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Everytime you connect to the internet, cryptography keeps your communication safe and secure. The digital age thrives on the secure exchange of information. But how safe is your communication? According to the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), the total reported losses due to data breach was $534,397,222 in 2023. Weak encryption techniques pave the path […]

The post Next-Generation VPN Security Needs To Be Quantum Safe appeared first on Security Boulevard.

Check Point has issued an alert regarding a critical zero-day vulnerability identified in its Network Security gateway products. As per the Check Point warning This vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-24919 with a CVSS score of 8.6, has been actively exploited by threat actors in the wild. The affected products include CloudGuard Network, Quantum Maestro, Quantum Scalable […]

The post Check Point Warning: VPN Gateway Products’ Zero-Day Attack appeared first on TuxCare.

The post Check Point Warning: VPN Gateway Products’ Zero-Day Attack appeared first on Security Boulevard.

PoC code targeting a recent Check Point VPN zero-day has been released as Censys identifies 14,000 internet-accessible appliances.

The post PoC Published for Exploited Check Point VPN Vulnerability appeared first on SecurityWeek.

On May 29, 2024, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had dismantled what was likely the world’s largest botnet ever. This botnet, called “911 S5,” infected systems at over 19 million IP addresses across more than 190 countries. The main sources of income for the operators, who stole a billions of dollars across a decade, came from committing pandemic and unemployment fraud, and by selling access to child exploitation materials.

The botnet operator generated millions of dollars by offering cybercriminals access to these infected IP addresses. As part of this operation, a Chinese national, YunHe Wang, was arrested. Wang is reportedly the proprietor of the popular service.

Of the infected Windows devices, 613,841 IP addresses were located in the United States. The DOJ also called the botnet a residential proxy service. Residential proxy networks allow someone in control to rent out a residential IP address which then can be used as a relay for their internet communications. This allows them to hide their true location behind the residential proxy. Cybercriminals used this service to engage in cyberattacks, large-scale fraud, child exploitation, harassment, bomb threats, and export violations.

To set up this botnet, Wang and his associates provided users with free, illegitimate VPN applications that were created to connect to the 911 S5 service. Unaware of the proxy backdoor, once users downloaded and installed these VPN applications, they unknowingly became part of the 911 S5 botnet.

Sometimes the VPN applications were bundled with games and other software and installed without user consent.

For this reason, the FBI has published a public service announcement (PSA) to help users find out if they have been affected by this botnet.

Users can start by going over this list of malicious VPN applications associated with the 911 S5 botnet:

• MaskVPN
• DewVPN
• PaladinVPN
• ProxyGate
• ShieldVPN
• ShineVPN

If you have one of these VPN applications installed, sometimes you can find an uninstaller located under the Start menu option of the VPN application. If present, you can use that uninstall option.

If the application doesn’t present you with an uninstall option, then follow the steps below to attempt to uninstall the application:

• Click on the Start menu (Windows button) and type “Add or remove programs” to bring up the “Add and Remove Programs” menu.
• Search for the name of the malicious VPN application.
• Once you find the application in the list, click on the application name, and select the “Uninstall” option.

Once you have uninstalled the application, you will want to make sure it’s no longer active. To do that, open the Windows Task manager. Press Control+Alt+Delete on the keyboard and select the “Task Manager” option or right-click on the Start menu (Windows button) and select the “Task Manager” option.

In Task Manager look under the “Process” tab for the following processes:

• MaskVPN (mask_svc.exe)
• DewVPN (dew_svc.exe)
• PaladinVPN (pldsvc.exe)
• ProxyGate (proxygate.exe, cloud.exe)
• ShieldVPN (shieldsvc.exe)
• ShineVPN (shsvc.exe)

If found, select the service related to one of the identified malicious software applications running in the process tab and select the option “End task” to attempt to stop the process from running.

Or, download Malwarebytes Premium (there is a free trial) and run a scan.

Whether you’re using the free or paid version of the app, you can manually run a scan to check for threats on your device. 

1. Open the app.
2. On the main dashboard, click the Scan button.
3. A progress page appears while the scan runs.
4. After the scan finishes, it displays the Threat scan summary.
   • If the scan detected no threats: Click Done.
   • If the scan detected threats on your device: Review the threats found on your computer. From here, you can manually quarantine threats by selecting a detection and clicking Quarantine.
5. Click View Report or View Scan Report to see a history of prior scans. After viewing the threat report, close the scanner window.

