Identity theft spikes amid pandemic

Identity theft spikes amid pandemic

The US Federal Trade Commission received 1.4 million reports of identity theft last year, double the number from 2019 The number of reported cases of identity theft in the United States doubled in 2020 year-on-year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has said. In a blogpost marking the start of Identity Theft Awareness Week, the FTC said that…
Facebook etiquette: Behaviors you should avoid

Facebook etiquette: Behaviors you should avoid

Sharing your thoughts or photos for the world to see is now as easy as pushing a button, but even a seemingly harmless post may come back to haunt you Facebook, the white and blue social media behemoth, has been part of our lives for exactly 17 years. Some of us still remember the days…
Google: Better patching could have prevented 1 in 4 zero‑days last year

Google: Better patching could have prevented 1 in 4 zero‑days last year

Vendors should fix the root cause of a vulnerability, rather than block just one path to triggering it, says Google Google’s Project Zero team revealed that a quarter of zero-day exploits detected in 2020 could have been prevented had the vendors issued proper patches for the underlying security flaws. In its Year in Review bloggpost,…
Kobalos – A complex Linux threat to high performance computing infrastructure

Kobalos – A complex Linux threat to high performance computing infrastructure

ESET researchers publish a white paper about unique multiplatform malware they’ve named Kobalos ESET researchers have analyzed malware that has been targeting high performance computing (HPC) clusters, among other high-profile targets. We reverse engineered this small, yet complex, malware that is portable to many operating systems including Linux, BSD, Solaris, and possibly AIX and Windows.…
Wormable Android malware spreads via WhatsApp messages

Wormable Android malware spreads via WhatsApp messages

“Download This application and Win Mobile Phone”, reads the message attempting to trick users into downloading a fake Huawei app Android users should watch out for new wormable malware that spreads through WhatsApp and lures the prospective victims into downloading an app from a website masquerading as Google Play. ESET malware researcher Lukas Stefanko looked…
Apple patches three iOS zero‑days under attack

Apple patches three iOS zero‑days under attack

The company emits emergency updates to fix bugs affecting devices ranging from iPhones to Apple Watches Apple has rolled out an update for its iOS and iPadOS operating systems to patch three zero-day security flaws that are being actively exploited in the wild. The trio of flaws affects various versions of iPhones and iPads and…
Data Privacy Day: Top tips for safe remote learning

Data Privacy Day: Top tips for safe remote learning

As schools and students continue to contend with the very real cyber-risks of virtual classrooms, we share some advice for protecting children’s data and privacy The COVID-19 pandemic is still here, with pupils and students still soldiering on mostly remotely and focusing on their education from the confines of their houses. While another semester studying…
Emotet botnet disrupted in global operation

Emotet botnet disrupted in global operation

The law enforcement action is one of the most significant operations against cybercriminal enterprises ever Europol has announced the disruption of the Emotet botnet, one of the longest-lived and most pervasive malware threats, following a large-scale operation that also included a number of national law enforcement agencies across Europe and North America. Authorities in the…
Why do we fall for SMS phishing scams so easily?

Why do we fall for SMS phishing scams so easily?

Here’s how to spot scams where criminals use deceptive text messages to hook and reel in their marks Have you ever received a text message from a delivery company that you are familiar with and never for a moment questioned it? Why would you? We now order so much online and all those delivery notifications…
Vadokrist: A wolf in sheep’s clothing

Vadokrist: A wolf in sheep’s clothing

Another in our occasional series demystifying Latin American banking trojans Vadokrist is a Latin American banking trojan that ESET has been tracking since 2018 and that is active almost exclusively in Brazil. In this installment of our series, we examine its main features and some connections to other Latin American banking trojan families. Vadokrist shares…