Active DoS Exploits for MS15-034 Under Way

UPDATE – Microsoft’s characterization of MS15-034 as a remote code execution vulnerability certainly has a lot of Windows server admins on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop. In the three days since the bulletin was released warning of a critical vulnerability in the HTTP protocol stack,...

Windows XP End of Life Breeding FUD, Legit Concerns

For those of you anticipating the start of a Walking Dead-style malware apocalypse next Tuesday, calm yourselves. The official end of security support for Windows XP is upon us, but it’s important to check some anxiety at the door and keep some perspective. “I’ve been a forensics investigator 14...

Another Destructive Wiper Targets Organizations in Ukraine

Researchers have discovered yet another destructive data-wiping malware targeting organizations in Ukraine, the third to be found in as many weeks attacking systems in the country that’s currently defending itself against a Russian physical invasion. A team from cybersecurity firm ESET on Monday...

Microsoft App Store Sizzling with New ‘Electron Bot’ Malware

A backdoor malware that can take over social-media accounts – including Facebook, Google and Soundcloud – has infiltrated Microsoft’s official store by cloning popular games such as Temple Run or Subway Surfer. The backdoor, dubbed Electron Bot, gives attackers complete control over compromised...

Conti Ransomware Gang Has Full Log4Shell Attack Chain

The Conti ransomware gang, which last week became the first professional crimeware outfit to adopt and weaponize the Log4Shell vulnerability, has now built up a holistic attack chain. The sophisticated Russia-based Conti group – which Palo Alto Networks has called “one of the most ruthless” of...

Bogus Android Clubhouse App Drops Credential-Swiping Malware

Researchers are warning of a fake version of the popular audio chat app Clubhouse, which delivers malware that steals login credentials for more than 450 apps. Clubhouse has burst on the social media scene over the past few months, gaining hype through its audio-chat rooms where participants can...

Major Gaming Companies Hit with Ransomware Linked to APT27

A recent slew of related ransomware attacks on top videogame companies has been associated with the notorious Chinese-linked APT27 threat group, suggesting that the advanced persistent threat APT is swapping up its historically espionage centralized tactics to adopt ransomware, a new report says...

Male Chastity Device Comes with Massive Security Flaws

Researchers at Pen Test Partners recently uncovered concerning security issues with a connected male chastity device and are calling on the entire connected sex toy industry — known as “teledildonics” — to make security a priority. The Qiui Cellmate chastity cage has a Bluetooth lock that could...

Black-T Malware Emerges From Cryptojacker Group TeamTNT

Researchers have discovered the latest cryptojacking malware gambit from TeamTNT, called Black-T. The variant builds on the group’s typical approach, with a few new — and sophisticated — extras. TeamTNT is known for its targeting of Amazon Web Services AWS credentials, to break into the cloud and...

Advanced Obfuscation Marks Widespread Info-Stealing Campaign

A large-scale spam campaign bent on spreading info-stealing malware is applying advanced obfuscation techniques to get around security scanning and maximize infection rates. According to Lastline researchers, a large botnet is distributing malicious rich text format RTF documents that act as...

Calypso APT Emerges from the Shadows to Target Governments

A newly discovered APT group, dubbed Calypso after a custom malware RAT that it uses, has been targeting state institutions in six different countries since 2016. Government organizations in India 34 percent, Brazil and Kazakhstan 18 percent respectively, Russia and Thailand 12 percent respective...

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...

Sharing Threat Intelligence: Time for an Overhaul

Most organizations don’t really have a good way of sharing threat-related data outside of their own industry verticals. Sure, there are Information Sharing and Analysis Centers ISACs; i.e. FS-ISACs for the financial-services industry. But the information still tends to stay in industry-specific...

Adware-Ridden Apps in Google Play Infect 30 Million Android Users

More than 50 malicious apps have been discovered on the Google Play app marketplace, peddling adware to millions of Android victims. The 50 adware apps, which have been since removed, include fitness, photoshopping and gaming apps, and were installed a total of 30 million times, researchers at...

Trickbot Malware Goes After Remote Desktop Credentials

The banking trojan known as Trickbot has resurfaced, with an updated info-stealing module that allows it to harvest remote desktop application credentials. According to Trend Micro’s Noel Anthony Llimos and Carl Maverick Pascual, a new variant has recently come on the scene, and is being spread v...

IE 12 to Support HSTS Encryption Protocol

Microsoft confirmed today it will support HTTPS Strict Transport Protocol HSTS in Internet Explorer 12, bringing its browser in line with other major vendors in its support of the protocol. Browsers supporting HSTS force any sessions sent over HTTP to be sent instead over HTTPS, encrypting...

Grand Theft Auto Panda APT Espionage Attack Platform

Researchers have discovered a mature attack platform that’s enjoyed great success eluding detection and made good use of an exploit present in a number of espionage campaigns. The attacks have concentrated largely on the automotive industry, hitting large companies primarily in Asia and only afte...

LockBit, BlackCat, Swissport, Oh My! Ransomware Activity Stays Strong

Law enforcement, C-suite executives and the cybersecurity community at-large have been laser-focused on stopping the expensive and disruptive barrage of ransomware attacks — and it appears to be working, at least to some extent. Nonetheless, recent moves from the LockBit 2.0 and BlackCat gangs,...

