Faulty Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Patch Pulled Back

Microsoft announced Wednesday afternoon that it has pulled MS13-061, one of the patches issued yesterday for vulnerabilities in Exchange Server 2013. Microsoft said the patch is causing issues with the content index for mailbox databases. Organizations would still be able to send and receive emai...

Microsoft Submits Tracking Protection Proposal to W3C

Microsoft has submitted its proposal for web tracking protection to the W3C for consideration as a standard, hoping to get the organization’s stamp of approval for its browser privacy technology. The proposal is in the earliest stages of the process and has not been approved, a process that can...

DeadBolt Ransomware Resurfaces to Hit QNAP Again

DeadBolt ransomware has resurfaced in a new wave of attacks on QNAP that begin in mid-March and signals a new targeting of the Taiwan-based network-attached storage NAS devices by the fledgling threat, researchers said. Researchers from Censys, which provides attack-surface management solutions,...

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...

Lawsuit Claims Flawed Facial Recognition Led to Man’s Wrongful Arrest

Racial bias against non-white skin in facial recognition landed Nijeer Parks ten days in jail in 2019 after the technology falsely identified him as a shoplifting suspect, a new lawsuit says. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t been to the location of the crime, a Hampton Inn hotel in Woodbridge, New...

WordPress, Apache Struts Attract the Most Bug Exploits

WordPress and Apache Struts vulnerabilities were the most-targeted by cybercriminals in web and application frameworks in 2019 – while input-validation bugs edged out cross-site scripting XSS as the most-weaponized weakness type. That’s according to the RiskSense Spotlight Report, which analyzed...

Critical Adobe Flash, ColdFusion Vulnerabilities Patched

Adobe has issued fixes for critical flaws in Adobe Flash and ColdFusion that could lead to arbitrary code execution if exploited. Overall, Adobe patched 11 vulnerabilities across Adobe Flash, Adobe ColdFusion and Adobe Campaign – including five critical flaws – during its regularly-scheduled...

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,...

Roaming Mantis Expands Android Backdoor to Europe

The Roaming Mantis Android malware campaign has buzzed into Europe, quickly infesting France in particular, where there have been 66,789 downloads of the group’s specific remote access trojan RAT as of January. The campaign pushes the Android RAT known as Wroba aka Moqhao or XLoader onto victim...

Apple Patches Three Actively Exploited Zero-Days, Part of iOS Emergency Update

Apple continues to put out potential security fires by patching zero-day vulnerabilities, releasing an emergency update this week to patch three more recently discovered in iOS after a major software update in November already fixed three that were being actively exploited. The newly patched bugs...

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...

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...

Dangerous Kubernetes Bugs Allow Authentication Bypass, DoS

A pair of bugs in the Kubernetes open-source cloud container software can be “highly dangerous” under some Kubernetes configurations, according to researchers. The flaws, CVE-2019-16276 and CVE-2019-11253, have been patched in Kubernetes builds 1.14.8, 1.15.5 and 1.16.2. Exploitation of the first...

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 ...

Alleged Mariposa Botmaster in Court

One of the men authorities allege to have been behind the massive–and now dead–Mariposa botnet, has gone on trial in Slovenia, more than two years after the initial arrests and takedown of the network. Mariposa was one of the first handful of botnets that authorities and security researchers work...

The Rise of the Rogue AV Testers

By Costin Raiu Recently, I was sitting around with a number of colleagues from Kaspersky Lab, discussing everybody’s favorite subject: the state of anti-virus testing these days. During the talks, somebody brought up the name of a new, obscure testing organization in the Far East. Nobody else had...

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...

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,...

Google, Intel Warn on 'Zero-Click' Kernel Bug in Linux-Based IoT Devices

Google and Intel are warning of a high-severity flaw in BlueZ, the Linux Bluetooth protocol stack that provides support for core Bluetooth layers and protocols to Linux-based internet of things IoT devices. Click to Register! According to Google, the vulnerability affects users of Linux kernel...

