A breach of Chile based financial institution, RedBanc, was hit with a targeted attack, via social engineering, and the deployment of malicious software. Authorities have cited the hacker ring known as Lazarus as responsible for the attack. But Lazarus only contributed to half of the damage; according to experts, the attack was first initiated in December, 2018, but RedBanc had kept it quiet. They were called out harshly for this, and because of their silence, they allowed the already dicey situation, become much worse. 


 The Korean based hacking group, Lazarus; who by authorities are not yet sure is responsible, orchestrated an attack via social engineering and infiltration. They posted an offer on LinkedIn, this trap allowed an employee at RedBanc who was attracted to one of the openings, and applied. The employee was then interviewed over Skype, and instructed to download "required" software, but reality, they had downloaded malicious software that was utilized to breach and take control of the RedBanc network. 


 While authorities are still speculating whether Lazarus is responsible, they are leaning towards a yes, as this is most recent attack on banks based in Chile, by Lazarus. Their last attack targeted another bank, Banco De Chile.


 That was the news folks, have a good week, and stay safe out there.


 ---Mad-Architect 

    Within the last couple weeks,  in Ukraine, two separate hacker groups were hit by authorities, resulting in the arrest of six individuals. These six people all aged from 20 to 30 years of age, were arrested for breaching the computers of individuals and leaving a custom Trojan on their computers, in a bid to steal their banking credentials. 

    The suspects, the first four from last week, stole over five million Hryvnia.(That is well over 170,000 in USD) This was done by leaving a Trojan, keylogging their various credentials, and then using those credentials to wire money from their accounts to the accounts of the attackers, they finally left a backdoor on their systems for likely, later pilfering. 


    Two other suspects were also arrested for performing DDoS attacks against public media and educational institutions. In the report put fourth by the authorities, the two men created their DDoS tool to send automatic queries to their target systems. These two men are facing up to six years in prison, in accordance with article 361 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. 


    That was the news folks, have a safe week, and stay safe out there.

         -----Mad-Architect

    Link to original article can be found here.
     

        Facebook, the only other tech related giant besides a major tech titan, Apple, that had a fair bit of attention last year and before. Mostly Facebook, for their controversial involvement in the US 2016 Presidential Elections, concerning fake news and the spread of pro Trump propaganda; allegedly, by undercover Russian agents. 

   In the aftermath of this, Facebook has been setting its sights on battling fake news on their platform. A UK based charity group called Full Fact has been hired by Facebook to sift through user's posts, pictures etc, if any of them have been flagged as fake or bogus. On top of this, posts that have been flagged as possibly fake, will have a "Disputed" tag on the post. 

   There are exceptions to these flags, such as satire or posts based on user opinion. Besides this, users will retain the option of re-posting an article even if it has been flagged; Facebook stated that this is to ensure their user's free speech while still improving the overall user experience. Also, posts flagged as disputed will not be removed, but demoted, as to lower the amount of views that the post gets. 

   That was the news folks, have a good week, and stay safe out there.

   Link to original article can be found here.


    ----Mad-Architect
   

   

  

    Mozilla Firefox, a common internet browser application, has been hard at work upping its security on the behalf of the common user. Everything from making the Facebook app contained so that it doesn't spy on you, to integrating a monitor into the software that alerts the user if there is a security breach. 

  With that said, the most recent security adjustment to Mozilla is disabling Flash in the upcoming version; IE Mozilla Firefox 69. Concerning this, Flash has always been a common route for attackers, because of this reason and otherwise, Adobe is set to discontinue development of Flash in 2020. More information in relation to this, can be found here.

  
  Flash is also set to be blocked by Microsoft Edge, as well as Google Chrome; they share the same concerns as Mozilla with regards to security flaws, bugs, and issues in performance. By the year 2021, Flash will have been phased out completely. 




  That was the news, have a good week, and stay safe out there. 



  ----Mad-Architect
 

The Anonymous collective exists in attempt to make our world a better place.  Anons do operations as part of the Anonymous collective, both legal and illegal.   The http://anonymous.foundation project exists in an effort to help Anon Ops whilst being 100% transparent.

It is quite clear - Anonymous and Anons do not profit.   Anyone who makes a profit in the name of Anonymous is a fake Anon, they are quite simply not Anonymous. 

When there is a user to this forum who is actively asking for donations elsewhere in the name of Anonymous,   then, any decent self respecting Anon would ban such a person.   However,  this person is not just a member of this forum, this person is also a part of the administration team, as a moderator in chat.  Admin will not do anything using the excuse that donations are asked for elsewhere.....   Whilst this is true, it is also incorrect - any decent self respecting Anon would have banned this faker by now...    As an example,  actions from admin elsewhere have resulted in a ban in respect of this fake anon two times that i know of.   They have been banned twice since being exposed.

After informing Admin here about the fake Anon as part of their admin team,  after informing them that one of their admin team is actively asking for donations in the name of Anonymous in addition to lack of regard to free speech as  banned me from chat for asking why they are asking for donations....  Despite this,  admin team here do nothing about this fake Anon - simply saying their actions are elsewhere, as their actions are elsewhere then they do not concern here.   Incorrect.   Anonymous = SOLIDARITY.

No decent self respecting Anon supports fake Anons which is presumably the reason why one of the admin team here has been banned from 2 Anon servers today, since being exposed.  Yet here = no ban, therefore supportive of the fake Anon.  