Cybercrooks Rake in $304M in Romance Scams

Romance scams remain the most successful fraud strategy for cybercrooks, and represents a growing sector, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Last year, romance schemes accounted for a record $304 million raked into illicit coffers, according to new data – up about 50 percent from 2019...

TurkeyBombing Puts New Twist on Zoom Abuse

Millions of family and friends, forced to spend Thanksgiving socially distant, are being targeted by cybercriminals as they turn to video platforms like Zoom to virtually be together. In this ongoing attack, cybersecurity experts warn, victims are targeted with a Zoom-related and...

Blackrota Golang Backdoor Packs Heavy Obfuscation Punch

Researchers have discovered a new backdoor written in the Go programming language Golang, which turned their heads due to its heavy level of obfuscation. The backdoor, called Blackrota, was first discovered in a honeypot owned by researchers, attempting to exploit an unauthorized-access...

Microsoft Out-of-Band Security Update Fixes Windows Remote Access Flaws

Microsoft has released an out-of-band security update addressing two high-severity elevation-of-privilege EoP bugs. Both flaws exist in a service called Windows Remote Access, which provides remote-access capabilities to client applications on computers running Windows. Of note, both flaws were...

Foxit PDF Reader Vulnerable to 8 High-Severity Flaws

Patches are available for eight high-severity flaws impacting the popular PDF software Foxit Reader. The bugs, which exist on Windows versions of the software, enable a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems. This week, Foxit Software, the company behind Foxit Reader,...

DEF CON 2019: New Class of SQLite Exploits Open Door to iPhone Hack

LAS VEGAS – Researchers at Check Point have identified a new class of vulnerabilities targeting SQLite, outside the context of a browser for the first time. The new attack techniques exploit memory-corruption issues in the SQLite engine itself — leading to a host of new hacks, including code...

Microsoft Sues British Electronic Dealer in Alleged Counterfeit Scam

Microsoft announced today it is suing Britain’s second-largest electronics retailer Comet for allegedly creating and selling more than 94,000 back-up discs of its Windows Vista and Windows XP product. Comet Group PLC allegedly produced counterfeit versions of the software in a factory in Hampshir...

Critical ManageEngine Desktop Server Bug Opens Orgs to Malware

A critical security vulnerability in the Zoho ManageEngine Desktop Central and Desktop Central MSP platforms could allow authentication bypass, the company has warned. The bug CVE-2021-44757 could allow a remote user to “perform unauthorized actions in the server,” according to the company’s Mond...

Smishing: Put Text-Based Phishing on the CISO Radar

Anyone who uses a smartphone has likely been the target of at least one smishing attack. Smishing is much like email phishing scams, but instead sends deceptive or malicious links through text messages. Like phishing, smishing tries to trick users into giving up valuable information, such as...

Emotet Takedown Disrupts Vast Criminal Infrastructure; NetWalker Site Offline

UPDATE The virulent malware known as Emotet – one of the most prolific malware strains globally – has been dealt a blow thanks to a takedown by an international law-enforcement consortium. Meanwhile, the NetWalker ransomware has also been subjected to partial disruption, according to the U.S...

Adobe Kills 16 Critical Flaws in Acrobat and Reader, Digital Negative SDK

Adobe has fixed 16 critical flaws across its Acrobat and Reader applications and its Adobe Digital Negative DNG Software Development Kit. If exploited, the flaws could lead to remote code execution. Overall, Adobe fixed vulnerabilities tied to 36 CVEs in its regularly-scheduled Tuesday security...

TrickBot Attack Exploits COVID-19 Fears with DocuSign-Themed Ploy

Threat actors are using people’s interest in the Department of Labor’s Family and Medical Leave Act FMLA to spread what appears to be the TrickBot trojan in a new spam campaign that security researchers discovered recently. Recent analysis from spam honeypots set by IBM X-Force discovered actors...

Microsoft Patches ‘Major’ Crypto Spoofing Bug

A major crypto-spoofing bug impacting Windows 10 users has been fixed as part of Microsoft’s January Patch Tuesday security bulletin. The vulnerability could allow an attacker to spoof a code-signing certificate, vital to validating executable programs in Windows, and make it appear as if an...

Critical Remote Code-Execution Bugs Threaten Global Power Plants

Siemens industrial equipment commonly found in fossil-fuel and large-scale renewable power plants are riddled with multiple security vulnerabilities, the most severe of which are critical bugs allowing remote code-execution. The affected product is SPPA-T3000, a distributed control system used fo...

Thousands of PCs Affected by Nodersok/Divergent Malware

New malware identified by Microsoft and Cisco Talos has affected thousands of PCs in the United States and Europe and turns systems into proxies for performing malicious activity, the companies said. The fileless threat—called Nodersok by Microsoft and Divergent by Cisco Talos—has many of its own...

DEF CON 2019: Delta ICS Flaw Allows Total Industrial Takeover

A serious vulnerability in a commonly used Delta industrial control system has been found that could allow malicious actors on the same network complete control of the operating system. The Delta enteliBUS Manager centralizes control for various pieces of hardware often found in corporate or...

