Here are we with our weekly roundup, briefing this week's top cyber security threats, incidents and challenges.This week has been very short with big news from shutting down of two of the largest Dark Web marketplaces and theft of millions of dollars in the popular Ethereum cryptocurrency to the discovery of new Linux malware leveraging SambaCry exploit.We are here with the outline of this week's stories, just in case you missed any of them. We recommend you read the entire thing (just click …

By now you might be aware of the took down of two of the largest online dark websites—AlphaBay and Hansa—in what's being called the largest-ever international operation against the dark web's black market conducted by the FBI, DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and Dutch National Police.But the interesting aspect of the takedown was that the federal authorities shut down AlphaBay, but took control of the Hansa market and kept it running for at least a month in an effort to monitor the activities o…

What could be the best way to take over and disrupt cyber espionage campaigns?Hacking them back?Probably not. At least not when it's Microsoft, who is continuously trying to protect its users from hackers, cyber criminals and state-sponsored groups.It has now been revealed that Microsoft has taken a different approach to disrupt a large number of cyber espionage campaigns conducted by "Fancy Bear" hacking group by using the lawsuit as a tool — the tech company cleverly hijacked some of its serve…

With the growing number of cyber attacks and breaches, a significant number of companies and organisations have started Bug Bounty programs for encouraging hackers, bug hunters and researchers to find and responsibly report bugs in their services and get rewarded.Following major companies and organisations, the non-profit group behind Tor Project – the largest online anonymity network that allows people to hide their real identity online – has finally launched a "Bug Bounty Program."The Tor P…

It's finally confirmed — In a coordinated International operation, Europol along with FBI, DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and Dutch National Police have seized and taken down AlphaBay, one of the largest criminal marketplaces on the Dark Web.But not just AlphaBay, the law enforcement agencies have also seized another illegal dark web market called HANSA, Europol confirmed in a press release today.According to Europol, both underground criminals markets are "responsible for the trading of over …

A security researcher has discovered a code injection vulnerability in the thumbnail handler component of GNOME Files file manager that could allow hackers to execute malicious code on targeted Linux machines.Dubbed Bad Taste, the vulnerability (CVE-2017-11421) was discovered by German researcher Nils Dagsson Moskopp, who also released proof-of-concept code on his blog to demonstrate the vulnerability.The code injection vulnerability resides in "gnome-exe-thumbnailer" — a tool to generate thu…

An unknown hacker has just stolen nearly $32 million worth of Ethereum – one of the most popular and increasingly valuable cryptocurrencies – from Ethereum wallet accounts linked to at least three companies that seem to have been hacked.This is the third Ethereum cryptocurrency heist that came out two days after an alleged hacker stole $7.4 million worth of Ether from trading platform CoinDash, and two weeks after an unknown attacker hacked into South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb an…

If you are hoverboard rider, you should be concerned about yourself.Thomas Kilbride, a security researcher from security firm IOActive, have discovered several critical vulnerabilities in Segway Ninebot miniPRO that could be exploited by hackers to remotely take "full control" over the hoverboard within range and leave riders out-of-control.Segway Ninebot miniPRO is a high-speed, self-balancing, two-wheel, hands-free electric scooter, also known as SUV of hoverboards, which also allows it rid…

As part of its ongoing Vault 7 leaks, the whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks today revealed about a CIA contractor responsible for analysing advanced malware and hacking techniques being used in the wild by cyber criminals.According to the documents leaked by WikiLeaks, Raytheon Blackbird Technologies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contractor, submitted nearly five such reports to CIA as part of UMBRAGE Component Library (UCL) project between November 2014 and September 2015.These r…

Remember SambaCry?Almost two months ago, we reported about a 7-year-old critical remote code execution vulnerability in Samba networking software, allowing a hacker to remotely take full control of a vulnerable Linux and Unix machines.We dubbed the vulnerability as SambaCry, because of its similarities to the Windows SMB vulnerability exploited by the WannaCry ransomware that wreaked havoc across the world over two months ago.Despite being patched in late May, the vulnerability is currently b…