No offence, but I no longer consider here to be Anonymous.   Any decent self respecting Anon would have banned the faker by now.   Anonymous does not support those who seek to make a profit using the name of Anonymous.    Anonymous does not support fake Anons.   

The person concerned has been banned from at least 2 Anonymous chats already,  since they have been exposed as being a fake Anon asking for donations.   In one chat he was admin, in other chat he was member.  Yet, here is allowed to exist in their role as part of admin team = despite the fact admin are now aware of their donation requests, fake anon and are also aware of the fact they do not understand what free speech is as banned me for daring to ask why they are asking for donations.

At least there are some true Anons out there who will not tolerate fake Anons.  Examples being the people who have banned this faker today. 

Bottom line is - Anonymous does not profit,  Anonymous is not for self gain.
Those who support fake Anons are arguably not Anonymous themselves?

https://iamanonymous.com/fake-anon-expos...rd3333663/

As i say, at least true Anons elsewhere have banned this faker (twice i know of).    However, the faker is supported here.  

Anons and Anonymous stand up for what is right.  For justice.  Solidarity.  Anon is not for profit.   Some people should try and remember these things.  

#OpFakeAnons


What hurts the most is realising that I have now lost Mr. Kurd -  who is one of the few people I had the utmost respect for in the discord community.  Unfortunately, I do not allow myself to associate with fake Anons nor those who are supportive of the fakers.
I will always stand on the side of what is right and what is just.  For justice.  


#AnonSolidarity   #OpFakeAnons    #ExposeFakeAnons

   Microsoft has been observed rolling back a lot of updates recently, due to bugs, holes, or otherwise. Sometimes these updates are pulled with little to no explanation. The most recent of these, was a series of January updates to Microsoft Office 2010, specifically Excel. 

   The updates were pulled back when Microsoft received complaints from its users in Japan. It was reported that when users were using Excel 2010, they could not enter any characters in any new cells, as well as the application crashing completely.

   The three updates that were pulled are as follows:

   MS Excel 2010 (KB4416127)

   MS Excel 2010 (KB4032217)

   MS Excel 2010 (KB4032225)

  MS Excel 2010  (KB4461616)

  When asked about the reasoning behind the updates being pulled, Microsoft had this to say.:

  
  “After you install this update, you may experience difficulties in Microsoft Excel or other applications. To resolve this, uninstall the update by following the instructions in the “More information” section.”


  Anyone using any MS Office application later than 2010, then no problems should be encountered.


  That was the news folks, have a good week, and stay safe out there.


  ---Mad-Architect

In some ways, the success of email and search engine marketing has become its curse. Chief marketing officers (CMOs) and other senior managers may regard email marketing as a low-cost commodity and take for granted that it will continue to generate its traditionally high ROI.  CMO Email Lists The payback has been strong, according to a number of industry studies. Commercial email and search engine marketing strategic initiatives will generate ROI of $42.08 for each $1 spent in 2010-nearly twice the ROI of paid search ($21.90).


Online marketers should not assume that they will continue to achieve high email ROI. As consumer tolerance for irrelevance diminishes, ROI for untargeted emails stands to decline as well. Meanwhile, the use of untargeted email increases the likelihood that a subscriber  CMO Email Lists will opt out of an email list. Non-relevant mailings continue to be the top reason why consumers opt out of email.

Unless your emails and keyword rich high value content on your website speak to customers with personalized, relevant content, the only link they may click is "Unsubscribe" or travel to another website. If that's not the sort of click-through you want, your organization may need to rethink its email marketing efforts and bring to bear the resources required to make personalization and relevance a reality. 

Leveraging Data for Pinpoint Personalization CMO Email Lists
Email and search engine marketing have come a long way since the days of bulk "spray and pray" delivery. Though advanced email personalization remains on the horizon for most companies, even basic segmentation and content tailoring by demographic characteristics, such as gender, has proven valuable. In a report of email marketing organizations, it was found that targeted emails generated an average of $664,000 a month in revenue-more than four times the $159,000 a month from non-targeted emails.  CMO Email Lists

Quote:On 12/28/2018 we’ve received an email regarding the popular online RP game “Town Of Salem”s breach. The sender, who wishes to be anonymous at this time, provided DeHashed with evidence of server access and provided the complete database for disclosure. We’ve reached out to BlankMediaGames regarding a statement and to provide assistance with securing their servers.

Quote:Town of Salem is a browser-based game that challenges players on their ability to convincingly lie as well as detect when other players are lying. The game ranges from 7 to 15 players. These players are randomly divided into alignments – Town, Mafia, and Neutrals. If you are a Town member (the good guys) you must track down the Mafia and other villains before they kill you. The catch? You don’t know who is a Town member and who is a villain. If you are an evil role, such as a Serial Killer, you secretly murder town members in the veil of night and try to avoid getting caught. – Wikia

Quote:Here’s an analysis of what we found. This is the first time the company has ever seen any kind of breach, ironically it was caused by a entree-level vulnerability known as “LFI” / “RFI”.

The data affected, includes but is not limited to:
Usernames, Emails, Passwords (phpass, MD5(WordPress), MD5(phpBB3)), IP Addresses, Game & Forum Activity, & Payment Information. With some of the users who paid for certain premium features having their billing information/data breached as well.
The total row count is: 8,388,894, with 7,633,234 unique email addresses.

Hello Guys!

New Here ! Looking forward to learn and share as well! Thanks!