NSA: 5 Security Bugs Under Active Nation-State Cyberattack

The Feds are warning that nation-state actors are once again after U.S. assets, this time in a spate of cyberattacks that exploit five vulnerabilities that affect VPN solutions, collaboration-suite software and virtualization technologies. According to the U.S. National Security Agency NSA, which...

COVID-19 Vaccine Spear-Phishing Attacks Jump 26 Percent

As Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson roll out COVID-19 vaccines cybercriminals are preying on the those hungry to get in line for immunization. Between October and January the average number of COVID-19 vaccine-related spear-phishing attacks grew 26 percent, said Barracuda Networks researcher...

Malaysia Air Downplays Frequent-Flyer Data Breach

Malaysia Airlines sent out an email to frequent flyer program members assuring them that there’s “no evidence” their personal data has been misused in the wake of a supply-chain attack via a third-party vendor. However, experts think that’s unlikely. And, they say the repercussions could be...

UPDATE: Canon Ransomware Attack Results in Leaked Data, Report

UPDATE The Maze ransomware gang has reportedly leaked Canon U.S.A. data online. Researchers said in April that the Maze gang had created a dedicated web page, which lists the identities of its non-cooperative victims who don’t pay ransoms and regularly publishes samples of the stolen data. This s...

CISA: Nation-State Attackers Likely to Take Aim at Palo Alto Networks Bug

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA is warning that foreign hackers are likely to exploit a newly disclosed, critical vulnerability in a raft of Palo Alto Networks firewalls and enterprise VPN appliances, which allows for device takeover without authentication. The...

A Brisk Private Trade in Zero-Days Widens Their Use

There were more zero-days exploited in 2019 than any of the previous three years, according to telemetry from FireEye Mandiant. The firm said that’s likely due to more zero-days coming up for sale by cyber-weapons dealers like NSO Group; a growing commercial market has made such tools much more...

Fallout EK Retools for a Fresh New 2019 Look

A new version of the Fallout exploit kit EK has emerged, featuring new exploits and fresh payloads, including the GandCrab ransomware. The development shows that EKs have a lot of life yet left in them, researchers say. The Fallout EK generally finds its victims by way of malvertising campaigns,...

Researchers Crack Furtim, SFG Malware Connection

New research is challenging what security researchers know about Furtim, a new malware strain that has been compared to Stuxnet because of its believed targeting of industrial controls in energy companies. According to security experts at Damballa, Furtim and the recently discovered SFG malware a...

It's The Stupidity, Stupid: How Absurd Pitches Help Online Scammers Find Their Marks

Do you find e-mail pleas for help from the widow of Democratic Republic of the Congo strongman Mobutu Sese Seko unconvincing or downright silly? That may be the point, according to Microsoft researcher Cormac Herley. The outlandish claims of Nigerian Letter – or “419” – scams serve a critical...

Oil & Gas Targeted in Year-Long Espionage Campaign

A sophisticated campaign targeting large international companies in the oil and gas sector has been underway for more than a year, researchers said, spreading common remote access trojans RATs for cyber-espionage purposes. According to Intezer analysis, spear-phishing emails with malicious...

Why This New Cybergang is Heralding a New Age For BEC

A newly-uncovered business email compromise BEC cybergang, dubbed Silent Starling, has found success using a tricky technique to swindle funds from more than 500 organizations worldwide. The West African cybergang has been using a method that researchers with Agari – who discovered them in late...

Nation-State Actors Go All-In on Mobile Malware

APTs, including a range of nation-state groups operating in China, North Korea, Pakistan and Russia, are shifting their malware development focus to target mobile users for intelligence gathering, financial gain and disruption of national rivals. That’s according to CrowdStrike’s Mobile Threat...

Microsoft Management Console Bugs Allow Windows Takeover

A Windows interface that allows system administrators to configure and monitor systems from an admin level has several vulnerabilities that would allow an attacker to install malicious payloads and even take over a target, privileged machine. The bugs are grouped under one umbrella CVE-2019-0948...