Telegram CEO Fingers China State Actors for DDoS Attack

The chief executive of secure messaging app Telegram is pointing the finger squarely at China as the culprit responsible for the distributed denial of service DDoS attack that it suffered on Wednesday. The company announced the attack on Twitter, warning that users may be experiencing connection...

Data Breach Exposes 100K U.S. Traveler Photos, License Plates

UPDATE The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that a recent data breach exposed photos of the faces and license plates for more than 100,000 travelers driving in and out of the country. The department said Monday that the breach stemmed from an attack on a federal subcontractor. Customs and...

440 Million Android Users Plagued By Extremely Obnoxious Pop-Ups

Over 440 million Android phones have been exposed to an obnoxious advertising plugin hidden within hundreds of popular applications available via Google Play, which ultimately can render phones almost unusable. Lookout Research discovered the plugin being bundled with 238 unique applications that...

Calibration Attack Drills Down on iPhone, Pixel Users

A proof-of-concept for a new type of privacy attack, dubbed “calibration fingerprinting,” uses data from Apple iPhone sensors to construct a globally unique fingerprint for any given mobile user. Researchers said that this provides an unusually effective means to track people as they browse acros...

MuddyWater APT Hones an Arsenal of Custom Tools

An array of customized attack tools are helping the MuddyWater advanced persistent threat APT group to successfully exfiltrate data from its governmental and telco targets in the Middle East; an analysis of this toolset reveals a moderately sophisticated threat actor at work – with the potential ...

IoT Scale Flaws Enable Denial of Service, Privacy Issues

Here is an internet of things flaw that can tip the scales to a hacker’s advantage. Researchers have discovered a bevy of flaws in a consumer smart scale that could allow hackers to launch a variety of attacks, from man-in-the-middle to denial of service attacks. Checkmarx researchers reported th...

Darkhotel Exploits Microsoft Zero-Day VBScript Flaw

Researchers have discovered that the Darkhotel APT is exploiting a recently-patched zero-day vulnerability impacting Microsoft VBScript. Researchers at Trend Micro recently disclosed the flaw in Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Engine VBScript, an active scripting language developed by Microsoft...

Microsoft Patches Three Vulnerabilities Under Attack

Microsoft today patched a zero-day Word vulnerability that has been publicly attacked along with deploying fixes for Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge and Windows 10. In all, nine Microsoft products received updates totaling 45 unique CVEs. Three of the vulnerabilities among Tuesday’s updates,...

Microsoft Silverlight Zero Day Vulnerability Patched

Microsoft Silverlight vulnerabilities certainly don’t have the same hacker cred as bugs in Adobe Flash, for example, but nonetheless, that does not diminish their value, nor does that mean they should be ignored. Microsoft patched a critical flaw in the application framework on Tuesday, and...

Wekby APT 18 Exploiting Hacking Team Flash Zero Day

The Wekby APT group, implicated in a number of targeted attacks against health care organizations such as Community Health Systems and major pharmaceutical companies, is reportedly making use of the Adobe Flash Player zero-day found in the Hacking Team data dump. According to Virginia-based...

Windows Error Reporting Used to Find Advanced Exploits

Windows Error Reporting, also known as Dr. Watson reports, are Windows crash reports sent by default unencrypted to Microsoft, which uses them to fix bugs. The reports are rich with system data that Microsoft also uses to enhance user interaction with its products. Since, however, they are sent i...

Microsoft Patches Critical Bug in Windows TCP/IP Stack

Microsoft has patched a serious vulnerability in the Windows TCP/IP stack that, under some conditions, could enable an attacker to run code on remote machines. The flaw lies in the way that the stack handles large amounts of specially formatted packets sent to a vulnerable machine. Microsoft...

Novel Attack Turns Amazon Devices Against Themselves

UPDATE Researchers from the University of London and the University of Catania have discovered how to weaponize Amazon Echo devices to hack themselves. The – dubbed “Alexa vs. Alexa” – leverages what the researchers called “a command self-issue vulnerability”: using pre-recorded messages which,...

Critical Apache HTTPD Server Bugs Could Lead to RCE, DoS

Don’t duck at the latest mention of Apache: Two critical bugs in its HTTP web server – HTTPD – need to be patched pronto, lest they lead to attackers triggering denial of service DoS or bypassing your security policies. Apache, the open-source software foundation behind the Log4J logging library...

Cisco Service Provider, WebEx Bugs Offer Up Remote Code Execution

Cisco is warning of critical remote code-execution RCE vulnerabilities in the Cisco Prime Infrastructure PI and Evolved Programmable Network EPN Manager, which is used by telcos, mobile carriers, cable companies and ISPs to manage their hardware infrastructure. The vendor also issued estimated...

Facebook Boots 74 Cybercrime Groups From Platform

Facebook has booted more than 70 cybercrime groups off its platform that were peddling illicit services – from email spamming tools to stolen credentials and payment information sales – in plain sight. Researchers said a simple search on Facebook for keywords like “spam,” “CVV” or more returned...