Considerations for Operational Technology Cybersecurity

Operational Technology OT refers to the hardware and software used to change, monitor, or control the enterprise's physical devices, processes, and events. Unlike traditional Information Technology IT systems, OT systems directly impact the physical world. This unique characteristic of OT brings...

New U.K. Law Bans Default Passwords on Smart Devices Starting April 2024

The U.K. National Cyber Security Centre NCSC is calling on manufacturers of smart devices to comply with new legislation that prohibits them from using default passwords, effective April 29, 2024. "The law, known as the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure act or PSTI act, will...

Google Prevented 2.28 Million Malicious Apps from Reaching Play Store in 2023

Google on Monday revealed that almost 200,000 app submissions to its Play Store for Android were either rejected or remediated to address issues with access to sensitive data such as location or SMS messages over the past year. The tech giant also said it blocked 333,000 bad accounts from the app...

China-Linked 'Muddling Meerkat' Hijacks DNS to Map Internet on Global Scale

A previously undocumented cyber threat dubbed Muddling Meerkat has been observed undertaking sophisticated domain name system DNS activities in a likely effort to evade security measures and conduct reconnaissance of networks across the world since October 2019. Cloud security firm Infoblox...

Navigating the Threat Landscape: Understanding Exposure Management, Pentesting, Red Teaming and RBVM

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for...

New R Programming Vulnerability Exposes Projects to Supply Chain Attacks

A security vulnerability has been discovered in the R programming language that could be exploited by a threat actor to create a malicious RDS R Data Serialization file such that it results in code execution when loaded and referenced. The flaw, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-27322 CVSS...

Sandbox Escape Vulnerabilities in Judge0 Expose Systems to Complete Takeover

Multiple critical security flaws have been disclosed in the Judge0 open-source online code execution system that could be exploited to obtain code execution on the target system. The three flaws, all critical in nature, allow an "adversary with sufficient access to perform a sandbox escape and...

Okta Warns of Unprecedented Surge in Proxy-Driven Credential Stuffing Attacks

Identity and access management IAM services provider Okta has warned of a spike in the "frequency and scale" of credential stuffing attacks aimed at online services. These unprecedented attacks, observed over the last month, are said to be facilitated by "the broad availability of residential pro...

Ukraine Targeted in Cyberattack Exploiting 7-Year-Old Microsoft Office Flaw

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a targeted operation against Ukraine that has been found leveraging a nearly seven-year-old flaw in Microsoft Office to deliver Cobalt Strike on compromised systems. The attack chain, which took place at the end of 2023 according to Deep Instinct, employs...

Bogus npm Packages Used to Trick Software Developers into Installing Malware

An ongoing social engineering campaign is targeting software developers with bogus npm packages under the guise of a job interview to trick them into downloading a Python backdoor. Cybersecurity firm Securonix is tracking the activity under the name DEVPOPPER, linking it to North Korean threat...

Severe Flaws Disclosed in Brocade SANnav SAN Management Software

Several security vulnerabilities disclosed in Brocade SANnav storage area network SAN management application could be exploited to compromise susceptible appliances. The 18 flaws impact all versions up to and including 2.3.0, according to independent security researcher Pierre Barre, who discover...

10 Critical Endpoint Security Tips You Should Know

In today's digital world, where connectivity is rules all, endpoints serve as the gateway to a business's digital kingdom. And because of this, endpoints are one of hackers' favorite targets. According to the IDC, 70% of successful breaches start at the endpoint. Unprotected endpoints provide...

New 'Brokewell' Android Malware Spread Through Fake Browser Updates

Fake browser updates are being used to push a previously undocumented Android malware called Brokewell. "Brokewell is a typical modern banking malware equipped with both data-stealing and remote-control capabilities built into the malware," Dutch security firm ThreatFabric said in an analysis...

