Tag Archive for: Cyber

Ukraine Nabs Suspect in 773M Password ‘Megabreach’

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In January 2019, dozens of media outlets raised the alarm about a new “megabreach” involving the release of some 773 million stolen usernames and passwords that was breathlessly labeled “the largest collection of stolen data in history.” A subsequent review by KrebsOnSecurity quickly determined the data was years old and merely a compilation of credentials pilfered from mostly public data breaches. Earlier today, authorities in Ukraine said they’d apprehended a suspect in the case.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on Tuesday announced the detention of a hacker known as Sanix (a.k.a. “Sanixer“) from the Ivano-Frankivsk region of the country. The SBU said they found on Sanix’s computer records showing he sold databases with “logins and passwords to e-mail boxes, PIN codes for bank cards, e-wallets of cryptocurrencies, PayPal accounts, and information about computers hacked for further use in botnets and for organizing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.”

Items SBU authorities seized after raiding Sanix’s residence. Image: SBU.

Sanix became famous last year for posting to hacker forums that he was selling the 87GB password dump, labeled “Collection #1.” Shortly after his sale was first detailed by Troy Hunt, who operates the HaveIBeenPwned breach notification service, KrebsOnSecurity contacted Sanix to find out what all the fuss was about. From that story:

“Sanixer said Collection#1 consists of data pulled from a huge number of hacked sites, and was not exactly his ‘freshest’ offering. Rather, he sort of steered me away from that archive, suggesting that — unlike most of his other wares — Collection #1 was at least 2-3 years old. His other password packages, which he said are not all pictured in the above screen shot and total more than 4 terabytes in size, are less than a year old, Sanixer explained.”

Alex Holden, chief technology officer and founder of Milwaukee-based Hold Security, said Sanixer’s claim to infamy was simply for disclosing the Collection #1 data, which was just one of many credential dumps amalgamated by other cyber criminals.

“Today, it is even a more common occurrence to see mixing new and old breached credentials,” Holden said. “In fact, large aggregations of stolen credentials have been around since 2013-2014. Even the original attempt to sell the Yahoo breach data was a large mix of several previous unrelated breaches. Collection #1 was one of many credentials collections output by various cyber criminals gangs.”

Sanix was far from a criminal mastermind, and left a long trail of clues that made it almost child’s play to trace his hacker aliases to the real-life identity of a young man in Burshtyn, a city located in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast in western Ukraine.

Still, perhaps Ukraine’s SBU detained Sanix for other reasons in addition to his peddling of Collection 1. According to cyber intelligence firm Intel 471, Sanix has stayed fairly busy selling credentials that would allow customers to remotely access hacked resources at several large organizations. For example, as recently as earlier this month, Intel 471 spotted Sanix selling access to nearly four dozen universities worldwide, and to a compromised VPN account for the government of San Bernadino, Calif.

KrebsOnSecurity is covering Sanix’s detention mainly to close the loop on an incident that received an incredible amount of international attention. But it’s also another excuse to remind readers about the importance of good password hygiene. A core reason so many accounts get compromised is that far too many people have the nasty habit(s) of choosing poor passwords, re-using passwords and email addresses across multiple sites, and not taking advantage of multi-factor authentication options when available.

By far the most important passwords are those protecting our email inbox(es). That’s because in nearly all cases, the person who is in control of that email address can reset the password of any services or accounts tied to that email address – merely by requesting a password reset link via email. For more on this dynamic, please see The Value of a Hacked Email Account.

Your email account may be worth far more than you imagine.

And instead of thinking about passwords, consider using unique, lengthy passphrases — collections of words in an order you can remember — when a site allows it. In general, a long, unique passphrase takes far more effort to crack than a short, complex one. Unfortunately, many sites do not let users choose passwords or passphrases that exceed a small number of characters, or they will otherwise allow long passphrases but ignore anything entered after the character limit is reached.

If you are the type of person who likes to re-use passwords, then you definitely need to be using a password manager, which helps you pick and remember strong and unique passwords/passphrases and essentially lets you use the same strong master password/passphrase across all Web sites.

Finally, if you haven’t done so lately, mosey on over to twofactorauth.org and see if you are taking full advantage of the strongest available multi-factor authentication option at sites you trust with your data. The beauty of multi-factor is that even if thieves manage to guess or steal your password just because they hacked some Web site, that password will be useless to them unless they can also compromise that second factor — be it your mobile device, phone number, or security key. Not saying these additional security methods aren’t also vulnerable to compromise (they absolutely are), but they’re definitely better than just using a password.

This Service Helps Malware Authors Fix Flaws in their Code

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Almost daily now there is news about flaws in commercial software that lead to computers getting hacked and seeded with malware. But the reality is most malicious software also has its share of security holes that open the door for security researchers or ne’er-do-wells to liberate or else seize control over already-hacked systems. Here’s a look at one long-lived malware vulnerability testing service that is used and run by some of the Dark Web’s top cybercriminals.

It is not uncommon for crooks who sell malware-as-a-service offerings such as trojan horse programs and botnet control panels to include backdoors in their products that let them surreptitiously monitor the operations of their customers and siphon data stolen from victims. More commonly, however, the people writing malware simply make coding mistakes that render their creations vulnerable to compromise.

At the same time, security companies are constantly scouring malware code for vulnerabilities that might allow them peer to inside the operations of crime networks, or to wrest control over those operations from the bad guys. There aren’t a lot of public examples of this anti-malware activity, in part because it wades into legally murky waters. More importantly, talking publicly about these flaws tends to be the fastest way to get malware authors to fix any vulnerabilities in their code.

Enter malware testing services like the one operated by “RedBear,” the administrator of a Russian-language security site called Krober[.]biz, which frequently blogs about security weaknesses in popular malware tools.

For the most part, the vulnerabilities detailed by Krober aren’t written about until they are patched by the malware’s author, who’s paid a small fee in advance for a code review that promises to unmask any backdoors and/or harden the security of the customer’s product.

RedBear’s profile on the Russian-language xss[.]is cybercrime forum.