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...

Citrix Accelerates Patch Rollout For Critical RCE Flaw

Citrix has quickened its rollout of patches for a critical vulnerability CVE-2019-19781 in the Citrix Application Delivery Controller ADC and Citrix Gateway products, on the heels of recent proof-of-concept exploits and skyrocketing exploitation attempts. Several versions of the products still...

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...

Four-Year-Old Critical Linux Wi-Fi Bug Allows System Compromise

A critical Linux bug has been discovered that could allow attackers to fully compromise vulnerable machines. A fix has been proposed but has not yet been incorporated into the Linux kernel. The flaw CVE-2019-17666, which was classified as critical in severity, exists in the “rtlwifi” driver, whic...

Post-Perimeter Security: Addressing Evolving Mobile Enterprise Threats

In the era of the cloud, enterprises house sensitive corporate data outside of the traditional perimeter; employees can access this from any endpoint, including mobile devices, and from any network. This presents a host of new challenges for companies looking to protect their sensitive informatio...

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...

WordPress Patches 3-Year-Old High-Severity RCE Bug

WordPress released a 5.5.2 update to its ubiquitous web publishing software platform. The update patches a high-severity bug, which could allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to take over a targeted website via a narrowly tailored denial-of-service attack. In all, the WordPress Security and...

Google Warns of Android Zero-Day Bug Under Active Attack

Google is warning of an Android zero-day flaw actively being exploited in the wild, which gives an attacker full control over 18 phone models including its flagship Pixel handset and devices made by Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi. Google’s Project Zero warned late Thursday that it suspected the...

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...

Critical DoS Bug Bubbles Up in Facebook Fizz TLS 1.3 Project

A critical denial-of-service DoS vulnerability in Facebook’s open-source implementation of the transport layer security TLS 1.3 protocol could cause an infinite loop – thus disrupting any web service that relies on it. Kevin Backhouse, a researcher at Semmle, discovered the bug in the project...

The Dark Sides of Modern Cars: Hacking and Data Collection

Like an unstoppable incoming tide, connectivity has quietly inundated the automobiles we so love to drive. In less than a decade, amazing driver-assist mechanisms and must-have infotainment systems have swept into the dashboards of many popular car models for sale today. And we’re just at the sta...

Proofpoint Warns Of New MSIL/Crimson Tied To Cyber Espionage

Diplomats and military personnel in India have been victimized in targeted espionage attacks that use a number of means of infection including phishing and watering hole sites. Researchers at Proofpoint this week published a report on Operation Transparent Tribe, which was ongoing as of Feb. 11...

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...

SAP Bugs Under Active Cyberattack

Active cyberattacks on known vulnerabilities in SAP systems could lead to full control of unsecured SAP applications, researchers are warning. Adversaries are carrying out a range of attacks, according to an alert from SAP and security firm Onapsis issued Tuesday – including theft of sensitive...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

‘PwnedPiper’: Devastating Bugs in >80% of Hospital Pneumatics

Researchers have discovered nine vulnerabilities – collectively dubbed PwnedPiper – in the pneumatic tube systems PTS used in more than 80 percent of major hospitals in North America. The bugs, in Swisslog Healthcare’s Translogic PTS, include hard-coded passwords, unencrypted connections and...

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...

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...

SEMrush Plugs Remote Code Execution Bug in Its SaaS Platform

UPDATE Search engine optimization and analytics firm SEMrush patched a remote code execution vulnerability that allowed an attacker to send a malicious image to its service and generate a reverse shell, a typical first stage in a cyberattack. Public disclosure of the vulnerability was Monday when...

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...

PyRoMine Uses NSA Exploit for Monero Mining and Backdoors

The ShadowBrokers’ release of a trove of National Security Agency exploits last year appears to be the gift that keeps on giving, to the hacker community at least: A fresh malware that uses the EternalRomance tool has hit the scene, with Monero-mining as the stated goal. However, more damaging...

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...

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...

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...