0 Comments
The Internal Revenue Service has been urging tax preparation firms to step up their cybersecurity efforts this year, warning that identity thieves and hackers increasingly are targeting certified public accountants (CPAs) in a bid to siphon oodles of sensitive personal and financial data on taxpayers. This is the story of a CPA in New Jersey whose compromise by malware led to identity theft and phony tax refund requests filed on behalf of his clients. Last month, KrebsOnSecurity was alerted by security expert Alex Holden of Hold Security about a malware gang that appears to have focused on CPAs. The crooks in this case were using a Web-based keylogger that recorded every keystroke typed on the target’s machine, and periodically uploaded screenshots of whatever was being displayed on the victim’s computer screen at the time. If you’ve never seen one of these keyloggers in action, viewing their output can be a bit unnerving. This particular malware is not terribly sophisticated, but nevertheless is quite effective. It not only grabs any data the victim submits into Web-based forms, but also captures any typing — including backspaces and typos as we can see in the screenshot below. Whoever was running this scheme had all victim information uploaded to a site that was protected from data scraping by search engines, but the site itself did not require any form of authentication to view data harvested from victim PCs. Rather, the stolen information was indexed by victim and ordered by day, meaning anyone who knew the right URL could view each day’s keylogging record as one long image file. Those records suggest that this particular CPA — “John,” a New Jersey professional whose real name will be left out of this story — likely had his computer compromised sometime in mid-March 2018 (at least, this is as far back as the keylogging records go for John). It’s also not clear exactly which method the thieves used to get malware on John’s machine. Screenshots for John’s account suggest he routinely ignored messages from Microsoft and other third party Windows programs about the need to apply critical security updates. More likely, however, John’s computer was compromised by someone who sent him a booby-trapped email attachment or link. When one considers just how frequently CPAs must need to open Microsoft Office and other files submitted by clients and potential clients via email, it’s not hard to imagine how simple it might be for hackers to target and successfully compromise your average CPA. The keylogging malware itself appears to have been sold (or perhaps directly deployed) by a cybercriminal who uses the nickname ja_far. This individual markets a $50 keylogger product alongside a malware “crypting” service that guarantees his malware will be undetected by most antivirus products for a given number of days after it is used against a victim. It seems likely that ja_far’s keylogger was the source of this data because at one point — early in the morning John’s time — the attacker appears to have accidentally pasted ja_far’s jabber instant messenger address into the victim’s screen instead of his own. In all likelihood, John’s assailant was seeking additional crypting services to ensure the keylogger remained undetected on John’s PC. A couple of minutes later, the intruder downloaded a file to John’s PC from file-sharing site sendspace.com. What I found remarkable about John’s situation was despite receiving notice after notice that the IRS had rejected many of his clients’ tax returns because those returns had already been filed by fraudsters, for at least two weeks John does not appear to have suspected that his compromised computer was likely the source of said fraud inflicted on his clients (or if he did, he didn’t share this notion with any of his friends or family via email). Instead, John composed and distributed to his clients a form letter about their rejected returns, and another letter that clients could use to alert the IRS and New Jersey tax authorities of suspected identity fraud. Then again, perhaps John ultimately did suspect that someone had commandeered his machine, because on March 30 he downloaded and installed Spyhunter 4, a security product by Enigma Software designed to detect spyware, keyloggers and rootkits, among other malicious software. Spyhunter appears to have found ja_far’s keylogger, because shortly after the malware alert pictured above popped up on John’s screen, the Web-based keylogging service stopped recording logs from his machine. John did not respond to requests for comment (via phone). It’s unlikely John’s various clients who experience(d) identity fraud, tax refund fraud or account takeovers as a result of his PC infection will ever learn the real reason for the fraud. I opted to keep his name out of this story because I thought the experience documented and explained here would be eye opening enough and I have no particular interest in ruining his business. But a new type of identity theft that the IRS first warned about this year involving CPAs would be very difficult for a victim CPA to conceal. Identity thieves who specialize in tax refund fraud have been busy of late hacking online accounts at multiple tax preparation firms and using them to file phony refund requests. Once the IRS processes the return and deposits money into bank accounts of the hacked firms’ clients, the crooks contact those clients posing as a collection agency and demand that the money be “returned.” If you go to file your taxes electronically this year and the return is rejected, it may mean fraudsters have beat you to it. The IRS advises taxpayers in this situation to follow the steps outlined in the Taxpayer Guide to Identity Theft. Those unable