Morning Tidings

Tag: Malicious

  • WhatsApp Bans Over 37 Lakh Malicious Accounts in India in November 2022

    WhatsApp Bans Over 37 Lakh Malicious Accounts in India in November 2022

    New Delhi, December 21 : Meta-owned WhatsApp on Wednesday said it banned over 37 lakh ‘bad’ accounts in India in the month of November in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021, which are being amended to put more responsibilities on social media platforms. Between November 1 and November 31, 3,716,000 WhatsApp accounts were banned and 990,000 of these accounts were proactively banned before any reports from users, said the company. iPhone 16 To Be Made in India: Apple Along With Three Associated Companies Apply for Land to Yamuna Authority.

    The messaging platform, which has more than 400 million users in the country, received 946 complaint reports in November in the country, and the records ‘actioned’ were 74.

    “In accordance with the IT Rules 2021, we’ve published our report for the month of November 2022. As captured in the latest Monthly Report, WhatsApp banned over 3.7 million accounts in the month of November,” according to a WhatsApp spokesperson. Under the upgraded IT Rules 2021, major digital and social media platforms, with in excess of 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports. Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3i Chromebook Launched; Find Out Specs, Price and Availability Here.

    Meanwhile, in a major push towards an open, safe, trusted and accountable Internet, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has notified some amendments aimed at protecting the rights of ‘Digital Nagriks’. The amendments impose a legal obligation on intermediaries to take reasonable efforts to prevent users from uploading such content.

    (The above story first appeared on Morning Tidings on Dec 21, 2022 07:36 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website morningtidings.com).

  • Cyber Attacks: Hackers Can Use ChatGPT To Write Malicious Phishing Emails, Codes

    Cyber Attacks: Hackers Can Use ChatGPT To Write Malicious Phishing Emails, Codes

    New Delhi, December 20: As you write poems, essays or computer programmes via Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot called ‘ChatGPT’ created by for-profit research lab called OpenAI, cyber-security researchers on Tuesday warned of hackers potentially using the AI chatbot and Codex to execute targeted and efficient cyber-attacks.

    Check Point Research (CPR) used ChatGPT and Codex (OpenAI’s another AI-based system that translates natural language to code), to create malicious phishing emails and code, in order to warn of the potential dangers that the new AI technology can have on the cyber threat landscape. Chinese Government Backed Hackers Exploiting Zero-Day Bug in Citrix Products: Warns US NSA.

    The CPR team used ‘ChatGPT’ to produce malicious emails, code and a full infection chain capable of targeting people’s computers. The team chatted with ChatGPT to refine a phishing email to make infection chain easier. North Korean Hackers Responsible for $620 Million Cryptocurrency Heist, Says US.

    “Using Open AI’s ChatGPT, CPR was able to create a phishing email, with an attached Excel document containing malicious code capable of downloading reverse shells,” the researchers noted.

    Reverse shell attacks aim to connect to a remote computer and redirect the input and output connections of the target system’s shell so the attacker can access it remotely.

    ‘ChatGPT’ is an AI chatbot system that OpenAI released last month for the public to ask it countless questions and get answers that are useful. The researchers said that the expanding role of AI in the cyber world is full of opportunity, but also comes with risks.

    “Multiple scripts can be generated easily, with slight variations using different wordings. Complicated attack processes can also be automated as well, using the Learning Management Systems (LLMs) APIs to generate other malicious artifacts,” they wrote.

    Defenders and threat hunters should be vigilant and cautious about adopting this technology quickly, otherwise, our community will be one step behind the attackers, said the report.

    (The above story first appeared on Morning Tidings on Dec 20, 2022 05:50 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website morningtidings.com).

  • Cybercriminals Use Over 4,00,000 Malicious Files To Attack Users Daily in 2022: Report

    Cybercriminals Use Over 4,00,000 Malicious Files To Attack Users Daily in 2022: Report

    New Delhi, December 11: Over 4,00,000 new malicious files were distributed every day by cybercriminals to attack users in 2022, indicating a 5 per cent growth compared to 2021, a new report has said.

    According to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, in 2021, approximately 3,80,000 of these files were detected daily, while in 2022, Kaspersky’s systems detected approximately 122 million malicious files, up 6 million from the previous year.  Cyber Crimes in Odisha: From Nude Calls to UPI Fraud, State Sees Spike in Online Scams Over Years; Over Rs 40 Crore Crooked Last Year.

