Sunday, December 24, 2017

Espionage Backdoor Installs via Printer-Spoofing Campaign

For many large organizations, emails from corporate printers and scanners are commonplace, and cyber-criminals are finding this vector to be a lucrative host to launch cyber-attacks.

Barracuda Networks has tracked an uptick in attacks through Canon, HP and Epson printer and scanner email attachments of late: Since late November, cyber-criminals have made millions of attempts to infect unsuspecting users by sending impersonated or spoofed emails from these common printer and scanner brands, with attachments that contain malware.

Once unpacked, the malware installs a backdoor on the machine that offers unauthorized access to a victim PC and cyber-espionage capabilities...

Further, indicating a ramsomware-ready aspect, attackers also can change the victim’s wallpaper to display a message of their choice.

Workers should use common sense to avoid the threat: 
  • double-check with the sender if one didn’t know a scanned document was coming; 
  • hovering the mouse over every hyperlink to make sure it’s legitimate; 
  • and simply not clicking if there’s any doubt whatsoever.  more
Example of a fake email.