RedBear’s service is marketed not only to malware creators, but to people who rent or buy malicious software and services from other cybercriminals. A chief selling point of this service is that, crooks being crooks, you simply can’t trust them to be completely honest.

“We can examine your (or not exactly your) PHP code for vulnerabilities and backdoors,” reads his offering on several prominent Russian cybercrime forums. “Possible options include, for example, bot admin panels, code injection panels, shell control panels, payment card sniffers, traffic direction services, exchange services, spamming software, doorway generators, and scam pages, etc.”

As proof of his service’s effectiveness, RedBear points to almost a dozen articles on Krober[.]biz which explain in intricate detail flaws found in high-profile malware tools whose authors have used his service in the past, including; the Black Energy DDoS bot administration panel; malware loading panels tied to the Smoke and Andromeda bot loaders; the RMS and Spyadmin trojans; and a popular loan scan script.

ESTRANGED BEDFELLOWS

RedBear doesn’t operate this service on his own. Over the years he’s had several partners in the project, including two very high-profile cybercriminals (or possibly just one, as we’ll see in a moment) who until recently operated under the hacker aliases “upO” and “Lebron.”

From 2013 to 2016, upO was a major player on Exploit[.]in — one of the most active and venerated Russian-language cybercrime forums in the underground — authoring almost 1,500 posts on the forum and starting roughly 80 threads, mostly focusing on malware. For roughly one year beginning in 2016, Lebron was a top moderator on Exploit.

One of many articles Lebron published on Krober[.]biz that detailed flaws found in malware submitted to RedBear’s vulnerability testing service.

In 2016, several members began accusing upO of stealing source code from malware projects under review, and then allegedly using or incorporating bits of the code into malware projects he marketed to others.

up0 would eventually be banned from Exploit for getting into an argument with another top forum contributor, wherein both accused the other of working for or with Russian and/or Ukrainian federal authorities, and proceeded to publish personal information about the other that allegedly outed their real-life identities.

The cybercrime actor “upO” on Exploit[.]in in late 2016, complaining that RedBear was refusing to pay a debt owed to him.

Lebron first appeared on Exploit in September 2016, roughly two months before upO was banished from the community. After serving almost a year on the forum while authoring hundreds of posts and threads (including many articles first published on Krober), Lebron abruptly disappeared from Exploit.

His departure was prefaced by a series of increasingly brazen accusations by forum members that Lebron was simply upO using a different nickname. His final post on Exploit in May 2017 somewhat jokingly indicated he was joining an upstart ransomware affiliate program.

RANSOMWARE DREAMS

According to research from cyber intelligence firm Intel 471, upO had a strong interest in ransomware and had partnered with the developer of the Cerber ransomware strain, an affiliate program operating between Feb. 2016 and July 2017 that sought to corner the increasingly lucrative and competitive market for ransomware-as-a-service offerings.

Intel 471 says a rumor has been circulating on Exploit and other forums upO frequented that he was the mastermind behind GandCrab, another ransomware-as-a-service affiliate program that first surfaced in January 2018 and later bragged about extorting billions of dollars from hacked businesses when it closed up shop in June 2019.

Multiple security companies and researchers (including this author) have concluded that GandCrab didn’t exactly go away, but instead re-branded to form a more exclusive ransomware-as-a-service offering dubbed “REvil” (a.k.a. “Sodin” and “Sodinokibi”). REvil was first spotted in April 2019 after being installed by a GandCrab update, but its affiliate program didn’t kick into high gear until July 2019.

Last month, the public face of the REvil ransomware affiliate program — a cybercriminal who registered on Exploit in July 2019 using the nickname “UNKN” (a.k.a. “Unknown”) — found himself the target of a blackmail scheme publicly announced by a fellow forum member who claimed to have helped bankroll UNKN’s ransomware business back in 2016 but who’d taken a break from the forum on account of problems with the law.

That individual, using the nickname “Vivalamuerte,” said UNKN still owed him his up-front investment money, which he reckoned amounted to roughly $190,000. Vivalamuerte said he would release personal details revealing UNKN’s real-life identity unless he was paid what he claims he is owed.

In this Google-translated blackmail post by Vivalamuerte to UNKN, the latter’s former nickname was abbreviated to “L”.

Vivalamuerte also claimed UNKN has used four different nicknames, and that the moniker he interacted with back in 2016 began with the letter “L.” The accused’s full nickname was likely redacted by forum administrators because a search on the forum for “Lebron” brings up the same post even though it is not visible in any of Vivalamuerte’s threatening messages.

Reached by KrebsOnSecurity, Vivalamuerte declined to share what he knew about UNKN, saying the matter was still in arbitration. But he said he has proof that Lebron was the principle coder behind the GandCrab ransomware, and that the person behind the Lebron identity plays a central role in the REvil ransomware extortion enterprise as it exists today.

U.S. Secret Service: “Massive Fraud” Against State Unemployment Insurance Programs

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A well-organized Nigerian crime ring is exploiting the COVID-19 crisis by committing large-scale fraud against multiple state unemployment insurance programs, with potential losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a new alert issued by the U.S. Secret Service.

A memo seen by KrebsOnSecurity that the Secret Service circulated to field offices around the United States on Thursday says the ring has been filing unemployment claims in different states using Social Security numbers and other personally identifiable information (PII) belonging to identity theft victims, and that “a substantial amount of the fraudulent benefits submitted have used PII from first responders, government personnel and school employees.”

“It is assumed the fraud ring behind this possesses a substantial PII database to submit the volume of applications observed thus far,” the Secret Service warned. “The primary state targeted so far is Washington, although there is also evidence of attacks in North Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Florida.”

The Secret Service said the fraud network is believed to consist of hundred of “mules,” a term used to describe willing or unwitting individuals who are recruited to help launder the proceeds of fraudulent financial transactions.

“In the state of Washington, individuals residing out-of-state are receiving multiple ACH deposits from the State of Washington Unemployment Benefits Program, all in different individuals’ names with no connection to the account holder,” the notice continues.