Phishing Campaign Delivers Nasty Ransomware, Credential-Theft Two-Punch

An array of phishing emails harboring Word attachments with embedded macros have been infecting systems with a deadly malware and ransomware duo. The campaign, spotted by researchers at Carbon Black, has hit infected systems with a lethal attack combination that harvests credentials, gathers syst...

Google Chrome Bug Actively Exploited as Zero-Day

Google has updated its Stable channel for the desktop version of Chrome, to address a zero-day security vulnerability that’s being actively exploited in the wild. The bug, tracked as CVE-2022-1096, is a type-confusion issue in the V8 JavaScript engine, which is an open-source engine used by Chrom...

Cyberattacks Launch Against Vietnamese Human-Rights Activists

Human-rights activists are being targeted by cyberattacks as part of a wider effort by the Vietnamese state to censor anyone speaking out against the government, Amnesty International’s Security Lab alleges. Ocean Lotus, a well-known threat actor dating back to 2013, is behind the spyware campaig...

Troy Hunt: 'Messy' Password Problem Isn't Getting Better

LONDON, UK – The security world is facing a major issue that has led to widespread breaches, data exposure, and more – and it all stems from millions of insecure passwords used for everything from enterprise PCs to internet of things IoT devices. Poor password hygiene – including reusing password...

Audit of GitHub SSH Keys Finds Many Still Vulnerable to Old Debian Bug

An audit of the SSH keys associated with more than a million GitHub accounts shows that some users have weak, easily factorable keys and many more are using keys that are still vulnerable to the Debian OpenSSL bug disclosed seven years ago. The public SSH keys that users associate with their GitH...

Tool Scans for RTF Files Spreading Malware in Targeted Attacks

Exploits embedded inside Microsoft Office documents such as Word, PDFs and Excel spreadsheets have been at the core of many targeted attacks during the past 24 months. Detection of these attack methods is improving and nimble hackers are recognizing the need for new avenues into enterprise...

‘CatalanGate’ Spyware Infections Tied to NSO Group

An unknown zero-click exploit in Apple’s iMessage was used by Israeli-based NSO Group to plant either Pegasus or Candiru malware on iPhones owned by politicians, journalists and activists. Citizen Lab, in collaboration with Catalan-based researchers, released the finding in a report on Monday tha...

CVS Health Records for 1.1 Billion Customers Exposed

More than 1 billion records for CVS Health customers were left in the database of a third-party, unnamed vendor – exposed, unprotected, online. Researchers said the data points revealed could be strung together to create an extremely personal snapshot of someones’s medical situation. The glitch i...

Can Nanotech Secure IoT Devices From the Inside-Out?

Another day, another incident of internet-of-things IoT gadgets falling flat on their faces and spilling users’ privacy, if not getting hooked into a botnet, used for cryptomining or opening a network backdoor that allows intruders to move laterally through a network. It’s only Wednesday, but...

Twitter Hack Update: What We Know (and What We Don't)

UPDATED 7/18 at 12:50 p.m. ET Earlier this week, Twitter locked down thousands of verified accounts, including the accounts of Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Apple, Uber and others, after it became clear that hackers had been able to compromise them. The tip-off? Suddenly these high-profile...

Oracle Ties Previous All-Time Patch High with January Updates

Oracle has patched 334 vulnerabilities across all of its product families in its January 2020 quarterly Critical Patch Update CPU. Out of these, 43 are critical/severe flaws carrying CVSS scores of 9.1 and above. The CPU ties for Oracle’s previous all-time high for number of patches issued, in Ju...

Cyberattackers Target UPS Back-Up Power Devices in Mission-Critical Environments

Cyberattackers are targeting uninterruptible power supply UPS devices, which provide battery backup power during power surges and outages. UPS devices are usually used in mission-critical environments, safeguarding critical infrastructure installations and important computer systems and IT...

