Don’t fall for ‘font wasn’t found’ Google Chrome malware scam

Next time when you accidentally or curiously land up on a website with jumbled content prompting you to download a missing font to read the blog by updating the Chrome font pack.

Just don’t download

and install it

Scammers and hackers are targeting Google Chrome users with this new hacking scam that’s incredibly easy to fall for, prompting users to download a fake Google Chrome font pack update just to trick them into installing malware on their systems.

Here’s What the Scam is and How it works:

It’s a “The ‘Hoefler Text’ font wasn’t found” scam.

The hackers are inserting Java Script into poorly secured, but legitimate websites to modify the text rendering on them, which causes the sites to look all jumbled with mis-encoded text containing symbols and other random characters.

So if Chrome users come across such websites from a search engine result or social media site, the script makes the website unreadable and prompts them to fix the issue by updating their ‘Chrome font pack.’

The prompt window says: “The ‘Hoefler Text’ font wasn’t found,” and you’re then asked to update the “Chrome Font Pack.” If clicked, it actually installs a malware trojan on your machine.

British police have arrested a suspect in connection with the massive attack on Deutsche Telekom that hit nearly 1 Million routers last November.

Late last year, someone knocked down more than 900,000 broadband routers belonging to Deutsche Telekom users in Germany, which affected the telephony, television, and internet service in the country.

Now, Germany’s federal criminal police force (BKA) revealed today that the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) reportedly arrested a 29-year-old British suspect at Luton airport in London on Wednesday, who is accused of being the mastermind behind the last year’s attack.

In a statement, the Hacker Who Knocked Million Routers Offline Using MIRAI Arrested at London Airport German police said the last year’s attack was especially severe and was carried out to compromise the home routers to enroll them in a network of hijacked machines popularly known as Botnet, and then offer the DDoS services for sale on dark web markets.

But ultimately, the attack created a denial-of-service situation, which resulted in more than 900,000 customers losing Internet connectivity for a while.

“From the outset, Deutsche Telekom cooperated with law enforcement agencies,” BKA said. “Technical assistance was also provided by the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) in the analysis of the malicious software used.”

The Botnet of hacked machines is used to carry out “distributed denial of service” (DDoS) attacks to knock any site or server offline by sending them a larger number of rogue requests than they can handle.

Android can’t compete with iMessage, Google is changing that

When text messaging was simple, SMS worked beautifully. You could send 160 characters to anyone with a cellphone, and they’d receive it the same way they would a phone call. In the age of flip phones and nine-key texting, that was all anyone needed. But when texting gave way to group messaging, video calls, and (Sent with Fireworks), the SMS standard just couldn’t keep up anymore.

And so users ran to solutions like WhatsApp, which grew huge audiences on the back of one simple idea: it’s like texting, only better and free. Apple built a huge devoted fanbase for iMessage by adding features right on top of texting. SMS squandered its tremendous inherent advantage— it’s built into your phone, so everyone has it—by steadfastly refusing to evolve. It raises a fascinating hypothetical: if carriers had stopped charging for texts and added in new tech like group chats and stickers, would the likes of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and GroupMe even exist?

Over the last couple of years, Google has been working with hundreds of carriers and manufacturers around the world to bring the text message into the 21st century.