The Service’s memo suggests the crime ring is operating in much the same way as crooks who specialize in filing fraudulent income tax refund requests with the states and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), a perennial problem that costs the states and the U.S. Treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each year.

In those schemes, the scammers typically recruit people — often victims of online romance scams or those who also are out of work and looking for any source of income — to receive direct deposits from the fraudulent transactions, and then forward the bulk of the illicit funds to the perpetrators.

A federal fraud investigator who spoke with KrebsOnSecurity on condition of anonymity said many states simply don’t have enough controls in place to detect patterns that might help better screen out fraudulent unemployment applications, such as looking for multiple applications involving the same Internet addresses and/or bank accounts. The investigator said in some states fraudsters need only to submit someone’s name, Social Security number and other basic information for their claims to be processed.

The alert follows news reports by media outlets in Washington and Rhode Island about millions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment claims in those states. On Thursday, The Seattle Times reported that the activity had halted unemployment payments for two days after officials found more than $1.6 million in phony claims.

“Between March and April, the number of fraudulent claims for unemployment benefits jumped 27-fold to 700,” the state Employment Security Department (ESD) told The Seattle Times. The story noted that the ESD’s fraud hotline has been inundated with calls, and received so many emails last weekend that it temporarily shut down.

WPRI in Rhode Island reported on May 4 that the state’s Department of Labor and Training has received hundreds of complaints of unemployment insurance fraud, and that “the number of purportedly fraudulent accounts is keeping pace with the unprecedented number of legitimate claims for unemployment insurance.”

The surge in fraud comes as many states are struggling to process an avalanche of jobless claims filed as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. government reported Thursday that nearly three million people filed unemployment claims last week, bringing the total over the last two months to more than 36 million. The Treasury Department says unemployment programs delivered $48 billion in payments in April alone.

A few of the states listed as key targets of this fraud ring are experiencing some of the highest levels of unemployment claims in the country. Washington has seen nearly a million unemployment claims, with almost 30 percent of its workforce currently jobless, according to figures released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Rhode Island is even worse off, with 31.4 percent of its workforce filing for unemployment, the Chamber found.

“The banks targeted have been at all levels including local banks, credit unions, and large national banks,” the Secret Service alert concluded. “It is extremely likely every state is vulnerable to this scheme and will be targeted if they have not been already.”

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, May 2020 Edition

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Microsoft today issued software updates to plug at least 111 security holes in Windows and Windows-based programs. None of the vulnerabilities were labeled as being publicly exploited or detailed prior to today, but as always if you’re running Windows on any of your machines it’s time once again to prepare to get your patches on.

May marks the third month in a row that Microsoft has pushed out fixes for more than 110 security flaws in its operating system and related software. At least 16 of the bugs are labeled “Critical,” meaning ne’er-do-wells can exploit them to install malware or seize remote control over vulnerable systems with little or no help from users.

But focusing solely on Microsoft’s severity ratings may obscure the seriousness of the flaws being addressed this month. Todd Schell, senior product manager at security vendor Ivanti, notes that if one looks at the “exploitability assessment” tied to each patch — i.e., how likely Microsoft considers each can and will be exploited for nefarious purposes — it makes sense to pay just as much attention to the vulnerabilities Microsoft has labeled with the lesser severity rating of “Important.”

Virtually all of the non-critical flaws in this month’s batch earned Microsoft’s “Important” rating.

“What is interesting and often overlooked is seven of the ten [fixes] at higher risk of exploit are only rated as Important,” Schell said. “It is not uncommon to look to the critical vulnerabilities as the most concerning, but many of the vulnerabilities that end up being exploited are rated as Important vs Critical.”

For example, Satnam Narang from Tenable notes that two remote code execution flaws in Microsoft Color Management (CVE-2020-1117) and Windows Media Foundation (CVE-2020-1126) could be exploited by tricking a user into opening a malicious email attachment or visiting a website that contains code designed to exploit the vulnerabilities. However, Microsoft rates these vulnerabilities as “Exploitation Less Likely,” according to their Exploitability Index.

In contrast, three elevation of privilege vulnerabilities that received a rating of “Exploitation More Likely” were also patched, Narang notes. These include a pair of “Important” flaws in Win32k (CVE-2020-1054, CVE-2020-1143) and one in the Windows Graphics Component (CVE-2020-1135). Elevation of Privilege vulnerabilities are used by attackers once they’ve managed to gain access to a system in order to execute code on their target systems with elevated privileges. There are at least 56 of these types of fixes in the May release.

Schell says if your organization’s plan for prioritizing the deployment of this month’s patches stops at vendor severity or even CVSS scores above a certain level you may want to reassess your metrics.

“Look to other risk metrics like Publicly Disclosed, Exploited (obviously), and Exploitability Assessment (Microsoft specific) to expand your prioritization process,” he advised.

As it usually does each month on Patch Tuesday, Adobe also has issued updates for some of its products. An update for Adobe Acrobat and Reader covers two dozen critical and important vulnerabilities. There are no security fixes for Adobe’s Flash Player in this month’s release.

Just a friendly reminder that while many of the vulnerabilities fixed in today’s Microsoft patch batch affect Windows 7 operating systems — including all three of the zero-day flaws — this OS is no longer being supported with security updates (unless you’re an enterprise taking advantage of Microsoft’s paid extended security updates program, which is available to Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 enterprise users).

If you rely on Windows 7 for day-to-day use, it’s time to think about upgrading to something newer. That something might be a PC with Windows 10. Or maybe you have always wanted that shiny MacOS computer.

If cost is a primary motivator and the user you have in mind doesn’t do much with the system other than browsing the Web, perhaps a Chromebook or an older machine with a recent version of Linux is the answer (Ubuntu may be easiest for non-Linux natives). Whichever system you choose, it’s important to pick one that fits the owner’s needs and provides security updates on an ongoing basis.

Keep in mind that while staying up-to-date on Windows patches is a must, it’s important to make sure you’re updating only after you’ve backed up your important data and files. A reliable backup means you’re not losing your mind when the odd buggy patch causes problems booting the system.

