An online retailer was hit by a JavaScript attack from a group associated with Magecart, a collective of cybercriminals that specializes in skimming credit card numbers from compromised websites, according to malware researchers at BroadAnalysis.

BroadAnalysis did not reveal the name of the online retailer in question, but posted a series of screenshots that showed the network traffic, index page and four different sniffer scripts used in the attacks. These included an exfil script, a loading script and a base64 string that linked the compromised site and stolen payment credentials back to the threat actor’s site.

The JavaScript attack is typical of Magecart, which has been linked to similar attacks aimed at e-commerce platforms such as Magento and OpenCart.

Skimming at Sotheby’s and Others

The discovery of the four different credit card skimmers comes less than a month after the auction house Sotheby’s sent a statement to several IT security publications about a similar Magecart attack against its Sotheby’s Home website (formerly Viyet) discovered in early October. The firm warned that the JavaScript attack may have been running and stealing customer payment data since March 2017.

Another security research report, meanwhile, suggested that a Magecart group has evolved its use of skimming tools to not only steal customer credit card data, but also website administrator credentials. This involves adding other keywords into the skimmer code to look for admin logins and passwords as well as the payment forms on e-commerce sites. Researchers discovered the technique in the analysis of a skimming campaign against an optical retailer’s e-commerce site.

How to Protect Your Organization From a JavaScript Attack

Although Magecart attacks can happen at any time, retailers should be particularly vigilant about this sort of JavaScript attack as more consumers turn to online purchases during the busy holiday shopping season.

Defending against this kind of threat starts with applying common best practices, such as limiting access and privileges for critical systems and hardening underlying web servers. Beyond that, organizations should also deploy change monitoring and detection technologies that can alert security teams of unusual activity, such as a change in their e-commerce web pages.

Sources: BroadAnalysis, SC Magazine, RiskIQ

More from

Vulnerability resolution enhanced by integrations

2 min read - Why speed is of the essence in today's cybersecurity landscape? How are you quickly achieving vulnerability resolution?Identifying vulnerabilities should be part of the daily process within an organization. It's an important piece of maintaining an organization’s security posture. However, the complicated nature of modern technologies — and the pace of change — often make vulnerability management a challenging task.In the past, many organizations had to support manual integration work to get different security systems to ‘talk’ to each other. As…

How I got started: SIEM engineer

2 min read - As careers in cybersecurity become increasingly more specialized, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) engineers are playing a more prominent role. These professionals are like forensic specialists but are also on the front lines protecting sensitive information from the relentless onslaught of cyber threats. SIEM engineers meticulously monitor, analyze and manage security events and incidents within an organization. They leverage SIEM tools to aggregate and correlate data, enabling them to detect anomalies, identify potential threats and respond swiftly to security…

Tequila OS 2.0: The first forensic Linux distribution in Latin America

3 min read - Incident response teams are stretched thin, and the threats are only intensifying. But new tools are helping bridge the gap for cybersecurity pros in Latin America.IBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2023 found that 12% of the security incidents X-force responded to were in Latin America. In comparison, 31% were in the Asia-Pacific, followed by Europe with 28%, North America with 25% and the Middle East with 4%. In the Latin American region, Brazil had 67% of incidents that X-Force…

Cost of a data breach 2023: Geographical breakdowns

4 min read - Data breaches can occur anywhere in the world, but they are historically more common in specific countries. Typically, countries with high internet usage and digital services are more prone to data breaches. To that end, IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023 looked at 553 organizations of various sizes across 16 countries and geographic regions, and 17 industries. In the report, the top five costs of a data breach by country or region (measured in USD millions) for 2023…