Palo Alto Networks Outlines Remediation for Critical PAN-OS Flaw Under Attack

Palo Alto Networks has shared remediation guidance for a recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting PAN-OS that has come under active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-3400 CVSS score: 10.0, could be weaponized to obtain unauthenticated remote shell command execution o...

Hackers Exploiting WP-Automatic Plugin Bug to Create Admin Accounts on WordPress Sites

Threat actors are attempting to actively exploit a critical security flaw in the ValvePress Automatic plugin for WordPress that could allow site takeovers. The shortcoming, tracked as CVE-2024-27956, carries a CVSS score of 9.9 out of a maximum of 10. It impacts all versions of the plugin prior t...

North Korea's Lazarus Group Deploys New Kaolin RAT via Fake Job Lures

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as Lazarus Group employed its time-tested fabricated job lures to deliver a new remote access trojan called Kaolin RAT. The malware could, "aside from standard RAT functionality, change the last write timestamp of a selected file and load any received DLL...

Network Threats: A Step-by-Step Attack Demonstration

Follow this real-life network attack simulation, covering 6 steps from Initial Access to Data Exfiltration. See how attackers remain undetected with the simplest tools and why you need multiple choke points in your defense strategy. Surprisingly, most network attacks are not exceptionally...

DOJ Arrests Founders of Crypto Mixer Samourai for $2 Billion in Illegal Transactions

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ on Wednesday announced the arrest of two co-founders of a cryptocurrency mixer called Samourai and seized the service for allegedly facilitating over $2 billion in illegal transactions and for laundering more than $100 million in criminal proceeds. To that end,...

Google Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation Amid U.K. Regulatory Scrutiny

Google has once again pushed its plans to deprecate third-party tracking cookies in its Chrome web browser as it works to address outstanding competition concerns from U.K. regulators over its Privacy Sandbox initiative. The tech giant said it's working closely with the U.K. Competition and Marke...

State-Sponsored Hackers Exploit Two Cisco Zero-Day Vulnerabilities for Espionage

A new malware campaign leveraged two zero-day flaws in Cisco networking gear to deliver custom malware and facilitate covert data collection on target environments. Cisco Talos, which dubbed the activity ArcaneDoor, attributed it as the handiwork of a previously undocumented sophisticated...

U.S. Treasury Sanctions Iranian Firms and Individuals Tied to Cyber Attacks

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC on Monday sanctioned two firms and four individuals for their involvement in malicious cyber activities on behalf of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber Electronic Command IRGC-CEC from at least 2016 to April 202...

Researchers Detail Multistage Attack Hijacking Systems with SSLoad, Cobalt Strike

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an ongoing attack campaign that's leveraging phishing emails to deliver a malware called SSLoad. The campaign, codenamed FROZENSHADOW by Securonix, also involves the deployment of Cobalt Strike and the ConnectWise ScreenConnect remote desktop software...

Major Security Flaws Expose Keystrokes of Over 1 Billion Chinese Keyboard App Users

Security vulnerabilities uncovered in cloud-based pinyin keyboard apps could be exploited to reveal users' keystrokes to nefarious actors. The findings come from the Citizen Lab, which discovered weaknesses in eight of nine apps from vendors like Baidu, Honor, iFlytek, OPPO, Samsung, Tencent, Viv...

CISO Perspectives on Complying with Cybersecurity Regulations

Compliance requirements are meant to increase cybersecurity transparency and accountability. As cyber threats increase, so do the number of compliance frameworks and the specificity of the security controls, policies, and activities they include. For CISOs and their teams, that means compliance i...

eScan Antivirus Update Mechanism Exploited to Spread Backdoors and Miners

A new malware campaign has been exploiting the updating mechanism of the eScan antivirus software to distribute backdoors and cryptocurrency miners like XMRig through a long-standing threat codenamed GuptiMiner targeting large corporate networks. Cybersecurity firm Avast said the activity is the...