TikTok Riddled With Security Flaws

Researchers say they have discovered several major vulnerabilities in the short form video app TikTok. The reported vulnerabilities come as scrutiny around the Chinese-owned platform increases. Researchers say the most serious vulnerability in the platform could allow attackers to remotely take...

Microsoft’s May Patch Tuesday Updates Cause Windows AD Authentication Errors

Microsoft is alerting customers that its May Patch Tuesday update is causing authentications errors and failures tied to Windows Active Directory Domain Services. In a Friday update, Microsoft said it was investigating the issue. The warning comes amid shared reports of multiple services and...

Critical RCE Vulnerability in ForgeRock OpenAM Under Active Attack

Attackers are actively exploiting a critical, pre-authorization remote-code execution RCE vulnerability in the popular Access Management platform from digital identity management firm ForgeRock. Access Management, a commercial access-management platform, is based on the OpenAM open-source...

DNSpooq Flaws Allow DNS Hijacking of Millions of Devices

Researchers have uncovered a set of flaws in dnsmasq, popular open-source software used for caching Domain Name System DNS responses for home and commercial routers and servers. The set of seven flaws are comprised of buffer overflow issues and flaws allowing for DNS cache-poisoning attacks also...

Cisco Webex Bug Allows Remote Code Execution

Cisco Systems has fixed two high-severity vulnerabilities in its products, including one in its popular Webex video conferencing platform that could enable a remote attacker to execute commands. The high-severity Webex flaw exists in the web-based management interface of Cisco Webex Video Mesh, a...

Cisco Patches 13 High-Severity Router and Switch Bugs

Cisco Systems released patches for 29 bugs Wednesday that addressed flaws in a wide range of its products including routers and switches running the IOS XE networking software. Thirteen of the vulnerabilities revealed are rated high severity. The bulk of the high-severity vulnerabilities are tied...

Fake Windows 8 Key Generators Found Tricking Users

Attackers continue to exploit the buzz behind the launch of Windows 8, Microsoft’s latest operating system. The latest attack attempts to trick users into using fake key generators that claim they’ll install the software to computers free of charge. Key generators, or keygens, are programs that...

APT ‘Aquatic Panda’ Targets Universities with Log4Shell Exploit Tools

Cyber criminals, under the moniker Aquatic Panda, are the latest advanced persistent threat group APT to exploit the Log4Shell vulnerability. Researchers from CrowdStrike Falcon OverWatch recently disrupted the threat actors using Log4Shell exploit tools on a vulnerable VMware installation during...

Microsoft Issues Windows 10 Workaround Fix for ‘SeriousSAM’ Bug

A privilege escalation bug, affecting versions of Windows 10, received a workaround fix by Microsoft Wednesday to prevent attackers from accessing data and creating new accounts on compromised systems. The bug, dubbed SeriousSAM, affects the Security Accounts Manager SAM database in all versions ...

Exchange Cyberattacks Escalate as Microsoft Rolls One-Click Fix

As dangerous attacks accelerate against Microsoft Exchange Servers in the wake of the disclosure around the ProxyLogon group of security bugs, a public proof-of-concept PoC whirlwind has started up. It’s all leading to a feeding frenzy of cyber-activity. The good news, however, is that Microsoft...

Masslogger Swipes Outlook, Chrome Credentials

Cybercriminals are targeting Windows users with a new variant of the Masslogger trojan, which is spyware designed to swipe victims’ credentials from Microsoft Outlook, Google Chrome and various instant-messenger accounts. Researchers uncovered the campaign targeting users in Italy, Latvia and...

Facebook Removed Tens of Thousands of Apps Post-Cambridge Analytica

Facebook said it has suspended tens of thousands of apps as part of its ongoing investigation into how third-party apps on its platform collect, handle and utilize users’ personal data. The results of the investigation, launched in March 2018 in response to Facebook’s infamous Cambridge Analytica...

