Microsoft has detailed a March attack on Windows customers in the satellite and communications sectors using "unusual, interesting techniques" that bear the hallmarks of APT group MuddyWater. The company's Office 365 ATP picked up archive (ACE) files loaded with the recently discovered WinRAR flaw, CVE-2018-20250, which has become widely used among cybercrime groups and nation-state hackers in recent months. The bug was co-opted for hacking after a February 20 report from Israeli security firm Check Point revealed that a malicious ACE file could place malware anywhere on a Windows PC after being extracted by WinRAR. Locations include the Windows Startup folder, where the malware would automatically execute on each reboot. A month before Check Point's report, WinRAR developers released a new version that dropped support for ACE because it was unable to update a library in WinRAR called Unacev2.dll that contained a directory traversal flaw. However, by March, when this attack was detected by Microsoft, it's likely a large chunk of the world's 500 million WinRAR users hadn't updated to the non-ACE version or hadn't removed the vulnerable DLL. The MuddyWater group's activities were first spotted in 2017. It is known to target users in the Middle East, Europe, and the US. The group frequently doctors up phishing documents to appear as if they're from security arms of various governments.  For more visit OUR FORUM.

I thought deactivating my Facebook account would stop the social network from tracking me online. But Facebook kept tabs on me anyway. Over the past year, I've tried to minimize my presence on Facebook. I deleted a 10-year-old account and replaced it with a dummy account that I use as little as possible. I deleted the app from my phone. As of January, I started deactivating my dummy account every time I used it, rather than just log out. I couldn't break up completely with Facebook because I needed it to sign up twice a week for a workshop. I thought the precautions would reduce how much data Facebook gathered about me. Turns out, I was wasting my time. Even when your account is deactivated, the social network continues collecting data about your online activities. All that data gets sent back to Facebook and is tied to your account while it's in this state of limbo. It's as if you'd changed nothing. On the site, Facebook explains that deactivating is a half-step to complete deletion. But it says little about how data collection works during the period. In its data policy, Facebook suggests deactivation to manage your privacy but doesn't mention that it still collects data during that period. The ongoing collection of data from deactivated accounts could be considered misleading, privacy experts warn. The social network's Share button is on 275 million web pages. It collects data allowing advertisers to see what kind of content you're viewing. That's why you're likely to see ads for sports in your Facebook feed if you've been visiting a lot of sports websites. Complete details can be found on OUR FORUM.