Scammers are impersonating New York State’s Department of Labor to steal personal information from state residents seeking to claim money from a COVID relief fund. Targets are sent an email bearing the state logo that appears to come from “noreply@labor.ny.gov.” The email states that by activating their account, the recipient will receive $600 in pandemic aid. It reads: “Dear Citizen, Due to Covid-19 related issues, NY.GOV will pay $600 for victims who are affected by this…

A computer programmer from Ohio who lied to federal agents about his involvement with an illegal online marketplace has been sentenced to prison.  Michael R. Weigand, also known by his online pseudonyms “Shabang” and “~Shabang~,” concealed his work for illicit black marketplace Silk Road when questioned by an IRS special agent and an FBI agent in January 2019.  Silk Road was used by several thousand criminals around the world to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of…

When the topic of 2021 security predictions came up at a recent meeting of top cyberindustry executives, several leaders starting laughing. “Really? After we completely blew it last year?” said one chief strategist. “Wow! We’re not even out of the woods yet with COVID-19,” said a marketing expert. “How can we talk about the post-pandemic world with credibility?” “I doubt many cybersecurity companies will fully participate right now Dan. So many moving parts, industry disruptions,…

Multiple security researchers note the return of an email campaign attempting to spread the malware, which is often used to drop the Ryuk ransomware and Trickbot banking Trojan. In October, three surges of spam laden with the Emotet downloader worked to spread the malware to vulnerable users’ systems, starting a sequence that often results in a Ryuk ransomware infection or attempts to steal bank account credentials via the Trickbot banking Trojan. On Oct. 30, with…

A virtual private network (VPN) used by some of the world’s leading cyber-criminals has been shut down in an international law enforcement action led by German police. The Safe-Inet service was deactivated yesterday as part of Operation Nova, a coordinated effort that involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation and European law enforcement agencies acting through Europol.  Servers used by the service were taken down, and its infrastructure was seized in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the…