FrodoPIR: New Privacy-Focused Database Querying System

The developers behind the Brave open-source web browser have revealed a new privacy-preserving data querying and retrieval system called FrodoPIR. The idea, the company said, is to use the technology to build out a wide range of use cases such as safe browsing, scanning passwords against breached...

Researchers Warn of Kavach 2FA Phishing Attacks Targeting Indian Govt. Officials

A new targeted phishing campaign has zoomed in on a two-factor authentication solution called Kavach that's used by Indian government officials. Cybersecurity firm Securonix dubbed the activity STEPPYKAVACH, attributing it to a threat actor known as SideCopy based on tactical overlaps with prior...

Accelerate Your Incident Response

Tis the season for security and IT teams to send out that company-wide email: "No, our CEO does NOT want you to buy gift cards." As much of the workforce signs off for the holidays, hackers are stepping up their game. We'll no doubt see an increase in activity as hackers continue to unleash...

Vice Society Ransomware Attackers Adopt Robust Encryption Methods

The Vice Society ransomware actors have switched to yet another custom ransomware payload in their recent attacks aimed at a variety of sectors. "This ransomware variant, dubbed 'PolyVice,' implements a robust encryption scheme, using NTRUEncrypt and ChaCha20-Poly1305 algorithms," SentinelOne...

France Fines Microsoft €60 Million for Using Advertising Cookies Without User Consent

France's privacy watchdog has imposed a €60 million $63.88 million fine against Microsoft's Ireland subsidiary for dropping advertising cookies in users' computers without their explicit consent in violation of data protection laws in the European Union. The Commission nationale de l'informatique...

LastPass Admits to Severe Data Breach, Encrypted Password Vaults Stolen

The August 2022 security breach of LastPass may have been more severe than previously disclosed by the company. The popular password management service on Thursday revealed that malicious actors obtained a trove of personal information belonging to its customers that include their encrypted...

FIN7 Cybercrime Syndicate Emerges as a Major Player in Ransomware Landscape

An exhaustive analysis of FIN7 has unmasked the cybercrime syndicate's organizational hierarchy, alongside unraveling its role as an affiliate for mounting ransomware attacks. It has also exposed deeper associations between the group and the larger threat ecosystem comprising the now-defunct...

The Era of Cyber Threat Intelligence Sharing

We spent forty years defending ourselves as individuals. Trying to outsmart cybercriminals, outpower them, and when all our efforts failed, only then we considered banding together with our peers to outnumber them. Cybercriminals don't reinvent themselves each time. Their resources are limited, a...

Critical Security Flaw Reported in Passwordstate Enterprise Password Manager

Multiple high-severity vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Passwordstate password management solution that could be exploited by an unauthenticated remote adversary to obtain a user's plaintext passwords. "Successful exploitation allows an unauthenticated attacker to exfiltrate passwords from ...

Two New Security Flaws Reported in Ghost CMS Blogging Software

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed two security flaws in the JavaScript-based blogging platform known as Ghost, one of which could be abused to elevate privileges via specially crafted HTTP requests. Ghost is an open source blogging platform that's used in more than 52,600 live websites, mos...

Zerobot Botnet Emerges as a Growing Threat with New Exploits and Capabilities

The Zerobot DDoS botnet has received substantial updates that expand on its ability to target more internet-connected devices and scale its network. Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC is tracking the ongoing threat under the moniker DEV-1061, its designation for unknown, emerging, or...

Hackers Breach Okta's GitHub Repositories, Steal Source Code

Okta, a company that provides identity and access management services, disclosed on Wednesday that some of its source code repositories were accessed in an unauthorized manner earlier this month. "There is no impact to any customers, including any HIPAA, FedRAMP, or DoD customers," the company sa...

Raspberry Robin Worm Strikes Again, Targeting Telecom and Government Systems

The Raspberry Robin worm has been used in attacks against telecommunications and government office systems across Latin America, Australia, and Europe since at least September 2022. "The main payload itself is packed with more than 10 layers for obfuscation and is capable of delivering a fake...

