Qakbot family of malware blamed for data breach

In Massachusetts, a Malware infection that spread to a possible 1,500
systems within the Office of Labor and Workforce Development (OLWD) is to
blame for a data breach assumed to have exposed 1,200 employer records, an
agency statement says.

The Departments of Unemployment Assistance and Career Services were
infected sometime in April. On Monday, the OLWD discovered that the
initial cleanup efforts failed to remove the Qakbot Malware. Because of
this, it.s possible that the Malware harvested confidential information.

Qakbot has been around for some time. First discovered in 2009, the
Malware spreads via several sources, including network shares. At one time
it leveraged vulnerabilities in Apple.s QuickTime and Internet Explorer to
target victims.

Qakbot is able to gather various kinds of data on an infected system
including OS and network information, keystrokes, stored FTP and email
login details, targeted banking data, as well as usernames and passwords
stored within a browser.