Constella Intelligence

July 28, 2022

Breach Exposes Users of Microleaves Proxy Service

This post was originally published on this siteMicroleaves, a ten-year-old proxy service that lets customers route their web traffic through millions of Microsoft Windows computers, recently fixed a vulnerability in their website that exposed their entire user database. Microleaves claims its proxy software is installed with user consent, but data exposed in the breach shows the service has a lengthy history of being supplied with new proxies by affiliates incentivized to distribute the software any which way they can — such as by secretly bundling it with other titles. The Microleaves proxy service, which is in the process of being […]
November 28, 2022

U.S. Govt. Apps Bundled Russian Code With Ties to Mobile Malware Developer

This post was originally published on this siteA recent scoop by Reuters revealed that mobile apps for the U.S. Army and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were integrating software that sends visitor data to a Russian company called Pushwoosh, which claims to be based in the United States. But that story omitted an important historical detail about Pushwoosh: In 2013, one of its developers admitted to authoring the Pincer Trojan, malware designed to surreptitiously intercept and forward text messages from Android mobile devices. Pushwoosh says it is a U.S. based company that provides code for software developers to profile smartphone app […]
February 24, 2023

Who’s Behind the Botnet-Based Service BHProxies?

This post was originally published on this siteA security firm has discovered that a six-year-old crafty botnet known as Mylobot appears to be powering a residential proxy service called BHProxies, which offers paying customers the ability to route their web traffic anonymously through compromised computers. Here’s a closer look at Mylobot, and a deep dive into who may be responsible for operating the BHProxies service. The BHProxies website. First identified in 2017 by the security firm Deep Instinct, Mylobot employs a number of fairly sophisticated methods to remain undetected on infected hosts, such as running exclusively in the computer’s temporary […]
March 9, 2023

Who’s Behind the NetWire Remote Access Trojan?

This post was originally published on this siteA Croatian national has been arrested for allegedly operating NetWire, a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) marketed on cybercrime forums since 2012 as a stealthy way to spy on infected systems and siphon passwords. The arrest coincided with a seizure of the NetWire sales website by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). While the defendant in this case hasn’t yet been named publicly, the NetWire website has been leaking information about the likely true identity and location of its owner for the past 11 years. Typically installed by booby-trapped Microsoft Office documents and […]