CoralRaider Malware Campaign Exploits CDN Cache to Spread Info-Stealers

A new ongoing malware campaign has been observed distributing three different stealers, such as CryptBot, LummaC2, and Rhadamanthys hosted on Content Delivery Network CDN cache domains since at least February 2024. Cisco Talos has attributed the activity with moderate confidence to a threat actor...

Apache Cordova App Harness Targeted in Dependency Confusion Attack

Researchers have identified a dependency confusion vulnerability impacting an archived Apache project called Cordova App Harness. Dependency confusion attacks take place owing to the fact that package managers check the public repositories before private registries, thus allowing a threat actor t...

Webinar: Learn Proactive Supply Chain Threat Hunting Techniques

In the high-stakes world of cybersecurity, the battleground has shifted. Supply chain attacks have emerged as a potent threat, exploiting the intricate web of interconnected systems and third-party dependencies to breach even the most formidable defenses. But what if you could turn the tables and...

Police Chiefs Call for Solutions to Access Encrypted Data in Serious Crime Cases

European Police Chiefs said that the complementary partnership between law enforcement agencies and the technology industry is at risk due to end-to-end encryption E2EE. They called on the industry and governments to take urgent action to ensure public safety across social media platforms. "Priva...

Unmasking the True Cost of Cyberattacks: Beyond Ransom and Recovery

Cybersecurity breaches can be devastating for both individuals and businesses alike. While many people tend to focus on understanding how and why they were targeted by such breaches, there's a larger, more pressing question: What is the true financial impact of a cyberattack? According to researc...

German Authorities Issue Arrest Warrants for Three Suspected Chinese Spies

German authorities said they have issued arrest warrants against three citizens on suspicion of spying for China. The full names of the defendants were not disclosed by the Office of the Federal Prosecutor aka Generalbundesanwalt, but it includes Herwig F., Ina F., and Thomas R. "The suspects are...

U.S. Imposes Visa Restrictions on 13 Linked to Commercial Spyware Misuse

The U.S. Department of State on Monday said it's taking steps to impose visa restrictions on 13 individuals who are allegedly involved in the development and sale of commercial spyware or who are immediately family members of those involved in such businesses. "These individuals have facilitated ...

Russia's APT28 Exploited Windows Print Spooler Flaw to Deploy 'GooseEgg' Malware

The Russia-linked nation-state threat actor tracked as APT28 weaponized a security flaw in the Microsoft Windows Print Spooler component to deliver a previously unknown custom malware called GooseEgg. The post-compromise tool, which is said to have been used since at least June 2020 and possibly ...

ToddyCat Hacker Group Uses Advanced Tools for Industrial-Scale Data Theft

The threat actor known as ToddyCat has been observed using a wide range of tools to retain access to compromised environments and steal valuable data. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky characterized the adversary as relying on various programs to harvest data on an "industrial scale" from...

Pentera's 2024 Report Reveals Hundreds of Security Events per Week, Highlighting the Criticality of Continuous Validation

Over the past two years, a shocking 51% of organizations surveyed in a leading industry report have been compromised by a cyberattack. Yes, over half. And this, in a world where enterprises deploy an average of 53 different security solutions to safeguard their digital domain. Alarming? Absolutel...

MITRE Corporation Breached by Nation-State Hackers Exploiting Ivanti Flaws

The MITRE Corporation revealed that it was the target of a nation-state cyber attack that exploited two zero-day flaws in Ivanti Connect Secure appliances starting in January 2024. The intrusion led to the compromise of its Networked Experimentation, Research, and Virtualization Environment NERVE...

Ransomware Double-Dip: Re-Victimization in Cyber Extortion

Between crossovers - Do threat actors play dirty or desperate? In our dataset of over 11,000 victim organizations that have experienced a Cyber Extortion / Ransomware attack, we noticed that some victims re-occur. Consequently, the question arises why we observe a re-victimization and whether or...

Researchers Uncover Windows Flaws Granting Hackers Rootkit-Like Powers

New research has found that the DOS-to-NT path conversion process could be exploited by threat actors to achieve rootkit-like capabilities to conceal and impersonate files, directories, and processes. "When a user executes a function that has a path argument in Windows, the DOS path at which the...