If neither of these options, including the Malwarebytes scan, resolve the problem, the FBI has more elaborate instructions. You can also contact the Malwarebytes Support team to assist you.

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Privacy risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep your online privacy yours by using Malwarebytes Privacy VPN.

The recently disclosed Check Point VPN attacks involve the zero-day vulnerability CVE-2024-24919, which allows hackers to obtain passwords.

The post Check Point VPN Attacks Involve Zero-Day Exploited Since April appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) today said they arrested the alleged operator of 911 S5, a ten-year-old online anonymity service that was powered by what the director of the FBI called “likely the world’s largest botnet ever.” The arrest coincided with the seizure of the 911 S5 website and supporting infrastructure, which the government says turned computers running various “free VPN” products into Internet traffic relays that facilitated billions of dollars in online fraud and cybercrime.

On May 24, authorities in Singapore arrested the alleged creator and operator of 911 S5, a 35-year-old Chinese national named YunHe Wang. In a statement on his arrest today, the DOJ said 911 S5 enabled cybercriminals to bypass financial fraud detection systems and steal billions of dollars from financial institutions, credit card issuers, and federal lending programs.

For example, the government estimates that 560,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims originated from compromised Internet addresses, resulting in a confirmed fraudulent loss exceeding $5.9 billion.

“Additionally, in evaluating suspected fraud loss to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, the United States estimates that more than 47,000 EIDL applications originated from IP addresses compromised by 911 S5,” the DOJ wrote. “Millions of dollars more were similarly identified by financial institutions in the United States as loss originating from IP addresses compromised by 911 S5.”

From 2015 to July 2022, 911 S5 sold access to hundreds of thousands of Microsoft Windows computers daily, as “proxies” that allowed customers to route their Internet traffic through PCs in virtually any country or city around the globe — but predominantly in the United States.

911 S5 built its proxy network mainly by offering “free” virtual private networking (VPN) services. 911’s VPN performed largely as advertised for the user — allowing them to surf the web anonymously — but it also quietly turned the user’s computer into a traffic relay for paying 911 S5 customers.

911 S5’s reliability and extremely low prices quickly made it one of the most popular services among denizens of the cybercrime underground, and the service became almost shorthand for connecting to that “last mile” of cybercrime. Namely, the ability to route one’s malicious traffic through a computer that is geographically close to the consumer whose stolen credit card is about to be used, or whose bank account is about to be emptied.

KrebsOnSecurity first identified Mr. Wang as the proprietor of the popular service in a deep dive on 911 S5 published in July 2022. That story showed that 911 S5 had a history of paying people to install its software by secretly bundling it with other software — including fake security updates for common programs like Flash Player, and “cracked” or pirated commercial software distributed on file-sharing networks.

Ten days later, 911 S5 closed up shop, claiming it had been hacked. But experts soon tracked the reemergence of the proxy network by another name: Cloud Router.

The announcement of Wang’s arrest came less than 24 hours after the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Wang and two associates, as well as several companies the men allegedly used to launder the nearly $100 million in proceeds from 911 S5 and Cloud Router customers.

Cloud Router’s homepage now features a notice saying the domain has been seized by the U.S. government. In addition, the DOJ says it worked with authorities in Singapore, Thailand and Germany to search residences tied to the defendant, and seized approximately $30 million in assets.

Those assets included a 2022 Ferrari F8 Spider S-A, a BMW i8, a BMW X7 M50d, a Rolls Royce, more than a dozen domestic and international bank accounts, over two dozen cryptocurrency wallets, several luxury wristwatches, and 21 residential or investment properties.

The government says Wang is charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, substantive computer fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum penalty of 65 years in prison.

Brett Leatherman, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said the DOJ is working with the Singaporean government on extraditing Wang to face charges in the United States.

Leatherman encouraged Internet users to visit a new FBI webpage that can help people determine whether their computers may be part of the 911 S5 botnet, which the government says spanned more than 19 million individual computers in at least 190 countries.

Leatherman said 911 S5 and Cloud Router used several “free VPN” brands to lure consumers into installing the proxy service, including MaskVPN, DewVPN, PaladinVPN, Proxygate, Shield VPN, and ShineVPN.

“American citizens who didn’t know that their IP space was being utilized to attack US businesses or defraud the U.S. government, they were unaware,” Leatherman said. “But these kind of operations breed that awareness.”

