Ethical Hacking

Wade Mackey

Ethical Hacking

MIS 5211.001 ■ Fall 2019 ■ Wade Mackey

Week 03: Reconnaisance

Article 3: FBI Investigating Alleged Hacking Attempt Into Mobile Voting App During 2018 Midterms

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This article speaks in regards to the beginning of a federal investigation into an attempted hack of an app that is still under development that would allow US citizens who are active military or registered for the right to vote abroad to place their votes through their phones. While the preliminary investigation by the organization and the federal prosecutors states that “no intrusion” had occurred and that the “integrity of the votes” were safe, they are executing an in-depth federal investigation. West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner also noted how this is partially a threat that any attempt to compromise an election will face thorough federal investigation and serious prosecution. Among the more interesting things discussed in the article regarding this app is how it’s developed to use blockchain technology as a means of ensuring the integrity of votes casted through the app. The article does note however that if the mobile device itself isn’t secure, then the app can be manipulated anyways.

Source: https://politics.slashdot.org/story/19/10/02/1922206/fbi-investigating-alleged-hacking-attempt-into-mobile-voting-app-during-2018-midterms

The Hottest Malware Hits of the Summer 2019

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This article summarizes the popular malware hits during July and August 2019. These malware hits use several and advance techniques such as Changing hashes via file obfuscation to evade AVs, Using encrypted communication with C2 servers to foil EDRs, and Using feature manipulation and tampering to trick AI, machine-learning engines, and sandboxes. The following malware and ransomware attacks are listed;
– Fileless Attacks and Living-Off-The-Land (LOTL)
– (Jack-in-the-box)2
– Astaroth Malware
– Sodinokibi Exploits
– GermanWiper Ransomware
– MegaCortex Ransomware
– Silence APT Spreads Malware
– Turla Attacks

Source: https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/its-been-summer-of-ransomware-hold-ups.html

Foxit PDF Software Company Suffers Data Breach—Asks Users to Reset Password

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The reason why I post this article is that I am a Foxit PDF software user with an account. From the article, we know that  unknown third-parties gained unauthorized access to Foxit’s data systems recently and accessed its registered users’ data, including user’s email addresses, passwords, users’ names, phone numbers, company names, and IP addresses. I use my Wechat account to access the Foxit, so I take this event very serious. However, I found that the Foxit annouce that users in China will not affect by this data breach because Chinese users do not use the same register path with users from other country. It is interesting that Foxit did not send any email or any kind of message to its Chinese users, at least I did not receive any. In addition, I do not know whether Chinese users is really safe in this event, so if you have any professional opinion about this event, welcome to share it on comments.

 

https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/foxit-pdf-reader-data-breach.html