Skip to main content

Hackers Bypass the 2-step Verification to Invade Government Systems and Industries


2-step verification is an extra security measure that an application uses when connecting to a service or a device. But the 2-step authentication was avoided by a group of hackers from China known as APT20. The government, industries, and various corporations across the world are concerned about the issue. This is disturbing news for the world of cybersecurity. APT 20, a criminal hacking organization from China was able to avoid the important 2-step verification, that is used as a safety precaution by vast services on the internet such as Google, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc. But above all this, this issue is a major concern for banking institutions that rely on internet services for their conduct.



The APT20 group was caught avoiding the 2-step Verification: 

After successfully breaking the verification process, APT20 was able to get access to some government agencies, corporate databases, and servers of various industries. The activity was discovered by Fox-It, a Dutch security specialist, when it received a complaint from one of the victims and upon investigation, it was able to identify the criminal group responsible for the attack. The corporations hit by the attack are spread over 10 nations and different sectors, some of which include Germany, Britain, France, the US, and China. The sectors affected are flight, architecture, banking, power, security, transportation, HR services, etc. The attack, however, doesn't affect the general public, as it focuses much on the corporations.

What is a 2-step verification?

Today, 2-step verification has become an official security order and is used worldwide by the users as an assurance of security (even if the users are unaware, their systems rely on this method). The safety method comes along with an extension to the typical login-password credentials process. 2-step verification operates when the user enters his credentials while logging into a device, following which he is sent a temporary code.

The 2-step verification asks the user a temporary code that he has to enter while logging in to the device. For instance, Google systems like Gmail retrieves the user back to his device for confirming the identity. Only after making sure that the user is authenticated and not a fraud, he is allowed access into the specified device. After filling in the code, the user verifies his identification to the system.   


source https://www.ehackingnews.com/2019/12/hackers-bypass-2-step-verification-to.html
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Betting and Gambling Websites under Cyberattack from Chinese Hackers

Since last year's summers, Chinese hackers have been targeting South Asian companies that own online gambling and betting websites. The gambling companies in South Asia have confirmed the hacks, whereas rumors of cyberattacks on betting websites have also emerged from Europe, and the Middle East, however, the rumors are yet to confirm, says the reports of cybersecurity group Trend Micro and Talent-Jump. Cybersecurity experts claim that no money was stolen in these hacks against the gambling websites. However, hackers have stolen source codes and databases. The motive of the attack was not a cybercrime, but rather espionage intended attack to gain intelligence. According to the experts, a group named ' DRBControl ' is responsible for the cyberattack. According to the reports of Trend Micro, the hacking techniques used in this particular cyberattack incident is similar to methods done by Emissary Panda and Winnti. All of these hacking groups are from China that has launc
5 comments
Read more

Information security experts have warned Russians about bonus card fraud schemes.

Fraudsters several thousand times tried to illegally take advantage of discount bonuses of Russians in 2019. Some attackers gained access to customers' personal accounts, and then bought the products using bonuses, said Alexey Sizov, head of the anti-fraud department of the Application Security Systems Center at Jet Infosystems. According to him, a fraudster can register a personal account on a card that was issued to another person. The victim will accumulate points without knowing about the existence of his profile, and the attacker will write off bonuses, said Sizov. The expert added that this is mainly done by novice scammers. According to him, loyalty programs are poorly protected, unlike banking operations. He said that they are estimated at 50 billion rubles ($760 milliard) for the 30 largest retailers. Alexey Fedorov, Chairman of the Business Russia Trade Committee, said that in 2019, the number of bonus and discount thefts "increased significantly."
Post a Comment
Read more

Provider Volia reported to the cyber police about the intense cyberattacks on the server

Cable provider Volia appealed to the Cyber Police on the fact of fixing a DDoS attack on the Kharkov servers of the company, which has been ongoing since May 31. "For three days, from May 31 to today, the Volia infrastructure in Kharkov is subjected to cyberattacks. At first, they were carried out only on subscriber subsystems, later they switched to telecommunications infrastructure. As a result, more than 100,000 subscribers experienced problems using the Internet, IPTV, multi-screen platform, and digital TV," said the company. In total, the complete lack of access to Volia's services, according to the provider, lasted 12 minutes on May 31, 45 minutes on June 1. There was also an attack on the website volia.com, but it was managed to neutralize. "DDoS attacks were massive and well-organized. The type of attack is UDP flood and channel capacity overflow with the traffic of more than 200 GB. UDP is a protocol used for online streaming services - streaming, te
Post a Comment
Read more