Kaspersky Warns Of BloodyStealer Trojan That Swipes Data From Gamers’ Accounts

Kaspersky has put out a warning for a trojan tool known as BloodyStealer. The malware was given its name by its creators as it does exactly what its namesake suggests but more importantly, the antivirus software has said that the tool has mostly been used against gamers and several gaming platforms.

As per its official blog post, BloodyStealer was discovered to have mainly affected PCs belonging to gamers and were lodged within the major gaming platforms, including Steam, Epic Games, Origin, GOG, and Bethesda. The antivirus company says that while the malware is still relatively new, it has already found victims within Europe, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific region. Worst still, the trojan is allegedly being sold on the underground market to threat actors as part of a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) distribution model, at a price of US$40 (~RM167) for a “lifetime license”.

As for what it steals, the “official” advertisement for BloodyStealer states that it steals, passwords, cookies, bank card details, gaming account details, device data, screenshots, and even logs, the last item being of particularly popular demand. Games as well are not safe from the malware, with many games stolen with the trojan can be seen being sold on the dark web, and at less than US$1 (~RM4.18) in most situations.

To avoid becoming a victim of BloodyStealer, Kaspersky is preaching that people deploy what it calls “common sense” measures: strong passwords, 2-factor authentication (2FA), downloading apps from trusted sources, and simply not clicking on links provided by strangers in emails, or even those sordid links that are usually passed on by unknown numbers via messaging apps. For gamers, it also has a guide on how to maximise the security settings for all gaming platforms.

Apple Digital Legacy Service Lets Users Choose Heirs For Their iCloud Data After Death

Apple is adding a Digital Legacy feature that allows users to nominate contacts as legacy contacts who will be granted access to their Apple account in the event of their demise.

For years, users and campaigners have lobbied the tech giant to implement a formalised method of accessing emails, photos, and other contents of a loved one’s iCloud account after their death.

Up until now, the company had only advised users to include access to their personal information in their will:

“We encourage customers to add an inheritance plan to their will that covers the personal information they store on their devices and in iCloud. This may simplify the process of acquiring a proper court order and reduce delay and frustration for family members during a difficult time.”

With Digital Legacy, that process is both simplified and formalised; Legacy contacts will use a “legacy contact Apple ID” to sign in. The user will have access to the iCloud data and will be able to download it using the ID and access key.  Once logged in, the legacy contact user must provide a valid copy of the primary user’s death certificate in order to gain access to the deceased person’s data.

It should be pointed out that Facebook has had a Legacy contact feature for years. In the case of the social network, its Legacy contacts feature is in charge of memorialised accounts or offers users the choice of having their account deleted after Facebook is informed of your death.

It should be noted that for Apple’s Digital Legacy service, payment information such as credit card details, subscriptions, licensed media, and Keychain password will be excluded from the accessible data.

Japanese Companies Planning To Develop A Data Centre In Space

Data centres such as those owned by Google and Microsoft are known to use a tremendous amount of energy for processing information. This in turn usually leads to a high number of carbon emissions which increases the risk of climate change, especially with so many of these facilities available around the world.

Realising this, Japanese telecommunications company NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) is partnering with local broadcasting firm SKY Perfect JSAT Holdings to develop a solution that will hopefully eliminate the issue from the face of the Earth, literally too. Both companies aim to launch a satellite system that can process and store data in space by 2025, with hopes for it to be fully operational in 2026.

According to a report by Nikkei, each satellite will be equipped with computing functions and connected by NTT-developed IOWN (Innovative Optical and Wireless Network) communication technology to act as a pseudo data center. The system will gather a wide range of data from Earth, process and analyse them, and then send back only relevant information.

NTT says that the satellite network, combined with its IOWN tech, enables for reduced exchange of massive data between space and earth, therefore speeding up its transfer process. It is also claimed to reduce power consumption to one-hundredth of what it is now, and will also contribute to decarbonisation efforts as the electricity used for data processing originates from solar energy. Both NTT and SKY Perfect JSAT are hoping to operate hundreds of these satellites in the future.