The Rise of the Rookie Hacker - A New Trend to Reckon With

More zero knowledge attacks, more leaked credentials, more Gen-Z cyber crimes - 2022 trends and 2023 predictions. Cybercrime remains a major threat to individuals, businesses, and governments around the world. Cybercriminals continue to take advantage of the prevalence of digital devices and the...

GodFather Android Banking Trojan Targeting Users of Over 400 Banking and Crypto Apps

An Android banking trojan known as GodFather is being used to target users of more than 400 banking and cryptocurrency apps spanning across 16 countries. This includes 215 banks, 94 crypto wallet providers, and 110 crypto exchange platforms serving users in the U.S., Turkey, Spain, Italy, Canada,...

Ransomware Hackers Using New Way to Bypass MS Exchange ProxyNotShell Mitigations

Threat actors affiliated with a ransomware strain known as Play are leveraging a never-before-seen exploit chain that bypasses blocking rules for ProxyNotShell flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server to achieve remote code execution RCE through Outlook Web Access OWA. "The new exploit method bypasses...

Ukraine's DELTA Military System Users Under Attack from Info Stealing Malware

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine CERT-UA this week disclosed that users of the Delta situational awareness program received phishing emails from a compromised email account belonging to the Ministry of Defense. The attacks, which have been attributed to a threat cluster dubbed...

Beware: Cybercriminals Launch New BrasDex Android Trojan Targeting Brazilian Banking Users

The threat actors behind the Windows banking malware known as Casbaneiro has been attributed as behind a novel Android trojan called BrasDex that has been observed targeting Brazilian users as part of an ongoing multi-platform campaign. BrasDex features a "complex keylogging system designed to...

Russian Hackers Targeted Petroleum Refinery in NATO Country During Ukraine War

The Russia-linked Gamaredon group attempted to unsuccessfully break into a large petroleum refining company within a NATO member state earlier this year amid the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. The attack, which took place on August 30, 2022, is just one of multiple intrusions orchestrated by the...

A Guide to Efficient Patch Management with Action1

It's no secret that keeping software up to date is one of the key best practices in cybersecurity. Software vulnerabilities are being discovered almost weekly these days. The longer it takes IT teams to apply updates issued by developers to patch these security flaws, the more time attackers have...

KmsdBot Botnet Suspected of Being Used as DDoS-for-Hire Service

An ongoing analysis of the KmsdBot botnet has raised the possibility that it's a DDoS-for-hire service offered to other threat actors. This is based on the different industries and geographies that were attacked, web infrastructure company Akamai said. Among the notable targets included FiveM and...

FTC Fines Fortnite Maker Epic Games $275 Million for Violating Children's Privacy Law

Epic Games has reached a $520 million settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission FTC over allegations that the Fortnite creator violated online privacy laws for children and tricked users into making unintended purchases in the video game. To that end, the company will pay a record $275...

Microsoft Details Gatekeeper Bypass Vulnerability in Apple macOS Systems

Microsoft has disclosed details of a now-patched security flaw in Apple macOS that could be exploited by an attacker to get around security protections imposed to prevent the execution of malicious applications. The shortcoming, dubbed Achilles CVE-2022-42821, CVSS score: 5.5, was addressed by th...

Researchers Discover Malicious PyPI Package Posing as SentinelOne SDK to Steal Data

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new malicious package on the Python Package Index PyPI repository that impersonates a software development kit SDK for SentinelOne, a major cybersecurity company, as part of a campaign dubbed SentinelSneak. The package, named SentinelOne and now taken...

Glupteba Botnet Continues to Thrive Despite Google's Attempts to Disrupt It

The operators of the Glupteba botnet resurfaced in June 2022 as part of a renewed and "upscaled" campaign, months after Google disrupted the malicious activity. The ongoing attack is suggestive of the malware's resilience in the face of takedowns, cybersecurity company Nozomi Networks said in a...

