Cybersecurity Weekly: Record bug bounty payouts, new phishing attacks, smartphone fingerprint hack
Bug bounty platform Bugcrowd breaks weekly payout record with over $500,000. Paypal upsets Microsoft as phishers’ favorite brand for the first time in over a year. Hackers unlock smartphones in under 20 minutes by photographing fingerprints on glass. All this, and more, in this week’s edition of Cybersecurity Weekly.
Should you pay the ransom?
1. Bugcrowd paid out over $500,000 in bounties in one week
In October, Bugcrowd paid out $1.6 million to over 500 white hat hackers from around the world. Collectively, they reported a total of 6,500 vulnerabilities in products belonging to companies using the platform. More than $513,000 in payouts were made just last week — a record in a 7-day period for Bugcrowd since it launched in 2011.
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2. Cybersecurity workforce skills gap rises to over 4 million
According to a recent study by ISC2, the estimated current cybersecurity workforce is 2.8 million professionals, while the amount of additional trained staff needed to close the skills gap is 4.1 million professionals. The study also shows that cybersecurity and IT professionals are largely satisfied in their careers and optimistic about their futures.
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3. PayPal upsets Microsoft as phishers' favorite brand
PayPal was the most frequently spoofed brand in the third quarter of 2019, unseating Microsoft for the first time in over a year. Phishing campaigns have capitalized on PayPal's popularity. One discovered by Vade researchers targeted more than 700,000 people, primarily located in Europe, with emails threatening legal action and requesting a small payment.
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4. Hackers can attack smart home devices with lasers
Hackers can shine lasers at your Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa devices to gain control of them, send commands to the smart assistants and obtain your account information. Researchers proved this by using lasers to inject malicious commands into voice-controlled devices like smart speakers, tablets and phones.
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5. Long-anticipated “BlueKeep” cyberattacks on Microsoft devices have begun
After much speculation about the potential of a BlueKeep exploit attack, one has finally been observed in the wild — though its impact so far has been significantly lower than once feared. If exploited, BlueKeep can allow hackers to remotely execute arbitrary code, leaving Microsoft users vulnerable to attack.
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6. Amazon's Ring Video Doorbell lets attackers steal Wi-Fi passwords
Security researchers at Bitdefender have discovered a high-severity vulnerability in Amazon's Ring Video Doorbell Pro devices. This could allow nearby attackers to steal Wi-Fi passwords and launch a variety of Man-in-the-Middle cyberattacks against other smart devices connected to the victim’s home network.
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7. Thousands of NordVPN user passwords leaked online
Just weeks after the company revealed it was breached, thousands of NordVPN users have now fallen victim to credential-stuffing attacks that allow unauthorized users to access their accounts. Credentials for NordVPN users, including email addresses, plaintext passwords and expiration dates, were found on online forums.
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8. Study: Ransomware, data breaches at hospitals tied to uptick in fatal heart attacks
Hospitals hit by a data breach or ransomware attack can expect to see an increase in the death rate among heart patients in the following months because of remediation efforts, a new study claims. Health industry experts say the findings prompt a larger review of how security may be impacting patient outcomes.
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9. Experts hacked Samsung Galaxy S10 and Xiaomi Mi9 phones at Pwn2Own Tokyo
On the second day of the Pwn2Own Tokyo 2019 hacking contest, whitehat hackers received a total of $120,000 for finding exploits against the Samsung Galaxy S10, Xiaomi Mi9 and TP-Link AC1750 routers. The flaws have been reported to the impacted vendors, and the ZDI organization will give them 90 days to address the issues before disclosing them.
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Phishing simulations & training
10. Hackers can unlock any phone in 20 minutes using photographed fingerprints
Hackers working for a Chinese security company claim they have developed a method to photograph a fingerprint on any glass surface and use it to unlock any smartphone in just 20 minutes. After processing the photo, the processed fingerprint was used to unlock three smartphones, all with different fingerprint reader technology.
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In this Series
- Cybersecurity Weekly: Record bug bounty payouts, new phishing attacks, smartphone fingerprint hack
- Canada Flipper Zero ban and new RustDoor macOS malware
- AnyDesk hack and iPhone patched kernel flaw
- Tesla Pwn2Own hacks and iOS push alerts abuse
- TeamViewer breach and Atlassian Jira outage
- Moscow ISP revenge hack and Microsoft Sharepoint bug warning
- X verified accounts hack and SpectralBlur macOS malware
- CISA default password alert and SOHO KV-botnet campaign
- New 5G modem flaws and Apple’s data breach report
- Staples cyberattack, Agent Racoon backdoor and other news
- British Library ransomware attack, Windows fingerprint authentication bypass
- Samsung UK data breach and ransomware actor’s SEC complaint
- ICBC ransomware attack and ChatGPT outage
- Boeing Lockbit ransomware attack, Apple’s vulnerability and WhatsApp mods spyware
- Octo Tempest hacking group and new iLeakage attack
- Okta support system breach and Google Ads fake KeePass campaign
- Skype DarkGate malware, Shadow PC breach and AvosLocker ransomware warning
- 23andMe data theft, MGM’s $100M ransomware loss and the Azure VM breach
- Malicious Bing Chat ads and FBI’s dual ransomware warning
- T-Mobile app glitch and fake Booking.com pages
- Airbus data leak, Cisco Webex ad malware and €345 million TikTok fine
- New Apple iMessage exploit and CISA’s Apache RocketMQ warning
- Forever 21 data breach and Android BadBazaar espionage
- Duolingo data leak and the Met Police IT hack
- Discord.io data breach and Ivanti Avalanche vulnerabilities
- UK Electoral Commission hack and Microsoft’s role in China email breach
- Salesforce email zero-day exploit and Microsoft Power Platform criticism
- Airlines disclose pilot data breach and the Microsoft Teams bug
- GravityRAT Android Trojan and new MOVEit Transfer flaw
- University of Manchester hack and Honda API flaws
- MOVEit zero-day exploit and the U.S. iPhone hack accusation
- Daam Android virus and Barracuda zero-day flaw
- TP-Link router exploit and 18-year-old charged with hacking DraftKings accounts
- Discord support hack and Toyota location data leak
- Twitter private tweets bug and Cisco phone router vulnerabilities
- Cisco XSS zero-day flaw and PaperCut vulnerabilities
- 3CX hackers hit critical infrastructure and secondhand routers cause security concerns
- Hyundai data breach and Microsoft’s warning to accountants
- Western Digital cloud breach and the MSI ransomware hack
- TMX loan data breach, Italy bans ChatGPT and WordPress Elementor Pro exploit
- ChatGPT data leak and Gmail message theft by North Korean hackers
- U.S. federal agency hack and the return of FakeCalls Android malware
- Massive AT&T data breach and fake jobs targeting security researchers
- U.S. Marshals service breach and TPM 2.0 security flaws
- Dangerous ChatGPT apps and food giant Dole ransomware attack
- GoDaddy malware installations, record-breaking DDoS attack and the new WhiskerSpy malware
- Reddit’s employees phished, healthcare firms targeted and the new Screenshotter malware
- JD Sports data breached, VMware ESXi servers attacked and the HeadCrab malware
- Yandex source code leaked, 4500+ WordPress sites hacked and the new SwiftSlicer malware
- PayPal accounts breached, Fortinet VPN flaw exploited, and the new Hook malware
- Twitter users’ emails leaked, ChatGPT used to write malware and Slack’s repository breach
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