The U.S. Department of the Treasury today unveiled sanctions against three Chinese nationals for allegedly operating 911 S5, an online anonymity service that for many years was the easiest and cheapest way to route one’s Web traffic through malware-infected computers around the globe. KrebsOnSecurity identified one of the three men in a July 2022 investigation into 911 S5, which was massively hacked and then closed ten days later.

From 2015 to July 2022, 911 S5 sold access to hundreds of thousands of Microsoft Windows computers daily, as “proxies” that allowed customers to route their Internet traffic through PCs in virtually any country or city around the globe — but predominantly in the United States.

911 built its proxy network mainly by offering “free” virtual private networking (VPN) services. 911’s VPN performed largely as advertised for the user — allowing them to surf the web anonymously — but it also quietly turned the user’s computer into a traffic relay for paying 911 S5 customers.

911 S5’s reliability and extremely low prices quickly made it one of the most popular services among denizens of the cybercrime underground, and the service became almost shorthand for connecting to that “last mile” of cybercrime. Namely, the ability to route one’s malicious traffic through a computer that is geographically close to the consumer whose stolen credit card is about to be used, or whose bank account is about to be emptied.

In July 2022, KrebsOnSecurity published a deep dive into 911 S5, which found the people operating this business had a history of encouraging the installation of their proxy malware by any means available. That included paying affiliates to distribute their proxy software by secretly bundling it with other software.

That story named Yunhe Wang from Beijing as the apparent owner or manager of the 911 S5 proxy service. In today’s Treasury action, Mr. Wang was named as the primary administrator of the botnet that powered 911 S5.

“A review of records from network infrastructure service providers known to be utilized by 911 S5 and two Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) specific to the botnet operation (MaskVPN and DewVPN) showed Yunhe Wang as the registered subscriber to those providers’ services,” reads the Treasury announcement.

Update, May 29, 12:26 p.m. ET: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) just announced they have arrested Wang in connection with the 911 S5 botnet. The DOJ says 911 S5 customers have stolen billions of dollars from financial institutions, credit card issuers, and federal lending programs.

“911 S5 customers allegedly targeted certain pandemic relief programs,” a DOJ statement on the arrest reads. “For example, the United States estimates that 560,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims originated from compromised IP addresses, resulting in a confirmed fraudulent loss exceeding $5.9 billion. Additionally, in evaluating suspected fraud loss to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, the United States estimates that more than 47,000 EIDL applications originated from IP addresses compromised by 911 S5. Millions of dollars more were similarly identified by financial institutions in the United States as loss originating from IP addresses compromised by 911 S5.”

The sanctions say Jingping Liu was Yunhe Wang’s co-conspirator in the laundering of criminally derived proceeds generated from 911 S5, mainly virtual currency. The government alleges the virtual currencies paid by 911 S5 users were converted into U.S. dollars using over-the-counter vendors who wired and deposited funds into bank accounts held by Liu.

“Jingping Liu assisted Yunhe Wang by laundering criminally derived proceeds through bank accounts held in her name that were then utilized to purchase luxury real estate properties for Yunhe Wang,” the document continues. “These individuals leveraged their malicious botnet technology to compromise personal devices, enabling cybercriminals to fraudulently secure economic assistance intended for those in need and to terrorize our citizens with bomb threats.”

The third man sanctioned is Yanni Zheng, a Chinese national the U.S. Treasury says acted as an attorney for Wang and his firm — Spicy Code Company Limited — and helped to launder proceeds from the business into real estate holdings. Spicy Code Company was also sanctioned, as well as Wang-controlled properties Tulip Biz Pattaya Group Company Limited, and Lily Suites Company Limited.

Ten days after the July 2022 story here on 911 S5, the proxy network abruptly closed up shop, citing a data breach that destroyed key components of its business operations.

In the months that followed, however, 911 S5 would resurrect itself under a different name: Cloud Router. That’s according to spur.us, a U.S.-based startup that tracks proxy and VPN services. In February 2024, Spur published research showing the Cloud Router operators reused many of the same components from 911 S5, making it relatively simple to draw a connection between the two.

Spur found that Cloud Router was being powered by a new VPN service called PaladinVPN, which made it much more explicit to users that their Internet connections were going to be used to relay traffic for others. At the time, Spur found Cloud Router had more than 140,000 Internet addresses for rent.