to file electronically should mail a paper tax return along with Form 14039 (PDF) — the Identity Theft Affidavit — stating they were victims of a tax preparer data breach. Tax professionals might consider using something other than Microsoft Windows to manage their client’s data. I’ve long dispensed this advice for people in charge of handling payroll accounts for small- to mid-sized businesses. I continue to stand by this advice not because there isn’t malware that can infect Mac or Linux-based systems, but because the vast majority of malicious software out there today still targets Windows computers, and you don’t have to outrun the bear — only the next guy. Many readers involved in handling corporate payroll accounts have countered that this advice is impractical for people who rely on multiple Windows-based programs to do their jobs. These days, however, most systems and services needed to perform accounting (and CPA) tasks can be used across multiple operating systems — mainly because they are now Web-based and rely instead on credentials entered at some cloud service (e.g., UltraTax, QuickBooks, or even Microsoft’s Office 365). Naturally, users still must be on guard against phishing scams that try to trick people into divulging credentials to these services, but when your entire business of managing other people’s money and identities can be undone by a simple keylogger, it’s a good idea to do whatever you can to keep from becoming the next malware victim. According to the IRS, fraudsters are using spear phishing attacks to compromise computers of tax pros. In this scheme, the “criminal singles out one or more tax preparers in a firm and sends an email posing as a trusted source such as the IRS, a tax software provider or a cloud storage provider. Thieves also may pose as clients or new prospects. The objective is to trick the tax professional into disclosing sensitive usernames and passwords or to open a link or attachment that secretly downloads malware enabling the thieves to track every keystroke.” The IRS warns that some tax professionals may be unaware they are victims of data theft, even long after all of their clients’ data has been stolen by digital intruders. Here are some signs there might be a problem:
from https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/04/when-identity-thieves-hack-your-accountant/ Adobe and Microsoft each released critical fixes for their products today, a.k.a “Patch Tuesday,” the second Tuesday of every month. Adobe updated its Flash Player program to resolve a half dozen critical security holes. Microsoft issued updates to correct at least 65 security vulnerabilities in Windows and associated software. The Microsoft updates impact many core Windows components, including the built-in browsers Internet Explorer and Edge, as well as Office, the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine, Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Azure. The Malware Protection Engine flaw is one that was publicly disclosed earlier this month, and one for which Redmond issued an out-of-band (outside of Patch Tuesday) update one week ago. That flaw, discovered and reported by Google’s Project Zero program, is reportedly quite easy to exploit and impacts the malware scanning capabilities for a variety of Microsoft anti-malware products, including Windows Defender, Microsoft Endpoint Protection and Microsoft Security Essentials. Microsoft really wants users to install these updates as qucikly as possible, but it might not be the worst idea to wait a few days before doing so: Quite often, problems with patches that may cause systems to end up in an endless reboot loop are reported and resolved with subsequent updates within a few days after their release. However, depending on which version of Windows you’re using it may be difficult to put off installing these patches. Microsoft says by default, Windows 10 receives updates automatically, “and for customers running previous versions, we recommend they turn on automatic updates as a best practice.” Microsoft doesn’t make it easy for Windows 10 users to change this setting, but it is possible. For all other Windows OS users, if you’d rather be alerted to new updates when they’re available so you can choose when to install them, there’s a setting for that in Windows Update. In any case, don’t put off installing these updates too long. Adobe’s Flash Player update fixes at least two critical bugs in the program. Adobe said it is not aware of any active exploits in the wild against either flaw, but if you’re not using Flash routinely for many sites, you probably want to disable or remove this buggy program. Adobe is phasing out Flash entirely by 2020, but most of the major browsers already take steps to hobble Flash. And with good reason: It’s a major security liability. Google Chrome also bundles Flash, but blocks it from running on all but a handful of popular sites, and then only after user approval. For Windows users with Mozilla Firefox installed, the browser prompts users to enable Flash on a per-site basis. Through the end of 2017 and into 2018, Microsoft Edge will continue to ask users for permission to run Flash on most sites the first time the site is visited, and will remember the user’s preference on subsequent visits. The latest standalone version of Flash that addresses these bugs is 29.0.0.140 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS. But most users probably would be better off manually hobbling or removing Flash altogether, since so few sites actually require it still. Disabling Flash in Chrome is simple enough. Paste “chrome://settings/content” into a Chrome browser bar and then select “Flash” from the list of items. By default it should be