The idea of utilising space infrastructure for data preservation isn’t entirely new. As we previously reported in October of last year, Microsoft launched its own off-planet data processing system known as Azure Space. However, unlike the two Japanese companies, the US-based tech giant’s satellite network aims to provide fast and easy access to its Azure cloud computing solution for customers, especially those in remote locations.

With projects such as SpaceX’s Starlink and those mentioned above, companies are literally taking data processing to greater heights. Perhaps it’s time to update the term “cloud computing” to something more relevant, now that it has reached to the realm of infinity and beyond. 

Opensignal: Malaysia’s Mobile Data Consumption Is Way Higher Than Other SEA Countries

The impact of the Movement Control Order (MCO) on data consumption in Malaysia has been well-documented by various parties including the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission MCMC) itself. However, a new report from Opensignal has shown that the demand for mobile data in our country is generally much higher than in other Southeast Asian countries.

Using data that was gathered from January 2020 to March 2021, Malaysia mobile data consumption has steadily increased from February 2020 before hitting the first peak in April 2020 which coincides with the early part of MCO 1.0. The demand then drops before it steadily picked up again from July 2020 onwards and reached the second peak in February 2021.

While Opensignal didn’t provide the exact amount of data consumption for each month, the network analytical company pointed out that the April 2020 mobile data consumption in Malaysia is 30.7% higher than in January. Additionally, the difference between consumption in January 2019 and January 2021 is around 35.2%.

With an average consumption rate of 26.4GB per user in January 2021, it is apparently the highest in Southeast Asia:

Opensignal has noted in its report that the massive surge of mobile data consumption showed that telcos in Malaysia faced a greater challenge as compared to their counterparts in other SEA countries.

Similarly, this may explain why some local telcos such as Celcom and Maxis have recently experienced noticeable declines in terms of speed. On another hand, the analytical firm was also quick to point out that JENDELA may help things become better.

Microsoft Officially Announces Its Malaysian Data Centre Region

Said to be one of the most significant endeavours that Microsoft has embarked on in Malaysia since establishing its operation here in 1992, the company today has unveiled its new Bersama Malaysia initiative. Involving an investment of USD 1 billion (~RM 4.1 billion) over the next 5 years, the initiative will also include the establishment of the first Azure data centre region in Malaysia.

But before we go further, let’s go through the differences between a data centre region and a data centre. According to Microsoft, a data centre is an actual physical building that houses servers and, on another hand, a data centre region is a set of data centres that are linked together through a dedicated low-latency network and latency-defined perimeter.

In other words, a data centre region consists of multiple data centres. Microsoft also stated that the upcoming Malaysian data centre region will also feature Azure Availability Zones which guarantees that customers’ data will be protected regardless of whatever happened to the physical data centre site since the data would be synchronised throughout the Azure data centre region.

Aside from Azure, the Malaysian data centre region also provides access to other cloud services from the company including Microsoft 365 as well as Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. Located in the Greater Kuala Lumpur area, the data centre region will be the third Azure data centre region in Southeast Asia after Singapore and Indonesia.

According to a research by IDC that was commissioned by Microsoft, the company’s investment in Malaysia may generate up to USD 4.6 billion (~RM 18.9 billion) in new revenues within the next four years for local partners and cloud customers. The research also estimated that more than 19,000 new direct and indirect jobs could be established through this endeavour.

However, Microsoft didn’t reveal when exactly the new Malaysian data centre region will be operational. Similarly Malaysian has not yet been added to the data centre region list on Azure’s official website at the time this article was published.

[UPDATE – 20 April / 10:00 AM]: Azure’s official website has since been updated to include Malaysia:

Frankly speaking, this announcement is a long time coming. Then again, Microsoft was one of the four Cloud Service Providers that have been recently given conditional approval by the government to build hyperscale data centres in Malaysia as part of the MyDIGITAL initiative and Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint.

So, it was just a matter of time before the company finally made this official.

