According to information security audit specialists Mozilla has corrected its Firefox browser for the second time this week after receiving an alert about a spear phishing campaign targeting users of the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange platform.
According to reports, a hacker group has
directed some phishing emails against Coinbase staff; these messages contain
links to malicious websites. If the user falls into the game of hackers and
clicks on any of these links using Firefox, a malware would download and run
automatically on the system. According to information security audit experts,
this malware is capable of stealing passwords from the browser, steal browsing
history details, among other sensitive data.
Firefox’s engineering officers recently
commented: “Coinbase cryptocurrency platform reported an exploited
vulnerability to run a phishing
campaign against them; the fault was patched less than a day after Mozilla
received the report”. Firefox version 67.0.4, the newer one, contains
fixes for another zero-day vulnerability that functions as a sandbox escape
when the flaw is succesfully exploited.
The hacker’s goal was to break into Coinbase
networks and steal cryptocurrency online wallet addresses, information security
audit experts report. However, the staff of the exchange platform managed to block
the attempts of the hackers; in addition, the update released by Mozilla almost
completely reduces the chances of attack by this route.
According to specialists from the International
institute of Cyber Security (IICS), attacks on Coinbase cryptocurrency platform
would have begun weeks before the platform staff managed to detect them. Coinbase haven’t mentioned yet how hackers
discovered these security flaws.
The attacks exploiting this flaw not only
occurred on Coinbase, other cryptocurrency exchange platforms were also
attacked recently, although they are not necessarily related facts. The best
thing for Firefox users is to check the browser version they are using and, if
necessary, install the updates.