set to “Ask first” before running Flash, although users also can disable Flash entirely here or whitelist and blacklist specific sites. More information on today’s updates is available from security vendors Ivanti and Qualys. As always, if you experience problems installing any of these updates, feel free to note your issues in the comments below. Chances are, another reader here has experienced something similar and can assist in troubleshooting the issue. from https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/04/adobe-microsoft-push-critical-security-fixes-12/ Social media sites are littered with seemingly innocuous little quizzes, games and surveys urging people to reminisce about specific topics, such as “What was your first job,” or “What was your first car?” The problem with participating in these informal surveys is that in doing so you may be inadvertently giving away the answers to “secret questions” that can be used to unlock access to a host of your online identities and accounts. I’m willing to bet that a good percentage of regular readers here would never respond — honestly or otherwise — to such questionnaires (except perhaps to chide others for responding). But I thought it was worth mentioning because certain social networks — particularly Facebook — seem positively overrun with these data-harvesting schemes. What’s more, I’m constantly asking friends and family members to stop participating in these quizzes and to stop urging their contacts to do the same. On the surface, these simple questions may be little more than an attempt at online engagement by otherwise well-meaning companies and individuals. Nevertheless, your answers to these questions may live in perpetuity online, giving identity thieves and scammers ample ammunition to start gaining backdoor access to your various online accounts. Consider, for example, the following quiz posted to Facebook by San Benito Tire Pros, a tire and auto repair shop in California. It asks Facebook users, “What car did you learn to drive stick shift on?” I hope this is painfully obvious, but for many people the answer will be the same as to the question, “What was the make and model of your first car?”, which is one of several “secret questions” most commonly used by banks and other companies to let customers reset their passwords or gain access to the account without knowing the password. Probably the most well-known and common secret question, “what was the name of your first pet,” comes up in a number of Facebook quizzes that, incredibly, thousands of people answer willingly and (apparently) truthfully. When I saw this one I was reminded of this hilarious 2007 Daily Show interview wherein Jon Stewart has Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on and tries to slyly ask him the name of his first pet. Womenworking.com asked a variation on this same question of their huge Facebook following and received an impressive number of responses: Here’s a great one from springchicken.co.uk, an e-commerce site in the United Kingdom. It asks users to publicly state the answer to yet another common secret question: “What street did you grow up on?” This question, from the Facebook account of Rving.how — a site for owners of recreational vehicles — asks: “What was your first job?” How the answer to this question might possibly relate to RV camping is beyond me, but that didn’t stop people from responding. The question, “What was your high school mascot” is another common secret question, and yet you can find this one floating around lots of Facebook profiles: Among the most common secret questions is, “Where did you meet your spouse or partner?” Loads of people like to share this information online as well, it seems: Here’s another gem from the Womenworking Facebook page. Who hasn’t had to use the next secret question at some point? Answering this truthfully — in a Facebook quiz or on your profile somewhere — is a bad idea. Do you remember your first grade teacher’s name? Don’t worry, if you forget it after answering this question, Facebook will remember it for you: I’ve never seen a “what was the first concert you ever saw” secret question, but it is unique as secret questions go and I wouldn’t be surprised if some companies use this one. “What is your favorite band?” is definitely a common secret question, however: Giving away information about yourself, your likes and preferences, etc., can lead to all kinds of unexpected consequences. This practice may even help turn the tide of elections. Just take the ongoing scandal involving Cambridge Analytica, which reportedly collected data on more than 50 million Facebook users without their consent and then used this information to build behavioral models to target potential voters in various political campaigns. I hope readers don’t interpret this story as KrebsOnSecurity endorsing secret questions as a valid form of authentication. In fact, I have railed against this practice for years, precisely because the answers often are so easily found using online services and social media profiles. But if you must patronize a company or service that forces you to select secret questions, I think it’s a really good idea not to answer them truthfully. Just make sure you have a method for remembering your phony answer, in case you forget the lie somewhere down the road. Many thanks to RonM for assistance with this post. from https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/04/dont-give-away-historic-details-about-yourself/ |
ABOUT MEHi my name is Anthony I am 32 years old from Houston. I am working in local store selling electronic devices. I have been interested in eclectronics since childhood and I like to reacd about it. Archives
April 2019
Categories |