MS12-020 RDP Exploit Found, Researchers Say Code May Have Leaked From Security Vendor

There is a confirmed legitimate working exploit for the MS12-020 RDP vulnerability in Windows circulating already and researchers say it is capable of either crashing or causing a denial-of-service condition on vulnerable machines. Microsoft has warned customers about the possibility of the explo...

Molson Coors Cracks Open a Cyberattack Investigation

Another high-profile company has been hit with a cyber attack that’s causing a major disruption to its business. Brewing company Molson Coors acknowledged on Thursday that it has “experienced a systems outage that was caused by a cybersecurity incident,” according to a Form 8-K filed with the SEC...

CISA Orders Fed Agencies to Patch Exchange Servers

Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s announcement about active cyber-espionage campaigns that are exploiting four serious security vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server, the U.S. government is mandating patching for the issues. The news comes as security firms report escalating numbers of relat...

BlueKeep Attacks Have Arrived, Are Initially Underwhelming

The wave of BlueKeep attacks that security experts predicted could take down systems globally have arrived, but they are not in showing the form nor the destructive impact experts initially feared. Security researchers have seen evidence of the first wave of attacks on the zero-day Windows Remote...

Microsoft Internet Explorer Zero-Day Flaw Addressed in Out-of-Band Security Update

Microsoft has released out-of-band security updates addressing two vulnerabilities – including an Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability being actively exploited in the wild. The Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability CVE-2019-1367 is a remote code execution flaw that could enable an attacker...

ThreatList: DMARC Adoption Nonexistent at 80% of Orgs

About 80 percent of company web domains don’t have standard email authentication protections in place. That’s according to 250ok’s Global DMARC Adoption 2019 report, which analyzed 25,700 domains in the education, e-commerce, legal, financial services, SaaS and nonprofit sectors, as well as the...

Threatpost News Wrap Podcast For Jan. 25

Threatpost editors Tom Spring, Tara Seals and Lindsey O’Donnell discuss the biggest news from this week. That includes a rare “emergency directive” issued by the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday, which warned that multiple government domains have been targeted by DNS hijacking attacks...

GitHub Doubles Maximum Bug Bounty Payouts

Almost a year to the day since Github announced its bug bounty program, the Git repository said yesterday that it will double its maximum payout to $10,000. Ben Toews, a GitHub staffer, said yesterday that since the launch of the GitHub Security Bug Bounty, 73 previously unknown vulnerabilities...

No-Joke Borat RAT Propagates Ransomware, DDoS

Attackers are using a newly released remote access trojan RAT to spread ransomware and distributed denial of service DDoS — in addition to the traditional RAT function of backdooring victims’ systems. Researchers at Cyble Research Labs discovered the RAT, which they dubbed Borat RAT because it us...

WordPress File Management Plugin Riddled with Critical Bugs

A critical cross-site scripting XSS bug impacts WordPress sites running the Frontend File Manager plugin and allows remote unauthenticated users to inject JavaScript code into vulnerable websites to create admin user accounts. The bug is one of six critical flaws impacting the WordPress plugin...

5 Tips to Prevent and Mitigate Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware attacks cost companies over $100 billion a year. Making matters worse, the overwhelming majority of ransomware attacks now include a threat to leak stolen data if the ransom isn’t paid, a technique called “double extortion.” Cybercriminals like ransomware because the entry barrier is...

Ryuk Ransomware Attack Sprung by Frugal Student

A European biomolecular research institute involved in COVID-19 research lost a week’s worth of research data, all thanks to a Ryuk ransomware attack traced back to a student trying to save money by buying unlicensed software. Security researchers at Sophos described the attack in a report...

Publicly Attacked Microsoft IIS Zero Day Unlikely to be Patched

Microsoft is unlikely to patch a zero-day vulnerability in an older version of its Internet Information Services IIS webserver that’s been publicly attacked since last July and August. Two researchers from the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou posted a proof-of-concept exploit for...