Spur co-founder Riley Kilmer said Cloud Router appears to have suspended or ceased operations sometime this past weekend. Kilmer said the number of proxies advertised by the service had been trending downwards quite recently before the website suddenly went offline.

Cloud Router’s homepage is currently populated by a message from Cloudflare saying the site’s domain name servers are pointing to a “prohibited IP.”

Check Point is warning customers that threat actors are targeting insecure VPN instances for initial access to enterprise networks. 

The post Check Point VPNs Targeted to Hack Enterprise Networks appeared first on SecurityWeek.

This attack has been feasible for over two decades:

Researchers have devised an attack against nearly all virtual private network applications that forces them to send and receive some or all traffic outside of the encrypted tunnel designed to protect it from snooping or tampering.

TunnelVision, as the researchers have named their attack, largely negates the entire purpose and selling point of VPNs, which is to encapsulate incoming and outgoing Internet traffic in an encrypted tunnel and to cloak the user’s IP address. The researchers believe it affects all VPN applications when they’re connected to a hostile network and that there are no ways to prevent such attacks except when the user’s VPN runs on Linux or Android. They also said their attack technique may have been possible since 2002 and may already have been discovered and used in the wild since then.

[…]

The attack works by manipulating the DHCP server that allocates IP addresses to devices trying to connect to the local network. A setting known as option 121 allows the DHCP server to override default routing rules that send VPN traffic through a local IP address that initiates the encrypted tunnel. By using option 121 to route VPN traffic through the DHCP server, the attack diverts the data to the DHCP server itself.

A list of topics we covered in the week of April 1 to April 7 of 2024

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• 60% of small businesses are concerned about cybersecurity threats
• Cookie consent choices are just being ignored by some websites
• Bing ad for NordVPN leads to SecTopRAT
• Jackson County hit by ransomware, declares state of emergency
• Google patches critical vulnerability for Androids with Qualcomm chips
• Google Chrome gets ‘Device Bound Session Credentials’ to stop cookie theft
• AT&T confirms 73 million people affected by data breach
• Trusted Advisor now available for Mac, iOS, and Android
• 2024 State of Malware in Education report: Top 6 cyberthreats facing K-12 and Higher Ed
• Free VPN apps turn Android phones into criminal proxies

Stay safe!

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Researchers at HUMAN’s Satori Threat Intelligence have discovered a disturbing number of VPN apps that turn users’ devices into proxies for cybercriminals without their knowledge, as part of a camapign called PROXYLIB.

Cybercriminals and state actors like to send their traffic through other people’s devices, known as proxies. This allows them to use somebody else’s resources to get their work done, it masks the origin of their attacks so they are less likely to get blocked, and it makes it easy for them to keep operating if one of their proxies is blocked.

An entire underground market of proxy networks exists to service this desire, offering cybercriminals flexible, scalable platfroms from which to launch activities like advertising fraud, password spraying, and credential stuffing attacks.

The researchers at HUMAN found 28 apps on Google Play that turned unsuspecting Android devices into proxies for criminals. 17 of the apps were free VPNs. All of them have now been removed from Google Play.

The operation was dubbed PROXYLIB after a code library shared by all the apps that was responsible for enrolling devices into the ciminal network.

HUMAN also found hundreds of apps in third-party repositories that appeared to use the LumiApps toolkit, a Software Development Kit (SDK) which can be used to load PROXYLIB. They also tied PROXYLIB to another platform that specializes in selling access to proxy nodes, called Asocks.

Protection and removal

Android users are now automatically protected from the PROXYLIB attack by Google Play Protect, which is on by default on Android devices with Google Play Services.

The affected apps can be uninstalled using a mobile device’s uninstall functionality. However, apps like these may be made available under different names in future, which is where apps like Malwarebytes for Android can help.

Recommendations to stay clear of PROXYLIB are:

• Do not install apps from third-party websites.
• Do not install free VPNs.
• Use Malwarebytes for Android.

Victims of novel attacks like PROXYLIB might notice slow traffic, because their bandwidth is in use for other purposes. And at some point their IP address may be blocked by websites and other services.

The researchers included a list of applications they uncovered as part of PROXYLIB. If you installed any of the apps on the list before they were removed from Google Play you will need to uninstall them.

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We don’t just report on privacy—we offer you the option to use it.

Privacy risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep your online privacy yours by using Malwarebytes Privacy VPN.