Facebook Data Leak: How To Check If You Were Affected

Last weekend, a set of databases that contain personal data from 533 million Facebook users was listed on a well-known data marketplace. First reported by Alon Gal, the Co-Founder and CTO of a cybersecurity company called Hudson Rock, around 11.6 million of those users were from Malaysia.

If you are wondering whether your details are included in the leak or otherwise, you can now use the popular online tool Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) to verify it. In case you are not familiar with HIBP, it was launched in December 2013 and is the brainchild of Australian cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt.

For Malaysians, they may remember that Troy had added the Jobstreet database into HIBP after the massive national-scale data breach of 2017. In the case of Facebook though, you can verify the involvement of your personal data by providing your phone number to HIBP’s search engine as each of the records within the leaked database contained a phone number.

Do note that you need to include the country code in your phone number to perform the search. As an example, if your phone number is 012-3456789, the search term that you should use would be 6012345789.

If your phone number is part of the leak, the result would be shown as per the image above. Else, it would look like this:

Meanwhile, Facebook stated that last weekend’s leaked database was not an actual “leak”. Instead, it was the result of data scraping performed by an undisclosed malicious party in 2019 which was made possible due to a security issue that has since been patched by the platform.

Regardless of that, users are facing the risk of being phished or scammed since their Facebook’s personal data is now out there in the open. Hence, we would like to once again remind you to take the necessary action to protect yourself against such attempts.

Personal Data Of More Than 11 Million Malaysian Facebook Users Leaked Online

Personal data that belonged to more than 500 million Facebook users have been leaked online through a popular data marketplace forum that has previously listed databases from a Malaysian payment platform, e-commerce merchant, and the national electoral roll up for sale.

Over 11 million Malaysian Facebook users are said to be part of this leak which was first highlighted by Alon Gal, who is the Co-Founder and CTO of Israelian cybersecurity company, Hudson Rock. He pointed out that the leaked database contains not only users’ Facebook ID but also their phone number, full name, birthday, account creation date, relationship status, and bio.

It also contains their current and past location while some accounts also have their e-mails present in the leaked database.  A sample of the data has since been verified as legit by Business Insider who has matched them with phone numbers and e-mail addresses of known users.

This is not the first time that this particular Facebook database has leaked online though. Alon has actually highlighted it back in January but at that time, it was being presented through a Telegram bot and one has to pay for credits in order to obtain information from the leaked database.

Now, the data is generally being made available for free (if you were active enough in the marketplace forum) which means that the barrier is significantly lower than before. However, the Director of Strategic Response Communications for Facebook, Liz Bourgeois has tweeted out that the data came from an old security issue that the company had fixed back in 2019.

That being said, many of the details within the leaked database can’t really be considered “old” though. Hence, they seemed rather ripe and ready to be exploited by crude marketers, scammers, and hackers.

Now, the data is generally being made available for free (if you were active enough in the marketplace forum) which means that the barrier is significantly lower than before. However, the Director of Strategic Response Communications for Facebook, Liz Bourgeois has tweeted out that the data came from an old security issue that the company had fixed back in 2019.

That being said, many of the details within the leaked database can’t really be considered “old” though. Hence, they seemed rather ripe and ready to be exploited by crude marketers, scammers, and hackers.

Chinese Memory Maker Releases Data For DDR5 RAM Running At 6400MHz

Shenzhen Longsys Electronics Co. Ltd isn’t a name that would immediately ring a bell, but the China-based memory maker recently came into focus after news about its romp with the next-generation DDR5 memory surfaced. On top of that, it was tested at a frequency of 6400MHz.

According to Tom’s Hardware, Longsys currently has two DDR5-6400 RAM modules in the works; a 16GB variant with a single-rank design and a 32GB model with a dual-rank design. Regardless of design, both variations feature an eight-layer PCB, have CAS Latency (CL) of 40, and requires only 1.1V to operate.

Based on Longsys’ data, its DDR5-6400 RAM showed as much as 64% gains over the current DDR4 memory standard in the Master Lu benchmark, but to be fair, it was not made clear as to what frequency the DDR4 memory was running on.

