Now at Parallels

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Hacking threat: Kiwis urged to upgrade Apple devices

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News Highlights: Hacking threat: Kiwis urged to upgrade Apple devices.

Apple’s iOS 14.4 update is now live – and in addition to fixing a vulnerability, it will help scan Covid-19 posters.

Late yesterday, Crown agency CERT NZ (the Computer Emergency Response Team) issued an advisory report on a security issue with iOS that Apple says is being actively exploited by hackers.

The problem affects iOS (the software that iPhones run on), iPadOs, and tvOS (the software that Apple TVs run on).

Update your Apple iOS, iPadOS and tvOS devices to version 14.4 immediately where the update is available. For most users, a popup should warn you that an update is available – select ‘Update now’, ”CERT NZ advises.

If you don’t receive a popup message, follow these steps: Go to Settings> System> Software Update. Select “Update Software” there.

At the time, iOS 14 was not available. It should now show up as an option to most users (Apple usually makes iOS updates available continuously). The update took the Herald about 10 minutes to update and install.

Details about the vulnerability are sparse at this stage, but an Apple reporting page about the problem says, “A malicious program can increase permissions,” if it exploits the vulnerability, indicating that a hacker may be in control of a device.

“Apple is aware of a report that this problem may have been actively exploited,” said the iPhone maker says on its security notification page.

The company says it will not provide details on security issues until after they have been patched.

iOS 14.4 also adds support for cutting smaller QR codes – a useful addition as we are all encouraged to step up our Covid poster scanning.

CERT NZ recommends that users enable an automatic software update feature on each device.

The announcement took some of the shine away from the Data Privacy Day, which saw Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg annoyed by an action by Apple to let advertisers know when they want to track your activity.

Zuckerberg called the move anticompetive. Apple said it was responding to users’ demands for greater privacy and transparency, and released a “Day in the Life of Your Data” presentation to defend its case.

Via:…

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