Major Dark Web Marketplace Hacked
Recently, a hacker using the alias cypher0007 reached out to AtlasBay, a large dark web market, with information on two significant vulnerabilities that allowed him to access over 200,000 private messages, names, and addresses. Along with retrieving a good amount of buyer and seller information, the hacker also revealed that the site had no encryption on its private messaging feature. For users of the online marketplace, their data has been secured in addition to AlphaBay releasing patches for both vulnerabilities.
Ransomware Victims Likely to Pay for Data Retrieval
In a recent study, it was revealed that nearly half of businesses hit with ransomware were willing to pay the ransom which often reached over $10,000. Many of the respondents believed that the loss of data was actually less costly than the overall downtime for the business, loss of customers, and the investment in new security measures. More surprisingly, 17% of the victim companies did not involve a law enforcement agency for fear of additional attacks on their infrastructure.
Latest Firefox Update Flags Insecure Logins
Following in the steps of Google, Firefox has released an update that has resolved many security flaws that have been prevalent for quite some time. The main focus appears to be on flagging HTTP login pages as insecure and giving users an additional warning if they begin typing in an insecure username or password field. Also, Firefox has begun refusing to accept SHA-1 certificates from several public companies, as a sign of lost faith.
Android Ransomware Found On Google Play
In the last week, researchers discovered a new ransomware variant embedded in a seemingly innocent app on the Google Play store. The variant, named Charger, begins by prompting the user to allow administrator access to the device. Once access is given, the user is shown a ransom lock screen and the app starts downloading user contact and SMS data while asking for a mere 0.2 bitcoins, or roughly $180. Fortunately, the app was caught early and removed from the app store with a minimal number of total downloads.
Dark Web Hacker Steals Over 1 Billion User Accounts
With corporate hacking being more profitable than ever, it comes as no surprise to see dark web vendors selling data for millions of users. Recently however, one vendor has offered access to over 1 billion unique user accounts from some of China’s largest online vendors. Alongside the initial listing for the main Chinese accounts, the hacker also offers another ~46 million email accounts from varying domains.
