The Week in Cyber Security News, Mar 30 - Apr 5
01. A video of former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates that could be found on multiple YouTube channels was actually a cryptocurrency Ponzi scam. The channels had apparently been hijacked and renamed to make it look like they were Microsoft brands.
02. International hotel chain Marriott has disclosed a data breach impacting nearly 5.2 million hotel guests, making it the second security incident to hit the company in recent years.
03. Suspected North Korean hackers have resumed a spearphishing email operation targeting people interested in North Korean refugees, after the hacking group were dealt a setback in December when Microsoft seized 50 websites used by the group in spearphishing campaigns.
04. It appears that Houseparty, an app that allows family and friends to get together and make video calls, play games or just relax while watching their favorite show, has been attacked, after many app users claimed their online accounts, including Spotify, Paypal, Instagram, Snapchat, Netflix, PayPal, had been compromised.
05. Researchers have uncovered a sustained malicious campaign dating back to May 2018 that targets Windows machines running MS-SQL servers to deploy backdoors and other kinds of malware, including multi-functional remote access tools and cryptominers.
06. UK businesses could be putting customer data at risk by having a low understanding of important data protection legislation, with 44% of IT decision makers in the UK do not have a comprehensive understanding of the US CLOUD Act.
07. New coronavirus-themed malware are locking users out of Windows, as is the case with a newly-released variety of new MBRLocker variants, including one with a Coronavirus theme.
08. Coinciding with the increase of video-teleconferencing (VTC) platforms being used to stay connected during the COVID-19 crisis, reports of VTC hijacking are emerging, and The FBI has received multiple reports of conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language.
09. Facebook says it removed more than 300 accounts, pages and groups in March after catching operators misrepresenting themselves in a number of ways, including one that was masquerading as a Politico bureau.
10. A digital wallet app with millions of users has become the latest organization to be caught storing customer data in unsecured Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 buckets, which were set to "public" rather than "private" and were found to contain 44 million images uploaded by Key Ring users.
11. Almost 40% of employees surveyed admitted to not knowing what ransomware is, and many of them have already been victims.
12. Firefox users are advised to update their browsers to patch two bugs - CVE-2020-6819 and CVE-2020-6820 - that are being exploited in the real world by hackers.
13. Several critical HP Support Assistant vulnerabilities expose Windows computers to remote code execution attacks and could allow attackers to elevate their privileges or to delete arbitrary files following successful exploitation.
14. A malware operation has been scanning the internet for Docker servers running API ports exposed on the internet without a password. Once found, hackers brake into unprotected hosts and instal a new crypto-mining malware strain named Kinsing.
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