Microsoft Warns: North Korean Hackers Turn to AI-Fueled Cyber Espionage

Microsoft has revealed that North Korea-linked state-sponsored cyber actors have begun to use artificial intelligence AI to make its operations more effective and efficient. "They are learning to use tools powered by AI large language models LLM to make their operations more efficient and...

New RedLine Stealer Variant Disguised as Game Cheats Using Lua Bytecode for Stealth

A new information stealer has been found leveraging Lua bytecode for added stealth and sophistication, findings from McAfee Labs reveal. The cybersecurity firm has assessed it to be a variant of a known malware called RedLine Stealer owing to the fact that the command-and-control C2 server IP...

Palo Alto Networks Discloses More Details on Critical PAN-OS Flaw Under Attack

Palo Alto Networks has shared more details of a critical security flaw impacting PAN-OS that has come under active exploitation in the wild by malicious actors. The company described the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-3400 CVSS score: 10.0, as "intricate" and a combination of two bugs in...

Critical Update: CrushFTP Zero-Day Flaw Exploited in Targeted Attacks

Users of the CrushFTP enterprise file transfer software are being urged to update to the latest version following the discovery of a security flaw that has come under targeted exploitation in the wild. "CrushFTP v11 versions below 11.1 have a vulnerability where users can escape their VFS and...

BlackTech Targets Tech, Research, and Gov Sectors New 'Deuterbear' Tool

Technology, research, and government sectors in the Asia-Pacific region have been targeted by a threat actor called BlackTech as part of a recent cyber attack wave. The intrusions pave the way for an updated version of modular backdoor dubbed Waterbear as well as its enhanced successor referred t...

How Attackers Can Own a Business Without Touching the Endpoint

Attackers are increasingly making use of "networkless" attack techniques targeting cloud apps and identities. Here's how attackers can and are compromising organizations – without ever needing to touch the endpoint or conventional networked systems and services. Before getting into the details of...

Akira Ransomware Gang Extorts $42 Million; Now Targets Linux Servers

Threat actors behind the Akira ransomware group have extorted approximately $42 million in illicit proceeds after breaching the networks of more than 250 victims as of January 1, 2024. "Since March 2023, Akira ransomware has impacted a wide range of businesses and critical infrastructure entities...

Hackers Target Middle East Governments with Evasive "CR4T" Backdoor

Government entities in the Middle East have been targeted as part of a previously undocumented campaign to deliver a new backdoor dubbed CR4T. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said it discovered the activity in February 2024, with evidence suggesting that it may have been active since at...

OfflRouter Malware Evades Detection in Ukraine for Almost a Decade

Select Ukrainian government networks have remained infected with a malware called OfflRouter since 2015. Cisco Talos said its findings are based on an analysis of over 100 confidential documents that were infected with the VBA macro virus and uploaded to the VirusTotal malware scanning platform...

FIN7 Cybercrime Group Targeting U.S. Auto Industry with Carbanak Backdoor

The infamous cybercrime syndicate known as FIN7 has been linked to a spear-phishing campaign targeting the U.S. automotive industry to deliver a known backdoor called Carbanak aka Anunak. "FIN7 identified employees at the company who worked in the IT department and had higher levels of...

Recover from Ransomware in 5 Minutes—We will Teach You How!

Super Low RPO with Continuous Data Protection: Dial Back to Just Seconds Before an Attack Zerto, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, can help you detect and recover from ransomware in near real-time. This solution leverages continuous data protection CDP to ensure all workloads have the lowest...

New Android Trojan 'SoumniBot' Evades Detection with Clever Tricks

A new Android trojan called SoumniBot has been detected in the wild targeting users in South Korea by leveraging weaknesses in the manifest extraction and parsing procedure. The malware is "notable for an unconventional approach to evading analysis and detection, namely obfuscation of the Android...