Author: HackWatchit

Residents across the United States are being inundated with text messages purporting to come from toll road operators like E-ZPass, warning that recipients face fines if a delinquent toll fee remains unpaid. Researchers say the surge in SMS spam coincides with new features added to a popular commercial phishing kit sold in China that makes it simple to set up convincing lures spoofing toll road operators in multiple U.S. states. Last week, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) warned residents to be on the lookout for a new SMS phishing or “smishing” scam targeting users of EZDriveMA, MassDOT’s all electronic…

People around the world learned about the latest advancements in the American space industry! This was made possible by Holiverse, a decentralized digital platform built on the Polygon blockchain, which organized a live broadcast on February 8 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (Florida, USA), covering the event dedicated to the launch of the memory capsule to the Moon alongside the privately developed Peregrine lunar lander. This compact lunar “cargo carrier” embarked on its journey carrying scientific instruments, NASA’s equipment, and cultural artefacts including a digital copy of the U.S. Constitution. The Historical Significance of the Lunar Mission The mission was launched…

JPMorgan Chase Bank (Chase) will soon start blocking Zelle payments to social media contacts to combat a significant rise in online scams utilizing the service for fraud. Zelle is a highly popular digital payments network that allows users to transfer money quickly and securely between bank accounts. It is also integrated into the mobile apps of many banks in the United States, allowing for almost instant transfers without requiring cash or checks but lacking one crucial feature: purchase protection. In a recent update to its user policy, Chase explained that the payments service should not be used to buy goods…

Bitcoin believers may love him, but Argentina’s eccentric president is anything but a maxi. In fact, libertarian leader Javier Milei seems to have a penchant for fast-money crypto tokens—the sort that hardline Bitcoiners typically denounce as “shitcoins.”The digital asset world has been shaken since President Milei got hit with criminal charges after advertising a meme coin called LIBRA. After telling his millions of followers on Friday to buy the Solana-based token, the cryptocurrency shot up in value to over $4 billion. It then came crashing hard, and the president quickly tried to distance himself from it. People in—and out—of the crypto space are…

New Golang-based backdoor relies on Telegram for C2 communication Pierluigi Paganini February 17, 2025 Netskope Threat Labs researchers discovered a Golang-based backdoor using Telegram for C2 communication, possibly of Russian origin. Netskope Threat Labs found a Golang-based backdoor using Telegram for C2. The malware, still in development but functional, exploits cloud apps to evade detection. The experts believe the new Go backdoor could have a Russian origin. Upon executing the malware, it acts like a backdoor, it relocated itself to “C:\Windows\Temp\svchost.exe” if not already there, then launches a new copy before terminating. The malicious code connects to Telegram using an…

As 89% of Americans plan to shop online during this holiday shopping season, many say they’re more concerned about being scammed online than they were last year. One big reason why—AI deepfakes.   Our 2024 Global Holiday Shopping Scams Study uncovered that 70% of American shoppers say AI-driven scams are changing the way they shop online.  In all, they think scam emails and messages will be more believable than ever and that it’ll be harder to tell what’s a real message from a retailer or delivery service. With that in mind, 58% of people say they’ll be more alert than ever…

A new, improved variant of the XCSSET macOS malware has been spotted “in limited attacks” by Microsoft’s threat researchers. XCSSET macOS malware XCSSET in information-stealing and backdoor-injecting malware targeting Mac users. It’s usually distributed via infected Xcode projects – a collection of files, settings, and configurations that make up an app or framework developed using Xcode, Apple’s official integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS. The threat has been around for years. Past variants even used zero-day vulnerabilities to perform some of its malicious actions. It’s known to be capable of taking screenshots, stealing browser cookies and other data, grabbing data…

Recorded Future’s Insikt Group uncovered a Chinese state-sponsored threat group identified as RedMike, which corresponds to the group named Salt Typhoon by Microsoft, targeting unpatched, internet-facing Cisco network devices, predominantly affecting global telecommunications providers between December 2024 and January 2025. Among the victim organizations were a U.S.-based affiliate of a U.K. telecommunications provider and a telecommunications provider based in South Africa.  Using Recorded Future Network Intelligence, Insikt Group observed RedMike target and exploit unpatched Cisco network devices vulnerable to CVE-2023-20198, a privilege escalation vulnerability found in the web user interface (UI) feature in Cisco IOS XE software, for initial access…

by Gerald Auger of Simply Cyber // Guest Author This article was originally published in the second edition of the InfoSec Survival Guide. Find it free online HERE or order your $1 physical copy on the Spearphish General Store. You want to break into cybersecurity? That’s AWESOME. I’ve been in the field for 20 years and I LOVE IT! But embarking into a cybersecurity career can be overwhelming. There is just SO MUCH out there that parsing through it would be an endless task. This concise “cheat sheet” presents a solid 10-step approach to starting your career journey. Gain baseline…