So backup your files before installing any patches. Windows 10 even has some built-in tools to help you do that, either on a per-file/folder basis or by making a complete and bootable copy of your hard drive all at once.

And if you wish to ensure Windows has been set to pause updating so you can back up your files and/or system before the operating system decides to reboot and install patches on its own schedule, see this guide.

As always, if you experience glitches or problems installing any of these patches this month, please consider leaving a comment about it below; there’s a better-than-even chance other readers have experienced the same and may chime in here with some helpful tips. Also, keep an eye on the AskWoody blog from Woody Leonhard, who keeps a reliable lookout for buggy Microsoft updates each month.

Further reading:

SANS Internet Storm Center breakdown by vulnerability and severity

Microsoft’s Security Update catalog

BleepingComputer on May 2020 Patch Tuesday

Ransomware Hit ATM Giant Diebold Nixdorf

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Diebold Nixdorf, a major provider of automatic teller machines (ATMs) and payment technology to banks and retailers, recently suffered a ransomware attack that disrupted some operations. The company says the hackers never touched its ATMs or customer networks, and that the intrusion only affected its corporate network.

Canton, Ohio-based Diebold [NYSE: DBD] is currently the largest ATM provider in the United States, with an estimated 35 percent of the cash machine market worldwide. The 35,000-employee company also produces point-of-sale systems and software used by many retailers.

According to Diebold, on the evening of Saturday, April 25, the company’s security team discovered anomalous behavior on its corporate network. Suspecting a ransomware attack, Diebold said it immediately began disconnecting systems on that network to contain the spread of the malware.

Sources told KrebsOnSecurity that Diebold’s response affected services for over 100 of the company’s customers. Diebold said the company’s response to the attack did disrupt a system that automates field service technician requests, but that the incident did not affect customer networks or the general public.

“Diebold has determined that the spread of the malware has been contained,” Diebold said in a written statement provided to KrebsOnSecurity. “The incident did not affect ATMs, customer networks, or the general public, and its impact was not material to our business. Unfortunately, cybercrime is an ongoing challenge for all companies. Diebold Nixdorf takes the security of our systems and customer service very seriously. Our leadership has connected personally with customers to make them aware of the situation and how we addressed it.”

NOT SO PRO LOCK

An investigation determined that the intruders installed the ProLock ransomware, which experts say is a relatively uncommon ransomware strain that has gone through multiple names and iterations over the past few months.

For example, until recently ProLock was better known as “PwndLocker,” which is the name of the ransomware that infected servers at Lasalle County, Ill. in March. But the miscreants behind PwndLocker rebranded their malware after security experts at Emsisoft released a tool that let PwndLocker victims decrypt their files without paying the ransom.

Diebold claims it did not pay the ransom demanded by the attackers, although the company wouldn’t discuss the amount requested. But Lawrence Abrams of BleepingComputer said the ransom demanded for ProLock victims typically ranges in the six figures, from $175,000 to more than $660,000 depending on the size of the victim network.

Fabian Wosar, Emsisoft’s chief technology officer, said if Diebold’s claims about not paying their assailants are true, it’s probably for the best: That’s because current versions of ProLock’s decryptor tool will corrupt larger files such as database files.

As luck would have it, Emsisoft does offer a tool that fixes the decryptor so that it properly recovers files held hostage by ProLock, but it only works for victims who have already paid a ransom to the crooks behind ProLock.

“We do have a tool that fixes a bug in the decryptor, but it doesn’t work unless you have the decryption keys from the ransomware authors,” Wosar said.

WEEKEND WARRIORS

BleepingComputer’s Abrams said the timing of the attack on Diebold — Saturday evening — is quite common, and that ransomware purveyors tend to wait until the weekends to launch their attacks because that is typically when most organizations have the fewest number of technical staff on hand. Incidentally, weekends also are the time when the vast majority of ATM skimming attacks take place — for the same reason.

“After hours on Friday and Saturday nights are big, because they want to pull the trigger [on the ransomware] when no one is around,” Abrams said.

Many ransomware gangs have taken to stealing sensitive data from victims before launching the ransomware, as a sort of virtual cudgel to use against victims who don’t immediately acquiesce to a ransom demand.

Armed with the victim’s data — or data about the victim company’s partners or customers — the attackers can then threaten to publish or sell the information if victims refuse to pay up. Indeed, some of the larger ransomware groups are doing just that, constantly updating blogs on the Internet and the dark Web that publish the names and data stolen from victims who decline to pay.

So far, the crooks behind ProLock haven’t launched their own blog. But Abrams said the crime group behind it has indicated it is at least heading in that direction, noting that in his communications with the group in the wake of the Lasalle County attack they sent him an image and a list of folders suggesting they’d accessed sensitive data for that victim.

“I’ve been saying this ever since last year when the Maze ransomware group started publishing the names and data from their victims: Every ransomware attack has to be treated as a data breach now,” Abrams said.

Meant to Combat ID Theft, Unemployment Benefits Letter Prompts ID Theft Worries

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Millions of Americans now filing for unemployment will receive benefits via a prepaid card issued by U.S. Bank, a Minnesota-based financial institution that handles unemployment payments for more than a dozen U.S. states. Some of these unemployment applications will trigger an automatic letter from U.S. Bank to the applicant. The letters are intended to prevent identity theft, but many people are mistaking these vague missives for a notification that someone has hijacked their identity.

So far this month, two KrebsOnSecurity readers have forwarded scans of form letters they received via snail mail that mentioned an address change associated with some type of payment card, but which specified neither the entity that issued the card nor any useful information about the card itself.

Searching for snippets of text from the letter online revealed pages of complaints from consumers who appear confused about the source and reason for the letter, with most dismissing it as either a scam or considering it a notice of attempted identity theft. Here’s what’s the letter looks like:

A scan of the form letter sent by U.S. Bank to countless people enrolling in state unemployment benefits.

My first thought when a reader shared a copy of the letter was that he recently had been the victim of identity theft. It took a fair amount of digging online to discover that the nebulously named “Cardholder Services” address in Florida referenced at the top of the letter is an address exclusively used by U.S. Bank.

