This Malware is Impersonating Popular Business Software

Cybercriminals are always looking for new ways to trick users and businesses into falling for their traps. With cyberthreats on the rise, and online risks becoming more detrimental to businesses, it’s definitely something that all businesses need to have protections in place for.

A new attack involves ransomware being disguised as some of the most prominent business-related software tools.

An Old Type of Malware Gains New Life and Becomes More Dangerous

Back in 2014, a particular strain of malware called Carbanak was used to infiltrate financial systems at banks. The main way Carbanak would find its way onto a bank’s network was through phishing techniques that compromised the employees through their email.

Carbanak was particularly dangerous, giving cybercriminals access to payment processing services. The initial campaign behind Carbanak is said to have stolen over 900 million dollars in total. While Carbanak has been seen occasionally since then, we’re seeing a big resurgence of it now. However, cybercriminals aren’t using phishing attacks to spread it.

Instead, they are using compromised websites to host the malware. This means they are impersonating legitimate websites and hoping users fall into the trap. These websites tend to appear to be related to enterprise services such as the marketing platform HubSpot, business backup solution Veeam, and Xero accounting software.

This doesn’t mean that HubSpot, Veeam, Xero, or other enterprise software businesses are compromised. It means cybercriminals are piggybacking on the popularity and trust that comes with these companies. If your business uses HubSpot, for example, your staff is going to trust pages offering digital resources and other downloads from the marketing giant. Cybercriminals rely on that trust and will build sneaky phishing pages that look legitimate but deliver malware instead.

Carbanak doesn’t just focus on banks anymore either, as it has advanced data exfiltration and remote control features that can allow cybercriminals to cause a lot of damage and make off with your data.

Keeping Your Business Protected is More Important Than Ever

Unfortunately, we’re beyond the days where antivirus software is enough to protect the average organization. Modern threats are trickier, more dangerous, and more prevalent than ever before. Your business should be auditing its cybersecurity protections regularly. Now is a great time to have things looked over.

Give us a call at (240) 226-7055 to set up a cybersecurity audit today.