Retirement Of Onion Service Protocol Version 2
On July 2nd, 2020, Tor Project Inc. announced that the Internet has around 16 months to migrate from onion service protocol v2 to v3. The planned deprecation timeline was outlined as follows:
1. The first step to this transition started on the 15th day of September 2020. On that date the Tor browser version 0.4.4.x started to warn onion service operators and clients that v2 is deprecated and will be obsolete in Tor version 0.4.6.
2. The next step to this transition is yet to happen on the 15th day of this month (July 2021). That is the actual date that Tor version 0.4.6.x will no longer support onion service protocol v2 and support will be removed from the codebase.
3. The end of this transition will happen on October 15th, 2021. On that date, new stable versions of the Tor browser series will be released that will disable onion service protocol v2. (Source: Tor Project Inc.)
Android Crypto Mining Scam
Security researchers at the Lookout Threat Lab have identified over 170 Android apps, including 25 on Google Play, scamming people interested in cryptocurrencies. Based on the analysis, attackers have been able to scam more than 93,000 people and stole at least $350,000 between users paying for apps and buying additional fake upgrades and services. Even though Google promptly removed these apps from Google Play, Android users should be careful about these attacks. (Source: Lookout Threat Lab)
Avast Decode Crackonosh Malware
A malware named Crackonosh which is making some antivirus programs such as Avast diminish from computers has been detected and decoded by Avast software company. Czech is suspected to be the author of the malware. Crackonosh has been circulating since at least June 2018 and has yielded over $2,000,000 USD for its authors in Monero from over 222,000 infected systems worldwide. Crackonosh is distributed along with illegal, cracked copies of popular software and searches for and disables many popular antivirus programs as part of its anti-detection and anti-forensics tactics. It uses Windows safe mode to disable Antivirus programs found in the AV folder on the victim’s computer. These Antiviruses include Adaware, Bitdefender, Escan, F-secure, Kaspersky, Mcafee (scanner only), Norton, Panda, etc.
It is advisable to always update your anti-malware programs and be careful when downloading cracked and open source software over the internet.
You might also be interested in our blog posts such as “HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF AGAINST CYBER-ATTACKS” and “HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL MICROSOFT WINDOWS 11 BETA“.