That digging indicated U.S. Bank currently manages the disbursement of funds for unemployment programs in at least 17 states, including Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The funds are distributed through a prepaid debit card called ReliaCard.

To make matters more confusing, the flood of new unemployment applications from people out of work thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic reportedly has overwhelmed U.S. Bank’s system, meaning that many people receiving these letters haven’t yet gotten their ReliaCard and thus lack any frame of reference for having applied for a new payment card.

Reached for comment about the unhelpful letters, U.S. Bank said it automatically mails them to current and former ReliaCard customers when changes in its system are triggered by a customer – including small tweaks to an address — such as changing “Street” to “St.”

“This can include letters to people who formerly had a ReliaCard account, but whose accounts are now inactive,” the company said in a statement shared with KrebsOnSecurity. “If someone files for unemployment and had a ReliaCard in years past for another claim, we can work with the state to activate that card so the cardholder can use it again.”

U.S. Bank said the letters are designed to confirm with the cardholder that the address change is valid and to combat identity theft. But clearly, for many recipients they are having the opposite effect.

“We encourage any cardholders who have questions about the letters to call the number listed on the back of their cards (or 855-282-6161),” the company said.

That’s nice to know, because it’s not obvious from reading the letter which card is being referenced. U.S. Bank said it would take my feedback under advisement, but that the letters were intended to be generic in nature to protect cardholder privacy.

“We are always seeking to improve our programs, so thank you for bringing this to our attention,” the company said. “Our teams are looking at ways to provide more specific information in our communications with cardholders.”

Tech Support Scam Uses Child Porn Warning

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A new email scam is making the rounds, warning recipients that someone using their Internet address has been caught viewing child pornography. The message claims to have been sent from Microsoft Support, and says the recipient’s Windows license will be suspended unless they call an “MS Support” number to reinstate the license, but the number goes to a phony tech support scam that tries to trick callers into giving fraudsters direct access to their PCs.

The fraudulent message tries to seem more official by listing what are supposed to be the recipient’s IP address and MAC address. The latter term stands for “Media Access Control” and refers to a unique identifier assigned to a computer’s network interface.

However, this address is not visible to others outside of the user’s local network, and in any case the MAC address listed in the scam email is not even a full MAC address, which normally includes six groups of two alphanumeric characters separated by a colon. Also, the IP address cited in the email does not appear to have anything to do with the actual Internet address of the recipient.

Not that either of these details will be obvious to many people who receive this spam email, which states:

“We have found instances of child pornography accessed from your IP address & MAC Address.
IP Address: 206.19.86.255
MAC Address : A0:95:6D:C7

This is violation of Information Technology Act of 1996. For now we are Cancelling your Windows License, which means stopping all windows activities & updates on your computer.

If this was not You and would like to Reinstate the Windows License, Please call MS Support Team at 1-844-286-1916 for further help.

Microsoft Support
1 844 286 1916”

KrebsOnSecurity called the toll-free number in the email and was connected after a short hold to a man who claimed to be from MS Support. Immediately, he wanted me to type a specific Web addresses into my browser so he could take remote control over my computer. I was going to play along for a while but for some reason our call was terminated abruptly after several minutes.

These kinds of support scams are a dime a dozen, unfortunately. They prey mainly on elderly and unsophisticated Internet users, walking the frightened caller through a series of steps that allow the fraudsters to take complete, remote control over the system. Once inside the target’s PC, the scammer invariably finds all kinds of imaginary problems that need fixing, at which point the caller is asked for a credit card number or some form of payment and charged an exorbitant fee for some dubious service or software.

What seems new about this scam is the child porn angle, which I’m sure will worry quite a few recipients. I say this because over the past few weeks, someone has massively started sending the same type of sextortion emails that first began in earnest in the summer of 2018, and incredibly over the past few days I’ve received almost a dozen emails from readers wondering if they should be concerned or if they should pay the extortion demand.

Here’s a hard and fast rule: Never respond to spam, and certainly not to any email that threatens some negative consequence unless you respond. Doing otherwise only invites more spammy and scammy emails. On the other hand, I fully support the idea of tying up this scammer’s toll-free number with time-wasting calls.

Europe’s Largest Private Hospital Operator Fresenius Hit by Ransomware

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Fresenius, Europe’s largest private hospital operator and a major provider of dialysis products and services that are in such high demand thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been hit in a ransomware cyber attack on its technology systems. The company said the incident has limited some of its operations, but that patient care continues.

Based in Germany, the Fresenius Group includes four independent businesses: Fresenius Medical Care, a leading provider of care to those suffering from kidney failure; Fresenius Helios, Europe’s largest private hospital operator (according to the company’s Web site); Fresenius Kabi, which supplies pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices; and Fresenius Vamed, which manages healthcare facilities.

Overall, Fresenius employs nearly 300,000 people across more than 100 countries, and is ranked 258th on the Forbes Global 2000. The company provides products and services for dialysis, hospitals, and inpatient and outpatient care, with nearly 40 percent of the market share for dialysis in the United States. This is worrisome because COVID-19 causes many patients to experience kidney failure, which has led to a shortage of dialysis machines and supplies.

On Tuesday, a KrebsOnSecurity reader who asked to remain anonymous said a relative working for Fresenius Kabi’s U.S. operations reported that computers in his company’s building had been roped off, and that a cyber attack had affected every part of the company’s operations around the globe.

The reader said the apparent culprit was the Snake ransomware, a relatively new strain first detailed earlier this year that is being used to shake down large businesses, holding their IT systems and data hostage in exchange for payment in a digital currency such as bitcoin.

Fresenius spokesperson Matt Kuhn confirmed the company was struggling with a computer virus outbreak.

“I can confirm that Fresenius’ IT security detected a computer virus on company computers,” Kuhn said in a written statement shared with KrebsOnSecurity. “As a precautionary measure in accordance with our security protocol drawn up for such cases, steps have been taken to prevent further spread. We have also informed the relevant investigating authorities and while some functions within the company are currently limited, patient care continues. Our IT experts are continuing to work on solving the problem as quickly as possible and ensuring that operations run as smoothly as possible.”

