Malware Dropper Built to Target European Energy Company

A malware dropper with designs on specific targets was found in a private underground forum and is likely the predecessor to the Furtim malware that was uncovered in May. Researchers at SentinelOne today published a report that says the dropper sample they investigated, which they’re calling SFG,...

IBM Squashes Critical Remote Code-Execution Flaw

IBM has patched a critical buffer-overflow error that affects Big Blue’s Integration Designer toolset, which helps enterprises create business processes that integrate applications and data. If exploited, the flaw could enable remote code execution. Click to Register The flaw CVE-2020-27221 has a...

ScarCruft APT Adds Bluetooth Harvester to its Malware Bag of Tricks

The ScarCruft Korean-speaking APT is changing up its espionage tactics to include an unusual piece of malware devoted to harvesting Bluetooth information – while also showing some overlap with the DarkHotel APT. An analysis of ScarCruft’s binary infection procedure by Kaspersky Lab shows that in ...

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...

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...

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...

Microsoft Patches Actively Exploited Windows Zero-Day

In September’s Patch Tuesday crop of security fixes, Microsoft released patches for 66 CVEs, three of which are rated critical, and one of which – the Windows MSHTML zero-day – has been under active attack for nearly two weeks. One other bug is listed as publicly known but isn’t yet being...

Microsoft Breaks Silence on Barrage of ProxyShell Attacks

Microsoft has broken its silence on the recent barrage of attacks on several ProxyShell vulnerabilities in that were highlighted by a researcher at Black Hat earlier this month. The company released an advisory late Wednesday letting customers know that threat actors may use unpatched Exchange...

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...

PoC Exploits Published For Microsoft Crypto Bug

Two proof-of-concept PoC exploits have been publicly released for the recently-patched crypto-spoofing vulnerability found by the National Security Agency and reported to Microsoft. The vulnerability CVE-2020-0601 could enable an attacker to spoof a code-signing certificate necessary for validati...

Office for Mac Users Warned of Malicious SYLK Files

Microsoft Office for Mac users are being warned that malicious SYLK files are sneaking past endpoint defenses even when the “disable all macros without notification” is turned on. This leaves systems vulnerable to a remote, unauthenticated attackers who can execute arbitrary code. The warning com...

We COVID-Clicked on Garbage, Report Finds: Podcast

Squawking pets, stir-crazy kids, Tiger King: Is it any wonder that work-from-home humans clicked on malicious CAPTCHAs at the astonishing rate of 50 times more than the non-pandemic year before? In the company’s annual Human Factor 2021 report assessing how the threat landscape morphed over the...

Euros Football Fever Nets Dumb Passwords

The European soccer championship a.k.a. the Euros is stoking maximum football fever, which has slopped over into easy-to-crack passwords. Such as, say, “football.” That password is of course easy as pie to crack via a dictionary attack – a type of brute-force attack that involves trying thousands...

Data from 500M LinkedIn Users Posted for Sale Online

Personal data from more than 500 million LinkedIn users has been posted for sale online in yet another incident of threat actors scraping data from public profiles and slinging it online for potential cybercriminal misuse. Hackers posted an archive containing data they said includes LinkedIn IDs,...

Phishing Scam Cloaks Malware With Fake Google reCAPTCHA

A recently-discovered phishing scam was found peddling malware, using a new technique to mask its malicious landing page: A fake Google reCAPTCHA system. The campaign targeted a Polish bank and its users with emails, said researchers with Sucuri. These emails contained a link to a malicious PHP...

Sofacy APT28 Gang Using New Backdoors, Zero Days

A new analysis of the Sofacy APT gang, a Russian-speaking group carrying out targeted attacks against military and government offices for close to a decade, shows a relentless wave of intrusions peaking this summer against victims in a number of NATO countries and the Ukraine. Researchers at...

Malware Loader Abuses Google SEO to Expand Payload Delivery

The Gootloader malware loader, previously used for distributing the Gootkit malware family, has undergone what researchers call a “renaissance” when it comes to payload delivery. New research released this week paints Gootloader as an increasingly sophisticated loader framework, which has now...

Gaming Giant Capcom Hit By Ragnar Locker Ransomware: Report

Video game giant Capcom has reportedly been hit by a ransomware attack that affected access to certain systems – including email and file servers – and encrypted 1 terabyte TB of sensitive data. The Japanese video game developer and publisher has developed a number of multi-million selling game...

Adobe Warns of Critical Flaws in Flash Player, Framemaker

Adobe released patches for four critical flaws in Flash Player and in its Framemaker document processor as part of its regularly scheduled updates. The bugs, if exploited, could enable arbitrary code-execution. In Tuesday’s June Adobe security updates, critical flaws tied to three CVEs were patch...