What is interesting to note is that the system Longsys appears to be using to test its DDR5 RAM is an unreleased Intel 12th generation Alder Lake-S system. It’s not all that surprising, given that the Alder Lake-S is currently the only chipset so far that claims to support DDR5 and as it stands, AMD is still keeping mum about its next generation of Ryzen’s capabilities.

That said, it should also be pointed out that Longsys isn’t the first company to announce its entry into the realm of DDR5. Another Chinese memory maker, Asgard, recently announced its own 64GB DDR5-4800 RAM solution and in capacities of 64GB.

Singtel Data Breach Compromises Personal Details Of 129,000 Customers

Singapore’s largest telco, Singtel has confirmed that the personal details of approximately 129,000 customers were leaked due to a cyberattack on a third-party file-sharing system that the company uses. The telco first made the incident known to the public last week and has just completed its initial investigations into what data was compromised via the attack.

The leaked information of the 129,000 customers is NRIC (National Registration Identity Card) details and some combination of name, date of birth, mobile number, and address. Also compromised are bank account details of 28 former Singtel employees, credit card details of 45 personnel from a corporate customer with Singtel mobile lines, and other unspecified information from 23 enterprises, which includes suppliers, partners, and corporate customers.

Singtel Group CEO Mr Yuen Kuan Moon apologised “unreservedly” to all those impacted by the breach, adding that, “Data privacy is paramount, we have disappointed our stakeholders and not met the standards we have set for ourselves.”

At the heart of the problem was a 20-year-old file-sharing system called FTA that Singtel used right up to the data breach. US-based Accellion, the product’s developer, described FTA as a legacy software that is nearing the end of its life and over the years has encouraged all FTA customers to migrate to the company’s latest enterprise firewall platform, kiteworks.

Singtel was not the only firm to suffer a cyberattack through its use of FTA, however. According to ZDNet, other recent victims of FTA-related hacks include the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the University of Colorado, and the Washington State Auditor Office.

Database Seller Strikes Again: Personal Data of 10 Million Malaysian Voters Could Be On The Line

Following the databases that were said to contain information about E-Pay Malaysia and Ifmal customers, there is a new listing that claimed to have 10 million Malaysian voters in its database. The listing took place last weekend on the same marketplace forum that featured the two previous databases.

First reported by OMG Hackers, it was put up by the same seller that claimed to have the personal information from 200,000 Ifmal customers which have since been refuted by the e-commerce platform.

The images that the seller has included in the listing also contained a reference to the #KitaMintaLima hashtag that has gone viral on Twitter recently. The seller also claimed that the database is being split according to individual birth years from 1950 to 1996.

Aside from names, the seller also claimed that the database contains other details such as IC numbers and addresses. Also noticeable in the screenshots within the listing are voters’ areas and localities as well as their assigned state legislative and parliamentary zones.

The seller didn’t put up any pricing inside the listing although it was noted that buyer has to pay for the database using either Monero or Bitcoin. Four days have passed since the listing went online but the Election Commission of Malaysia (SPR) has yet to release any official statement regarding it even though the commission is already aware of the listing according to a report by Harian Metro.

That being said though and you may not be aware of this but the electoral roll (DPPR) can actually be purchased directly from SPR. Of course, only a select group of organizations such as political parties can get their hands on the DPPR which comes in the form of physical book and CD.

The pricing of the DPPR for each state legislative and parliamentary zone are different from one to another as it is generally based on the number of voters within respective zones. During the 14th General Election (PRU 14) in 2018, the complete DPPR for the whole Malaysia which contained 14,940,624 voters was priced at RM 60,520.20 by SPR [pdf].

So, if the claim by the sellers of the so-called leaked voters’ database is true, that means the database is likely to be incomplete. Nevertheless, SPR and related authorities need to address this matter urgently since not only it involved personal data that belonged to millions of Malaysians but it has also cast doubts on the ability of SPR and local political parties or whoever that has access to the database, to safeguard the information.