Cybersafety / Cybersecurity / Privacy
Avast Blog – 7.7.20
In the last few days, our Mobile Threat Labs team at Avast discovered a Cerberus banking Trojan on Google Play that was targeting Android users in Spain. As is common with banking malware, Cerberus, disguised itself as a genuine app in order to access the banking details of unsuspecting users. What’s not so common is that a banking Trojan managed to sneak onto the Google Play Store. The ‘genuine’ app in this case, posed as a Spanish currency converter called “Calculadora de Moneda”. According to our research, hid its malicious intentions for the first few weeks while being available on the store. This was possibly to stealthily acquire users before starting any malicious activities, which could have grabbed the attention of malware researchers or Google’s Play Protect team. As a result, the app has been downloaded more than 10,000 times so far. We reported it to Google, so they can quickly remove it.
Source: Avast Finds Banking Trojan, Cerberus, on Google Play
B2B / Enterprise Tech / SMB / Workplace, Cybersafety / Cybersecurity / Privacy
Avast Blog – 6.30.20 (6.29.20)
As your business grows and you take on more employees, the time will come where you need a server to keep your office network and business running efficiently. But with a seemingly endless array of choices and important decisions to be made, you might be wondering where to start. Luckily, setting up a server for a small business doesn’t have to be difficult.
Source: How To Set Up A Server For Small Businesses
Cybersafety / Cybersecurity / Privacy
Avast Blog – 6.29.20 (6.26.20)
Security researchers have discovered what they believe to be a global surveillance campaign whereby attackers were using malicious Google Chrome browser extensions to steal data and spy on over 100 networks. Threatpost reported that the researchers suspect millions of Chrome users were targeted across the industries of financial services, oil and gas, media and entertainment, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and government organizations. The malicious extensions could surreptitiously take screenshots, log keystrokes, read the clipboard, and more. They were free and marketed as browser helpers that convert files or alert users when they land on a suspicious website. After reading the report, Google removed 106 browser extensions from the Chrome Web Store.
Source: Google Removes 106 Malicious Chrome Extensions
Cybersafety / Cybersecurity / Privacy
Avast Blog – 6.24.20
As cloud-based technologies become the tool of choice for today’s global workforces, keeping businesses protected from web-based attacks is a primary challenge for IT service providers.
First, let’s look at how encryption is used to keep web traffic safe. For example, hypertext transfer protocol secure — or HTTPS — uses encryption technologies like transport layer security (TLS), and previously secure socket layer (SSL), to keep Internet users and cloud services safe by securely connecting web browsers and apps to websites. In fact, because HTTPS ensures these connections stay safe, security best practices recommend that any website or web services that require login credentials should be using HTTPS.
Source: Understanding Encrypted Attack Types and How They Work
Cybersafety / Cybersecurity / Privacy
Avast Blog – 6.18.20 (6.16.20)
Most of us tend to think about the web as a single destination, available through our browsers on our laptops and phones. But over the years it has evolved into three very different parts: the clear or public web, the private or deep web and the darknet or dark web. In this primer, we explain their differences, what kinds of information can be found in each part, and why you need to protect yourself when you access this content. As you can tell by the fact that we list different terms, there is no hard and fast division among the three pieces. Here is a good explainer published by the FBI back in 2016, which is somewhat outdated but a useful starting point.
Source: The Dark Web Primer