Cybercrime (and Security) Predictions for 2023

Threat actors continue to adapt to the latest technologies, practices, and even data privacy laws—and it's up to organizations to stay one step ahead by implementing strong cybersecurity measures and programs. Here's a look at how cybercrime will evolve in 2023 and what you can do to secure and...

New Agenda Ransomware Variant, Written in Rust, Aiming at Critical Infrastructure

A Rust variant of a ransomware strain known as Agenda has been observed in the wild, making it the latest malware to adopt the cross-platform programming language after BlackCat, Hive, Luna, and RansomExx. Agenda, attributed to an operator named Qilin, is a ransomware-as-a-service RaaS group that...

Facebook Cracks Down on Spyware Vendors from U.S., China, Russia, Israel, and India

Meta Platforms disclosed that it took down no less than 200 covert influence operations since 2017 spanning roughly 70 countries across 42 languages. The social media conglomerate also took steps to disable accounts and block infrastructure operated by spyware vendors, including in China, Russia,...

Google Takes Gmail Security to the Next Level with Client-Side Encryption

Google on Friday announced that its client-side encryption for Gmail is in beta for Workspace and education customers as part of its efforts to secure emails sent using the web version of the platform. The development comes at a time when concerns about online privacy and data security are at an...

Samba Issues Security Updates to Patch Multiple High-Severity Vulnerabilities

Samba has released software updates to remediate multiple vulnerabilities that, if successfully exploited, could allow an attacker to take control of affected systems. The high-severity flaws, tracked as CVE-2022-38023, CVE-2022-37966, CVE-2022-37967, and CVE-2022-45141, have been patched in...

Trojanized Windows 10 Installer Used in Cyberattacks Against Ukrainian Government Entities

Government entities in Ukraine have been breached as part of a new campaign that leveraged trojanized versions of Windows 10 installer files to conduct post-exploitation activities. Mandiant, which discovered the "socially engineered supply chain" attack around mid-July 2022, said the malicious I...

Ex-Twitter employee Gets 3.5 Years Jail for Spying on Behalf of Saudi Arabia

A former Twitter employee who was found guilty of spying on behalf of Saudi Arabia by sharing data pertaining to specific individuals has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. Ahmad Abouammo, 45, was convicted earlier this August on various criminal counts, including money launderin...

Cyber Security Is Not a Losing Game – If You Start Right Now

Reality has a way of asserting itself, irrespective of any personal or commercial choices we make, good or bad. For example, just recently, the city services of Antwerp in Belgium were the victim of a highly disruptive cyberattack. As usual, everyone cried "foul play" and suggested that proper...

GitHub Announces Free Secret Scanning for All Public Repositories

GitHub on Thursday said it is making available its secret scanning service to all public repositories on the code hosting platform for free. "Secret scanning alerts notify you directly about leaked secrets in your code," the company said, adding it's expected to complete the rollout by the end of...

Goodbye SHA-1: NIST Retires 27-Year-Old Widely Used Cryptographic Algorithm

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST, an agency within the Department of Commerce, announced Thursday that it's formally retiring the SHA-1 cryptographic algorithm. SHA-1, short for Secure Hash Algorithm 1, is a 27-year-old hash function used in cryptography and has since...

Minecraft Servers Under Attack: Microsoft Warns About Cross-Platform DDoS Botnet

Microsoft on Thursday flagged a cross-platform botnet that's primarily designed to launch distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks against private Minecraft servers. Called MCCrash, the botnet is characterized by a unique spreading mechanism that allows it to propagate to Linux-based devices...

CISA Alert: Veeam Backup and Replication Vulnerabilities Being Exploited in Attacks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has added two vulnerabilities impacting Veeam Backup & Replication software to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities KEV Catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation in the wild. The now-patched critical flaws, tracked as...

Researchers Uncover MirrorFace Cyber Attacks Targeting Japanese Political Entities

A Chinese-speaking advanced persistent threat APT actor codenamed MirrorFace has been attributed to a spear-phishing campaign targeting Japanese political establishments. The activity, dubbed Operation LiberalFace by ESET, specifically focused on members of an unnamed political party in the natio...