    “Considering how quickly the threat landscape is expanding its boundaries and the number of new devices appearing in users’ daily lives, it’s quite possible that next year we’ll be detecting not 4,00,000 malicious files per day, but half a million,” said Vladimir Kuskov, head of anti-malware research at Kaspersky.

    “Even more dangerous is that, with the development of Malware-as-a-Service, any novice fraudster can now attack devices without any technical knowledge in programming,” he added. Cyber Attack Hits IT Systems of Tata Power, Says ‘Critical Systems Safe’.

    In comparison to 2021, Kaspersky’s researchers discovered that the amount of ransomware encountered daily increased by 181 per cent, encrypting 9,500 files per day, according to the report.

    Additionally, the cybersecurity firm detected a 142 per cent increase in Downloaders, malicious programmes that install malware or unwanted applications on infected devices. Moreover, Windows remained the most common platform used by attackers among all platforms affected by the threat families.

    Kaspersky experts discovered nearly 3,20,000 malicious files attacking Windows devices in 2022, the report added. Additionally, Kaspersky experts observed a 10 per cent increase in the share of malicious files targeting Android platforms each day in 2022.

    (The above story first appeared on Morning Tidings on Dec 11, 2022 06:00 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website morningtidings.com).

  • WhatsApp Bans Over 23 Lakh Malicious Accounts in India in October 2022 in Compliance With New IT Rules

    WhatsApp Bans Over 23 Lakh Malicious Accounts in India in October 2022 in Compliance With New IT Rules

    New Delhi, November 30: Meta-owned WhatsApp on Wednesday said it banned over 23 lakh bad accounts in India in the month of October in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021 which are being amended to put more responsibilities on social media platforms.

    Between October 1 and October 31, 23,24,000 WhatsApp accounts were banned and 8,11,000 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users, said the company. The messaging platform, which has more than 400 million users in the country, received 701 complaint reports in October in India, and the records ‘actioned’ were 34. WhatsApp Bans Over 26 Lakh ‘Bad’ Accounts in India As Amended IT Rules Take Shape.

    “In accordance with the IT Rules 2021, we’ve published our report for the month of October 2022. As captured in the latest Monthly Report, WhatsApp banned over 2.3 million accounts in the month of October,” said a WhatsApp spokesperson. WhatsApp Bans Over 16.6 Lakh Bad Accounts in India in April.

    Under the upgraded IT Rules 2021, major digital and social media platforms, with in excess of 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.

    Meanwhile, in a major push towards an open, safe, trusted and accountable Internet, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has notified some amendments aimed at protecting the rights of ‘Digital Nagriks’. The amendments impose a legal obligation on intermediaries to take reasonable efforts to prevent users from uploading such content.

    (The above story first appeared on Morning Tidings on Nov 30, 2022 07:06 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website morningtidings.com).

  • Google’s Threat Analysis Group Bans Several Malicious India-Linked Domains

    Washington, July 2: More than a dozen malicious India-linked domains and websites that were being used in attacks targeting users worldwide by hack-for-hire groups have now been banned by American tech giant Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG).

    To warn users about the threat, the company recently published a blog post where they listed these banned domain links which used to inject spying tools into users’ PCs/laptops by appearing as fake login pages for websites or apps. Google Bans Deepfake-Generating AI from Colab.

    The blog post read, “As part of TAG’s mission to counter serious threats to Google and our users, we’ve published analysis on a range of persistent threats including government-backed attackers, commercial surveillance vendors, and serious criminal operators.”

    “We’re sharing intelligence on a segment of attackers we call hack-for-hire, whose niche focuses on compromising accounts and exfiltrating data as a service,” it continued.

    Below is the list of these banned India-linked domains:

    – dtiwa.app[.]link

    – share-team.app[.]link

    – mipim.app[.]link

    – processs.app[.]link

    – aws-amazon.app[.]ink

    – clik[.]sbs

    – loading[.]sbs

    – userprofile[.]live

    – requestservice[.]live

    – unt-log[.]com

    – webtech-portal[.]com

    – id-apl[.]info

    – rnanage-icloud[.]com

    – apl[.]onl

    – go-gl[.]io

    Whenever a user typed in their login credentials on these domains, their details were secretly sent to the hacker, who could then use them to break into the user’s system and take complete control over it. Government organizations to AWS and Gmail accounts have been the targets of these phishing messages.

    Apart from India, Google has also provided examples of the hack-for-hire ecosystem from Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in order to help users.

    (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, Morning Tidings Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)