Black Hat USA, DEF CON 28 Go Virtual

Cybersecurity conferences Black Hat USA and DEF CON 28 will not be held in person this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The conferences will both instead be transformed into completely virtualized events. Both back-to-back annual conferences were set to take place in Las Vegas this year; Bla...

Critical Citrix RCE Flaw Still Threatens 1,000s of Corporate LANs

About one in five of the 80,000 companies affected by a critical bug in the Citrix Application Delivery Controller ADC and Citrix Gateway are still at risk from a trivial attack on their internal operations. If exploited, the flaw could allow unauthenticated attackers to gain remote access to a...

Adobe Patches Five Critical Illustrator CC Flaws

Adobe has released patches for five critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Illustrator CC, its popular vector graphics editor tool, which if exploited could enable arbitrary code execution. Overall Adobe patched nine vulnerabilities as part of its regularly-scheduled updates on Tuesday, including five...

Millions of Dell PCs Vulnerable to Flaw in Third-Party Component

Millions of PCs made by Dell and other OEMs are vulnerable to a flaw stemming from a component in pre-installed SupportAssist software. The flaw could enable a remote attacker to completely takeover affected devices. The high-severity vulnerability CVE-2019-12280 stems from a component in...

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...

Six Flags to Pay $36M Over Collection of Fingerprints

Theme park operator Six Flags has agreed to pay $36 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over its acquisition of the fingerprint data of visitors to its theme parks. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled in the case Rosenbach v. Six Flags that collecting biometric data at premises’ gates by scanni...

Takeaways from the Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack

If you feel like you’ve read a lot about ransomware in recent months, it’s because these attacks have indeed intensified. In 2020, ransomware attacks surged by 150 percent, with the average payment size increasing by more than 170 percent. Some of the notable victims include United Health Service...

Prometei Botnet Could Fire Up APT-Style Attacks

A heretofore little-seen botnet dubbed Prometei is taking a page from advanced persistent threat APT cyberattackers: The malware is exploiting two of the Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities collectively known as ProxyLogon, in order to drop a Monero cryptominer on its targets. It’s also highly...

What's Next for Ransomware in 2021?

Ransomware works. That’s the simplest way to explain why incidents of ransomware attacks have sharply increased over the last year — with no end in sight. The number of ransomware attacks has jumped by 350 percent since 2018, the average ransom payment increased by more than 100 percent this year...

Brand-New Log4Shell Attack Vector Threatens Local Hosts

Defenders will once again be busy beavers this weekend: There’s an alternative attack vector for the ubiquitous Log4j vulnerability, which relies on a basic Javascript WebSocket connection to trigger remote code-execution RCE on servers locally, via drive-by compromise. In other words, an exploit...

Metamorfo Banking Trojan Abuses AutoHotKey

The Metamorfo banking trojan is abusing AutoHotKey AHK and the AHK compiler to evade detection and steal users’ information, researchers have warned. AHK is a scripting language for Windows originally developed to create keyboard shortcuts i.e., hot keys. According to the Cofense Phishing Defense...

Cisco Patches Six Critical Bugs in UCS Gear and Switches

Cisco Systems is warning of six critical vulnerabilities impacting a wide range of its products, including its Unified Computing System server line and its small business 220 Series Smart switches. In all instances of the vulnerabilities, a remote unauthenticated attacker could take over targeted...

Security Watch: Elon Musk's NeuraLink Links Brains to iPhones via Bluetooth

Technologist Elon Musk has unveiled a plan for embedding Bluetooth-enabled implants into a human brain, to enable disabled persons to regain motor and cognitive function. IT experts however noted that along with FDA approval, the idea faces hurdles in the form of significant scrutiny on the...

News Wrap: Amazon Echo Privacy, Facebook FTC Fines and Biometrics Regulation

Data privacy has been an outstanding theme this past week, and the Threatpost team discussed the biggest privacy related news. In the news wrap podcast for April 26, the team discussed the backstories behind several reports from the week, including: Facebook potentially facing Federal Trade...

ThreatList: DDoS Attack Sizes Drop 85 Percent Post FBI Crackdown

The average size of distributed denial of service DDoS attacks decreased significantly, dropping by 85 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018. Researchers with NexusGuard said in a Tuesday report shared with Threatpost, that the number of DDoS attacks also dipped significantly, sinking by almost 1...

Microsoft Invents New Way To Measure Online Safety (And Finds That Consumers Stink At It)

Computer users are taking steps to mitigate online security threats, but still only score a paltry 34 out of 100 – a solid “F” – according to a new study by Microsoft. The study, sponsored by Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group TwC, introduces a new metric, the Microsoft Computing Safety Inde...

