Malicious “RedAlert – Rocket Alerts” Application Targets Israeli Phone Calls, SMS, and User Information

On October 13, 2023, Cloudflare’s Cloudforce One Threat Operations Team became aware of a website hosting a Google Android Application (APK) impersonating the legitimate RedAlert - Rocket Alerts application (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.red.alert&hl=en&pli=1).  More than 5,000 rockets have been launched into Israel since the attacks from Hamas began on October 7th 2023.  RedAlert - Rocket Alerts developed by Elad Nava allows individuals to receive timely and precise alerts about incoming airstrikes. Many people living in Israel rely on these alerts to seek safety - a service which has become increasingly important given the newest escalations in the region.

Applications alerting of incoming airstrikes have become targets as only days ago, Pro-Palestinian hacktivist group AnonGhost exploited a vulnerability in another application, “Red Alert: Israel” by Kobi Snir. (https://cybernews.com/cyber-war/israel-redalert-breached-anonghost-hamas/) Their exploit allowed them to intercept requests, expose servers and APIs, and send fake alerts to some app users, including a message that a “nuclear bomb is coming”. AnonGhost also claimed they attacked other rocket alert applications, including RedAlert by Elad Nava. As of October 11, 2023, the RedAlert app was reportedly functioning normally.

In the last two days, a new malicious website (hxxps://redalerts[.]me) has Continue reading

Introducing Cloudforce One: our new threat operations and research team

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Meet our new threat operations and research team: Cloudforce One. While this team will publish research, that’s not its reason for being. Its primary objective: track and disrupt threat actors.

The security teams we speak with tell us the same thing: they’re inundated with reports from threat intelligence and security product vendors that do little to improve their actual security. The stories are indeed interesting, but they want deeper insights into the techniques and actors targeting their industry—but even more than that, they want to be protected against these threats with minimal to no involvement. That is the mission on which Cloudforce One will deliver.

This team is led by me, Blake Darché, Area 1’s co-founder and former head of Threat Intelligence. Before starting Area 1, which was acquired by Cloudflare earlier this year, I was a founding member of CrowdStrike’s services organization, and before that a Computer Network Exploitation Analyst at the National Security Agency (NSA). My career has focused on identifying and disrupting sophisticated nation-state sponsored cyber threats before they compromise enterprises and governments, and I’m excited to accelerate that work at Continue reading