Criminals
Selling Videoconferencing Credentials on Dark Web
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| Dark Web |
Two security firms find thousands of usernames and passwords for Zoom
accounts for sale and warn that the shift to remote work is changing attackers'
targets.
As the number of
cases of Zoom bombing has risen and companies lock down their videoconferencing
calls behind passwords, attackers are now posting and selling videoconferencing
credentials online, two security firms said this week.
In one case, a cyber criminal posted a database on the Dark Web containing more than 2,300
usernames and passwords for Zoom accounts, stated threat-intelligence provider Int Sights in a report posted today. The credentials could be used for
denial-of-service attacks and pranks such as Zoom bombing, as well as
potentially for eavesdropping and social engineering, says Etay Maor, chief
security officer for global threat intelligence firm at Int Sights.
"If the
attacker can identify the person whose account he has taken over — and that
doesn't take too much time, just use Google and LinkedIn — then the attacker
can potentially impersonate that person and set up meetings with other company
employees," Maor says. "This can be used for business email
compromise [BEC] types of attacks, where the attacker can impersonate a person
in the company and ask to move money. It can also lead to asking people to
share files and credentials over the Zoom chat."
In a second incident, a cyber criminal posted more than 350 Zoom account
credentials to an online forum, with several belonging to educational
institutions, small businesses, and at least one healthcare firm. The intent of
the publication was to allow pranksters and vandals to disrupt video
calls, according to security-intelligence
firm Sixgill.
As the world moves
to remote work en masse, attackers and security researchers have started
testing the applications and services that now form the foundation infrastructure of everyday business. In addition to phishing attacks
incorporating corona virus - and pandemic related topics as a lure to get
employees to click on links, attackers have increasingly targeted virtual
private networks (VPNs) and remote desktop protocol (RDP) services
to attempt to exploit remote workers insecure home environments.
Videoconferencing applications are just the latest tool to attract
attacker attention, Int Sights stated in its report.
"Researchers
have already reported about multiple vulnerabilities in these tools," Maor
wrote in a blog post. "Unfortunately, some users ignore even the most
basic security measures, like securing online meetings with passwords or pin
codes – or even publicly showing their meeting ID, as seen in the case of the
British government – which in turn allow attackers to take advantage of the
situation."
In October, vulnerability researchers discovered a software bug in
both Zoom's and Cisco's Web Ex applications for video conferences that could
allow an attacker to scan for unprotected conference calls and join them if the
meeting was not protected by a password. Using a type of attack known as
enumeration, an automated bot could cycle through potential meeting IDs and
find unprotected video conferences calls.
While the companies patched that issue, other research efforts turned
up other attacks on Zoom and
other videoconferencing services.
Attackers are using
tools — such as Open Bullet, a scanning suite for Web applications — originally
designed for penetration testers and red teams to find valid Zoom meeting IDs.
Int Sights' Maor
worries that an attacker could join a videoconferencing session after the
meeting has started, as many applications do not give obvious notice if someone
joins during a presentation or when a participant is sharing the screen. The
attacker could then eavesdrop on the meeting and collect intellectual property,
financial information, and other secrets, he says.
For the most part,
security is hard to add to the applications without dramatically impacting user
experience, says Maor.

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