Microsoft Addresses 3 Zero-Days & 3 Critical Bugs for March Patch Tuesday

Microsoft has addressed 71 security vulnerabilities in its scheduled March Patch Tuesday update – only three of which are rated critical in severity. The other 68 are all rated “important.” Three of the bugs are listed as publicly known zero-days, but none of them are listed as having been...

Intel Sued Under Wiretapping Laws for Tracking User Activity on its Website

Intel is being sued under a Florida state wiretapping law for using software on its website to capture keystrokes and mouse movements of people that visit it. The case is one of many that private citizens have brought against companies to dispute their use of session-replay technology. A...

Critical DNS Bug Opens Windows Servers to Infrastructure Takeover

A critical Microsoft Windows Server bug opens company networks to hackers, allowing them to potentially seize control of IT infrastructures. Microsoft issued a patch for the bug on Tuesday as part of its July Patch Tuesday roundup. It turns out that the bug is 17 years old. Impacted are Windows...

Microsoft Issues Out-Of-Band Security Update For Office, Paint 3D

Microsoft has released an out-of-band security update for Microsoft Office, Office 365 ProPlus and Paint 3D. The applications are affected by multiple Autodesk vulnerabilities that, if exploited, could enable remote code execution. The flaws, all rated “important” in severity, are tied to six CVE...

Norsk Hydro Calls Ransomware Attack 'Severe'

Aluminum giant Norsk Hydro has fallen victim to a serious ransomware attack that has forced it to shut down or isolate several plants and send several more into manual mode, the company said on Tuesday morning. Oslo, Norway-based Norsk Hydro, one of the world’s largest makers of aluminum, employs...

Local Windows Admins Can Hijack Sessions Without Credentials

A researcher has exposed how attackers with local admin privileges could use native command-line Windows tools to hijack other users’ sessions without credentials. Researcher Alexander Korznikov on Friday published a report in which he describes how he could, locally and remotely via Remote Deskt...

Safari Zero-Day Used in Malicious LinkedIn Campaign

Threat actors used a Safari zero-day flaw to send malicious links to government officials in Western Europe via LinkedIn before researchers from Google discovered and reported the vulnerability. That’s the word from researchers from Google Threat Analysis Group TAG and Google Project Zero, who...

Cobalt Strike Usage Explodes Among Cybercrooks

The use of Cobalt Strike – the legitimate, commercially available tool used by network penetration testers – by cybercrooks has shot through the roof, according to Proofpoint researchers, who say that the tool has now “gone fully mainstream in the crimeware world.” The researchers have tracked a...

FBI Clears ProxyLogon Web Shells from Hundreds of Orgs

The Feds have cleared malicious web shells from hundreds of vulnerable computers in the United States that had been compromised via the now-infamous ProxyLogon Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities. ProxyLogon comprises a group of security bugs affecting on-premises versions of Microsoft Exchange...

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...

Ryuk Ransomware Gang Uses Zerologon Bug for Lightning-Fast Attack

The Ryuk threat actors have struck again, moving from sending a phishing email to complete encryption across the victim’s network in just five hours. That breakneck speed is partially the result of the gang using the Zerologon privilege-escalation bug CVE-2020-1472, less than two hours after the...

Billions of Devices Open to Wi-Fi Eavesdropping Attacks

SAN FRANCISCO — A serious vulnerability in Wi-Fi chips has been discovered that affects billions of devices worldwide, according to researchers. It allows attackers to eavesdrop on Wi-Fi communications. The bug CVE-2019-15126 stems from the use of an all-zero encryption key in chips made by...

Lifeline Assistance Phone Users Targeted with 'Uninstallable' Adware

Government-funded, low-cost cell phones are shipping with pre-installed malware aimed at bombing users with unwanted ads, according to researchers. The UMX U686CL Android-based phone, which is made available to low-income citizens in the U.S. via the Lifeline Assistance Program for $35, uses a...

Amazon Plans Ring Facial Recognition-Based 'Watch List', Report

UPDATE Amazon is planning to use facial recognition software and its Ring smart home security devices to create an artificial-intelligence enabled “neighborhood watch list,” according to reports. According to internal documents reviewed by The Intercept, the “watch list” would automatically alert...

Windows Users at Risk From High-Severity Intel Software Flaw

Intel is warning of a high-severity vulnerability existing in its software that identifies the specification of Intel processors in Windows systems. The flaw could have an array of malicious impacts on affected systems, such as opening systems up to information disclosure or denial of service...