Hacking

P&G online beauty store First Aid Beauty hit by Magecart attack

A new MageCart attack made the headlines, this time hackers planted a software skimmer in the Procter & Gamble’s site First Aid Beauty website.

According to Willem de Groot, a researcher at Sanguine Security, threat actors planted a MageCart software skimmer on Procter & Gamble’s site First Aid Beauty on May 5, and the malicious code has remained undetected since today.

First Aid Beauty was acquired by Procter & Gamble marks in 2018 for $250 million.

The malicious code found in the First Aid Beauty website was developed to only select victims from the US using Windows systems.

de Groot reported his findings to the company last week, but unfortunately, he received no response. Initially the website was no longer accessible, showing a 503 Service Unavailable error, then after the publishing of the news online, the e-skimmer was removed.

According to Alexa, the First Aid Beauty web site has around %93 of visitors being from the U.S., for this reason, attackers developed MageCart scrip that is able to only target them. Unfortunately the malicious script remained undetected for more than five months.

de Groot told us that website owners typically discover these skimmers withing a couple of weeks but this one resisted for more than five months, “so the level of stealth for this actor is outstanding.” reads the post published by BleepingComputer.

de Groot pointed out that the software skimmer was heavily obfuscated and uses encryption, these features suggest that the attack was carried out by crooks familiar with e-skimming attacks.

de Groot also provided a deobfuscated version of the script that was developed to steal payment card data, including card number, expiration date, the name of the owner, and the CVV code.

This week, the US FBI issued a warning for the US private sector about e-skimming attacks carried out by the Magecart cybercrime groups.

As part of the Cyber Security Month, the FBI is urging organizations, especially small and medium-sized businesses and government agencies, to adopt the necessary countermeasures to prevent e-skimming attacks.

Below the list of recommendations provided by the FBI:

  • Update and patch all systems with the latest security software. Anti-virus and anti-malware need to be up-to-date and firewalls strong.
  • Change default login credentials on all systems.
  • Educate employees about safe cyber practices. Most importantly, do not click on links or unexpected attachments in messages.
  • Segregate and segment network systems to limit how easily cyber criminals can move from one to another.
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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – First Aid Beauty, Magecart)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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