Microsoft Reclassifies SPNEGO Extended Negotiation Security Vulnerability as 'Critical'

Microsoft has revised the severity of a security vulnerability it originally patched in September 2022, upgrading it to "Critical" after it emerged that it could be exploited to achieve remote code execution. Tracked as CVE-2022-37958 CVSS score: 8.1, the flaw was previously described as an...

Android Malware Campaign Leverages Money-Lending Apps to Blackmail Victims

A previously undocumented Android malware campaign has been observed leveraging money-lending apps to blackmail victims into paying up with personal information stolen from their devices. Mobile security company Zimperium dubbed the activity MoneyMonger, pointing out the use of the cross-platform...

Top 5 Web App Vulnerabilities and How to Find Them

Web applications, often in the form of Software as a Service SaaS, are now the cornerstone for businesses all over the world. SaaS solutions have revolutionized the way they operate and deliver services, and are essential tools in nearly every industry, from finance and banking to healthcare and...

Hackers Bombard Open Source Repositories with Over 144,000 Malicious Packages

NuGet, PyPi, and npm ecosystems are the target of a new campaign that has resulted in over 144,000 packages being published by unknown threat actors. "The packages were part of a new attack vector, with attackers spamming the open source ecosystem with packages containing links to phishing...

FBI Charges 6, Seizes 48 Domains Linked to DDoS-for-Hire Service Platforms

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ on Wednesday announced the seizure of 48 domains that offered services to conduct distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks on behalf of other threat actors, effectively lowering the barrier to entry for malicious activity. It also charged six suspects – Jeremi...

Hackers Using SVG Files to Smuggle QBot Malware onto Windows Systems

Phishing campaigns involving the Qakbot malware are using Scalable Vector Graphics SVG images embedded in HTML email attachments. The new distribution method was spotted by Cisco Talos, which said it identified fraudulent email messages featuring HTML attachments with encoded SVG images that...

New GoTrim Botnet Attempting to Break into WordPress Sites' Admin Accounts

A new Go-based botnet has been spotted scanning and brute-forcing self-hosted websites using the WordPress content management system CMS to seize control of targeted systems. "This new brute forcer is part of a new campaign we have named GoTrim because it was written in Go and uses ':::trim:::' t...

Ransomware Attackers Use Microsoft-Signed Drivers to Gain Access to Systems

Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed it took steps to implement blocking protections and suspend accounts that were used to publish malicious drivers that were certified by its Windows Hardware Developer Program. The tech giant said its investigation revealed the activity was restricted to a number of...

Why PCI DSS 4.0 Should Be on Your Radar in 2023

Protecting customer data is critical for any business accepting online payment information. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard PCI DSS, created by leading credit card companies, establishes best practices for protecting consumers' information. By adhering to these standards,...

December 2022 Patch Tuesday: Get Latest Security Updates from Microsoft and More

Tech giant Microsoft released its last set of monthly security updates for 2022 with fixes for 49 vulnerabilities across its software products. Of the 49 bugs, six are rated Critical, 40 are rated Important, and three are rated Moderate in severity. The updates are in addition to 24 vulnerabiliti...

Hackers Actively Exploiting Citrix ADC and Gateway Zero-Day Vulnerability

The U.S. National Security Agency NSA on Tuesday said a threat actor tracked as APT5 has been actively exploiting a zero-day flaw in Citrix Application Delivery Controller ADC and Gateway to take over affected systems. The critical remote code execution vulnerability, identified as CVE-2022-27518...

New Actively Exploited Zero-Day Vulnerability Discovered in Apple Products

Apple on Tuesday rolled out security updates to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and Safari web browser to address a new zero-day vulnerability that could result in the execution of malicious code. Tracked as CVE-2022-42856, the issue has been described by the tech giant as a type confusion issue in the...