The assault on Fresenius comes amid increasingly targeted attacks against healthcare providers on the front lines of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. In April, the international police organization INTERPOL warned it “has detected a significant increase in the number of attempted ransomware attacks against key organizations and infrastructure engaged in the virus response. Cybercriminals are using ransomware to hold hospitals and medical services digitally hostage, preventing them from accessing vital files and systems until a ransom is paid.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security‘s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an alert along with the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre warning that so-called “advanced persistent threat” groups — state-sponsored hacking teams — are actively targeting organizations involved in both national and international COVID-19 responses.

“APT actors frequently target organizations in order to collect bulk personal information, intellectual property, and intelligence that aligns with national priorities,” the alert reads. “The pandemic has likely raised additional interest for APT actors to gather information related to COVID-19. For example, actors may seek to obtain intelligence on national and international healthcare policy, or acquire sensitive data on COVID-19-related research.”

Once considered by many to be isolated extortion attacks, ransomware infestations have become de facto data breaches for many victim companies. That’s because some of the more active ransomware gangs have taken to downloading reams of data from targets before launching the ransomware inside their systems. Some or all of this data is then published on victim-shaming sites set up by the ransomware gangs as a way to pressure victim companies into paying up.

Security researchers say the Snake ransomware is somewhat unique in that it seeks to identify IT processes tied to enterprise management tools and large-scale industrial control systems (ICS), such as production and manufacturing networks.

While some ransomware groups targeting businesses have publicly pledged not to single out healthcare providers for the duration of the pandemic, attacks on medical care facilities have continued nonetheless. In late April, Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo, Colo. was hit in a ransomware attack that reportedly rendered inoperable the hospital’s system for storing patient information.

Fresenius declined to answer questions about specifics of the attack, saying it does not provide detailed information or comments on IT security matters. It remains unclear whether the company will pay a ransom demand to recover from the infection. But if it does so, it may not be the first time: According to my reader source, Fresenius paid $1.5 million to resolve a previous ransomware infection.

“This new attack is on a far greater scale, though,” the reader said.

How Cybercriminals are Weathering COVID-19

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In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a boon to cybercriminals: With unprecedented numbers of people working from home and anxious for news about the virus outbreak, it’s hard to imagine a more target-rich environment for phishers, scammers and malware purveyors. In addition, many crooks are finding the outbreak has helped them better market their cybercriminal wares and services. But it’s not all good news: The Coronavirus also has driven up costs and disrupted key supply lines for many cybercriminals. Here’s a look at how they’re adjusting to these new realities.

FUELED BY MULES

One of the more common and perennial cybercriminal schemes is “reshipping fraud,” wherein crooks buy pricey consumer goods online using stolen credit card data and then enlist others to help them collect or resell the merchandise.

Most online retailers years ago stopped shipping to regions of the world most frequently associated with credit card fraud, including Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Russia. These restrictions have created a burgeoning underground market for reshipping scams, which rely on willing or unwitting residents in the United States and Europe — derisively referred to as “reshipping mules” — to receive and relay high-dollar stolen goods to crooks living in the embargoed areas.

A screen shot from a user account at “Snowden,” a long-running reshipping mule service.

But apparently a number of criminal reshipping services are reporting difficulties due to the increased wait time when calling FedEx or UPS (to divert carded goods that merchants end up shipping to the cardholder’s address instead of to the mule’s). In response, these operations are raising their prices and warning of longer shipping times, which in turn could hamper the activities of other actors who depend on those services.

That’s according to Intel 471, a cyber intelligence company that closely monitors hundreds of online crime forums. In a report published today, the company said since late March 2020 it has observed several crooks complaining about COVID-19 interfering with the daily activities of their various money mules (people hired to help launder the proceeds of cybercrime).

“One Russian-speaking actor running a fraud network complained about their subordinates (“money mules”) in Italy, Spain and other countries being unable to withdraw funds, since they currently were afraid to leave their homes,” Intel 471 observed. “Also some actors have reported that banks’ customer-support lines are being overloaded, making it difficult for fraudsters to call them for social-engineering activities (such as changing account ownership, raising withdrawal limits, etc).”

Still, every dark cloud has a silver lining: Intel 471 noted many cybercriminals appear optimistic that the impending global economic recession (and resultant unemployment) “will make it easier to recruit low-level accomplices such as money mules.”

Alex Holden, founder and CTO of Hold Security, agreed. He said while the Coronavirus has forced reshipping operators to make painful shifts in several parts of their business, the overall market for available mules has never looked brighter.

“Reshipping is way up right now, but there are some complications,” he said.

For example, reshipping scams have over the years become easier for both reshipping mule operators and the mules themselves. Many reshipping mules are understandably concerned about receiving stolen goods at their home and risking a visit from the local police. But increasingly, mules have been instructed to retrieve carded items from third-party locations.

“The mules don’t have to receive stolen goods directly at home anymore,” Holden said. “They can pick them up at Walgreens, Hotel lobbies, etc. There are a ton of reshipment tricks out there.”

But many of those tricks got broken with the emergence of COVID-19 and social distancing norms. In response, more mule recruiters are asking their hires to do things like reselling goods shipped to their homes on platforms like eBay and Amazon.

“Reshipping definitely has become more complicated,” Holden said. “Not every mule will run 10 times a day to the post office, and some will let the goods sit by the mailbox for days. But on the whole, mules are more compliant these days.”

GIVE AND TAKE

KrebsOnSecurity recently came to a similar conclusion: Last month’s story, “Coronavirus Widens the Money Mule Pool,” looked at one money mule operation that had ensnared dozens of mules with phony job offers in a very short period of time. Incidentally, the fake charity behind that scheme — which promised to raise money for Coronavirus victims — has since closed up shop and apparently re-branded itself as the Tessaris Foundation.

Charitable cybercriminal endeavors were the subject of a report released this week by cyber intel firm Digital Shadows, which looked at various ways computer crooks are promoting themselves and their hacking services using COVID-19 themed discounts and giveaways.

Like many commercials on television these days, such offers obliquely or directly reference the economic hardships wrought by the virus outbreak as a way of connecting on an emotional level with potential customers.

“The illusion of philanthropy recedes further when you consider the benefits to the threat actors giving away goods and services,” the report notes. “These donors receive a massive boost to their reputation on the forum. In the future, they may be perceived as individuals willing to contribute to forum life, and the giveaways help establish a track record of credibility.”

Brian’s Club — one of the underground’s largest bazaars for selling stolen credit card data and one that has misappropriated this author’s likeness and name in its advertising — recently began offering “pandemic support” in the form of discounts for its most loyal customers.

It stands to reason that the virus outbreak might depress cybercriminal demand for “dumps,” or stolen account data that can be used to create physical counterfeit credit cards. After all, dumps are mainly used to buy high-priced items from electronics stores and other outlets that may not even be open now thanks to the widespread closures from the pandemic.

If that were the case, we’d also expect to see dumps prices fall significantly across the cybercrime economy. But so far, those price changes simply haven’t materialized, says Gemini Advisory, a New York based company that monitors the sale of stolen credit card data across dozens of stores in the cybercrime underground.

Stas Alforov, Gemini’s director of research and development, said there’s been no notable dramatic changes in pricing for both dumps and card data stolen from online merchants (a.k.a. “CVVs”) — even though many cybercrime groups appear to be massively shifting their operations toward targeting online merchants and their customers.

“Usually, the huge spikes upward or downward during a short period is reflected by a large addition of cheap records that drive the median price change,” Alforov said, referring to the small and temporary price deviations depicted in the graph above.

Intel 471 said it came to a similar conclusion.

“You might have thought carding activity, to include support aspects such as checker services, would decrease due to both the global lockdown and threat actors being infected with COVID-19,” the company said. “We’ve even seen some actors suggest as much across some shops, but the reality is there have been no observations of major changes.”

CONSCIENCE VS. COMMERCE

Interestingly, the Coronavirus appears to have prompted discussion on a topic that seldom comes up in cybercrime communities — i.e., the moral and ethical ramifications of their work. Specifically, there seems to be much talk these days about the potential karmic consequences of cashing in on the misery wrought by a global pandemic.

For example, Digital Shadows said some have started to question the morality of targeting healthcare providers, or collecting funds in the name of Coronavirus causes and then pocketing the money.

“One post on the gated Russian-language cybercriminal forum Korovka laid bare the question of threat actors’ moral obligation,” the company wrote. “A user initiated a thread to canvass opinion on the feasibility of faking a charitable cause and collecting donations. They added that while they recognized that such a plan was ‘cruel,’ they found themselves in an ‘extremely difficult financial situation.’ Responses to the proposal were mixed, with one forum user calling the plan ‘amoral,’ and another pointing out that cybercrime is inherently an immoral affair.”

Would You Have Fallen for This Phone Scam?

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You may have heard that today’s phone fraudsters like to use caller ID spoofing services to make their scam calls seem more believable. But you probably didn’t know that these fraudsters also can use caller ID spoofing to trick your bank into giving up information about recent transactions on your account — data that can then be abused to make their phone scams more believable and expose you to additional forms of identity theft.

Last week, KrebsOnSecurity told the harrowing tale of a reader (a security expert, no less) who tried to turn the tables on his telephonic tormentors and failed spectacularly. In that episode, the people impersonating his bank not only spoofed the bank’s real phone number, but they were also pretending to be him on a separate call at the same time with his bank.

This foiled his efforts to make sure it was really his bank that called him, because he called his bank with another phone and the bank confirmed they currently were in a separate call with him discussing fraud on his account (however, the other call was the fraudster pretending to be him).

Shortly after that story ran, I heard from another reader — we’ll call him “Jim” since he didn’t want his real name used for this story — whose wife was the target of a similar scam, albeit with an important twist: The scammers were armed with information about a number of her recent financial transactions, which he claims they got from the bank’s own automated phone system just by spoofing her phone number.

“When they originally called my wife, there were no fraudulent transactions on her account, but they were able to specify the last three transactions she had made, which combined with the caller-ID had mistakenly earned her trust,” Jim explained. “After we figured out what was going on, we were left asking ourselves how the crooks had obtained her last three transactions without breaking into her account online. As it turned out, calling the phone number on the back of the credit card from the phone number linked with the card provided the most recent transactions without providing any form of authentication.”

Jim said he was so aghast at this realization that he called the same number from his phone and tried accessing his account, which is also at Citi but wholly separate from his spouse’s. Sure enough, he said, as long as he was calling from the number on file for his account, the automated system let him review recent transactions without any further authentication.

“I confirmed on my separate Citi card that they often (but not quite always) were providing the transaction details,” Jim said. “I was appalled that Citi would do that. So, it seemed the crooks would spoof caller ID when calling Citibank, as well as when calling the target/victim.”

The incident Jim described happened in late January 2020, and Citi may have changed its procedures since then. But in a phone interview with KrebsOnSecurity earlier this week, Jim made a call to Citi’s automated system from his mobile phone on file with the bank, and I could hear Citi’s systems asking him to enter the last four digits of his credit card number before he could review recent transactions.

The request for the last four of the customer’s credit card number was consistent with my own testing, which relied on a caller ID spoofing service advertised in the cybercrime underground and aimed at a Citi account controlled by this author.

In one test, the spoofed call let KrebsOnSecurity hear recent transaction data — where and when the transaction was made, and how much was spent — after providing the automated system the last four digits of the account’s credit card number. In another test, the automated system asked for the account holder’s full Social Security number.

Citi declined to discuss specific actions it takes to detect and prevent fraud. But in a written statement provided to this author it said the company continuously monitors and analyzes threats and looks for opportunities to strengthen its controls.

“We see regular attempts by fraudsters to gain access to information and we are constantly monitoring for emerging threats and taking preventive action for our clients’ protection,” the statement reads. “For inbound calls to call centers, we continue to adapt and implement detection capabilities to identify suspicious or spoofed phone numbers. We also encourage clients to install and use our mobile app and sign up for push notifications and alerts in the mobile app.”

PREGNANT PAUSES AND BULGING EMAIL BOMBS

Jim said the fraudster who called his wife clearly already knew her mailing and email addresses, her mobile number and the fact that her card was an American Airlines-branded Citi card. The caller said there had been a series of suspicious transactions, and proceeded to read back details of several recent transactions to verify if those were purchases she’d authorized.

A list of services offered by one of several underground stores that sell caller ID spoofing and email bombing services.

Jim’s wife quickly logged on to her Citi account and saw that the amounts, dates and places of the transactions referenced by the caller indeed corresponded to recent legitimate transactions. But she didn’t see any signs of unauthorized charges.

After verifying the recent legitimate transactions with the caller, the person on the phone asked for her security word. When she provided it, there was a long hold before the caller came back and said she’d provided the wrong answer.

When she corrected herself and provided a different security word, there was another long pause before the caller said the second answer she provided was correct. At that point, the caller said Citi would be sending her a new card and that it had prevented several phony charges from even posting to her account.

She didn’t understand until later that the pauses were points at which the fraudsters had to put her on hold to relay her answers in their own call posing as her to Citi’s customer service department.

Not long after Jim’s spouse hung up with the caller, her inbox quickly began filling up with hundreds of automated messages from various websites trying to confirm an email newsletter subscription she’d supposedly requested.

As the recipient of several of these “email bombing” attacks, I can verify that crooks often will use services offered in the cybercrime underground to flood a target’s inbox with these junk newsletter subscriptions shortly after committing fraud in the target’s name when they wish to bury an email notification from a target’s bank.

‘OVERPAYMENT REIMBURSEMENT’

In the case of Jim’s wife, the inbox flood backfired, and only made her more suspicious about the true nature of the recent phone call. So she called the number on the back of her Citi card and was told that she had indeed just called Citi and requested what’s known as an “overpayment reimbursement.” The couple have long had their credit cards on auto-payment, and the most recent payment was especially high — nearly $4,000 — thanks to a flurry of Christmas present purchases for friends and family.

In an overpayment reimbursement, a customer can request that the bank refund any amount paid toward a previous bill that exceeds the minimum required monthly payment. Doing so causes any back-due interest on that unpaid amount to accrue to the account as well.

In this case, the caller posing as Jim’s wife requested an overpayment reimbursement to the tune of just under $4,000. It’s not clear how or where the fraudsters intended this payment to be sent, but for whatever reason Citi ended up saying they would cut a physical check and mail it to the address on file. Probably not what the fraudsters wanted, although since then Jim and his wife say they have been on alert for anyone suspicious lurking near their mailbox.

“The person we spoke with at Citi’s fraud department kept insisting that yes, it was my wife that called because the call came from her mobile number,” Jim said. “The Citi employee was alarmed because she didn’t understand the whole notion of caller ID spoofing. And we both found it kind of disturbing that someone in fraud at such a major bank didn’t even understand that such a thing was possible.”

SHOPPING FOR ‘CVVs’

Fraud experts say the scammers behind the types of calls that targeted Jim’s family are most likely fueled by the rampant sale of credit card records stolen from hacked online merchants. This data, known as “CVVs” in the cybercrime underground, is sold in packages for about $15 to $20 per record, and very often includes the customer’s name, address, phone number, email address and full credit or debit card number, expiration date, and card verification value (CVV) printed on the back of the card.

A screen shot from an underground store selling CVV records. Note that all of these records come with the cardholder’s address, email, phone number and zip code. Click to enlarge. Image: Gemini Advisory.

Dozens of cybercrime shops traffic in this stolen data, which is more traditionally used to defraud online merchants. But such records are ideally suited for criminals engaged in the type of phone scams that are the subject of this article.

That’s according to Andrei Barysevich, CEO and co-founder of Gemini Advisory, a New York-based company that monitors dozens of underground shops selling stolen card data.

“If the fraudsters already have the target’s cell phone number, in many cases they already have the target’s credit card information as well,” Barysevich said.

Gemini estimates there are currently some 13 million CVV records for sale across the dark web, and that more than 40 percent of these records put up for sale over the past year included the cardholder’s phone number.

Data from recent financial transactions can not only help fraudsters better impersonate your bank, it can also be useful in linking a customer’s account to another account the fraudsters control. That’s because PayPal and a number of other pure-play online financial institutions allow customers to link accounts by verifying the value of microdeposits.

For example, if you wish to be able to transfer funds between PayPal and a bank account, the company will first send a couple of tiny deposits — a few cents, usually — to the account you wish to link. Only after verifying those exact amounts will the account-linking request be granted.

JUST HANG UP

Both this and last week’s story illustrate why the only sane response to a call purporting to be from your bank is to hang up, look up your bank’s customer service number from their Web site or from the back of your card, and call them back yourself.

Meanwhile, fraudsters who hack peoples’ finances with nothing more than a telephone have been significantly upping the volume of attacks in recent months, new research suggests. Fraud prevention company Next Caller said this week it has tracked “massive increases in call volumes and high-risk calls across Fortune 500 companies as a result of COVID-19.”

Image: Next Caller.

“After a brief reprieve in Week 4 (April 6-12), Week 5 (April 13-19) saw call volume across Next Caller’s clients in the telecom and financial services sectors spike 40% above previous highs,” the company found. “Particularly worrisome is the activity taking place in the financial services sector, where call traffic topped previous highs by 800%.”

Next Caller said it’s likely some of that increase was due to numerous online and mobile app outages for many major financial institutions at a time when more than 80 million Americans were simultaneously trying to track the status of their stimulus deposits. But it said that surge also brought with it an influx of fraudsters looking to capitalize on all the chaos.

“High-risk calls to financial services surged to 50% above pre-COVID levels, with one Fortune 100 bank suffering a high-risk increase of 60% during Week 5,” the company wrote in a recent report.