Microsoft, Adobe Exploits Top List of Crooks’ Wish List

A year-long study into the underground market for exploits in cybercriminal forums shows that crooks are salivating for Microsoft bugs, which are far and away the most requested and most sold exploits. According to researchers see chart below Microsoft products made up a whopping 47 percent of th...

Mozilla Patches Bugs in Firefox, Now Blocks Cross-Site Cookie Tracking

The Mozilla Foundation has released its latest version of the Firefox browser, which comes with new privacy protections to squash cross-site cookie tracking, as well as a slew of security vulnerability fixes. Firefox 86, released on Tuesday, includes what it touts as a privacy-bolstering feature...

Advertising Plugin for WordPress Threatens Full Site Takeovers

The Adning Advertising plugin for WordPress, a premium plugin with over 8,000 customers, contains a critical remote code-execution vulnerability with the potential to be exploited by unauthenticated attackers. The plugin’s author, Tunafish, has rolled out a patched version v.1.5.6, which site...

Chafer APT Takes Aim at Diplomats in Iran with Improved Custom Malware

UPDATE An Iran-linked APT known as Chafer has been spotted targeting various entities based in Iran with an enhanced version of a custom malware that takes a very unique approach to communication by using the Microsoft Background Intelligent Transfer Service BITS mechanism over HTTP. Meanwhile th...

Office 365 Vulnerability Exposed Any Federated Account

A severe vulnerability in the way Microsoft Office 365 handles federated identities via SAML put an attacker in position to have access to any account and data, including email messages and files stored in the cloud-based service. Microsoft pushed through a mitigation to the service on Jan. 5,...

Dennis Fisher and Mike Mimoso on VENOM, Marketing Bugs, and More

Dennis Fisher and Mike Mimoso talk about the VENOM vulnerability, the idea of marketing bugs, Microsoft’s new Edge browser security features and the awesome CSI: Cyber finale. Download: digitalunderground203.mp3 Music by Chris Gonsalves...

Microsoft Warns Customers Away From RC4, SHA-1

The RC4 and SHA-1 algorithms have taken a lot of hits in recent years, with new attacks popping up on a regular basis. Many security experts and cryptographers have been recommending that vendors begin phasing the two out, and Microsoft on Tuesday said that is now recommending to developers that...

Microsoft Releases Attack Surface Analyzer Tool

Microsoft has released a public version of its internal Attack Surface Analyzer tool, which helps organizations identify changes to a system’s attack surface as new applications are added. The tool has been in beta for a few months, but this is the first official release. The Attack Surface...

Microsoft Releases Five Bulletins For September Patch Tuesday

Microsoft on Tuesday released again the five security bulletins for its September Patch Tuesday. None of the fixes being released today is rated critical, with all five being rated important. Three of the bulletins fix flaws that could result in code execution. Microsoft also updated the security...

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...

TrickBot Spruces Up Its Banking Trojan Module

The TrickBot trojan is adding man-in-the-browser MitB capabilities for stealing online banking credentials that resemble Zeus, the early banking trojan, researchers said — potentially signaling a coming onslaught of fraud attacks. TrickBot is a sophisticated and common modular threat known for...

Google Boots 164 Apps from Play Marketplace for Shady Ad Practices

Google has removed 164 apps, downloaded a total of 10 million times, from its Google Play marketplace because they were delivering “disruptive” ads, considered malicious. Last year, the tech giant banned apps that delivered this type of advertising, called out-of-context ads. But the problem...

MacOS Users Targeted By OceanLotus Backdoor

A macOS backdoor variant has been uncovered that relies of multi-stage payloads and various updated anti-detection techniques. Researchers linked it to the OceanLotus advanced persistent threat APT group. The Vietnam-backed OceanLotus also known as APT 32 has been around since at least 2013, and...

Vastaamo Breach: Hackers Blackmailing Psychotherapy Patients

Cybercriminals have hacked the systems of psychotherapy giant Vastaamo – and are now reaching out to therapy patients, threatening to dump their patient files if they do not pay a ransom. Finland-based Vastaamo, which has more than 40,000 psychotherapy patients, said on its website that its...

Ransomware Group Makes Splashy $20K Donation to Charities

The Darkside ransomware group has distinguished itself from its cybercriminal counterparts not by technical innovation, but by slapping a shiny corporate veneer on its attacks. The latest evolution in Darkside’s ransomware-as-a-corporation gimmick is a hefty $20,000 donation that the group made...

IoT Smartwatch Exposes Kids' Personal, GPS Data

Researchers are warning parents that a children’s connected smartwatch has vulnerabilities that leak users’ personal and GPS data, and allow attackers to listen in on and manipulate conversations. Worse, the smartwatch in question, SMA M2, is currently used by 5,000 children worldwide. Chinese...

5G and IoT: How to Approach the Security Implications

When it comes to the next generation of mobile networks, 5G promises a more Internet of Things-friendly ecosystem with vast improvements over the current capabilities of 4G – however, its intersection with IoT will also raise the stakes on cybersecurity. The benefits of 5G are myriad: Not only wi...

BRATA Android RAT Steals Banking Info in Real Time

A powerful Android remote access tool RAT family dubbed BRATA is proliferating, with at least 20 different variants cropping up since it was first spotted in January. The majority of the binaries have been found in the official Google Play store, masquerading as updates for the instant messaging...

DEF CON 2019: MacOS Gets a Malware Beatdown in Attack Demo

LAS VEGAS – On Friday, Mac security researcher Patrick Wardle showed how an attacker can repurpose someone else’s Mac malware, create false attribution flags and sidestep Mac anti-malware defenses with ease. The attack scenarios were his own and meant to serve as cautionary examples and reasons w...

5,000 Twitter Accounts Linked to Disinformation Campaigns

Twitter has removed six sets of accounts that the site has deemed to be devoted to coordinated, state-backed propaganda activities – totaling about 5,000 accounts in all. “We believe that people and organizations with the advantages of institutional power and which consciously abuse our service a...

Newly-Identified BEC Cybergang Targets U.S. Enterprise Victims

LONDON, U.K. – Researchers have identified a highly-sophisticated Nigerian business email compromise gang targeting U.S enterprises and government institutions. The cybercrime group, dubbed Scattered Canary, has evolved over the past 10 years from a one-man shop working Craigslist scams into a...

News Wrap: Facebook Regulation, Verizon DBIR, Hidden Airbnb Cameras

From a massive data-breach report that showed surprising – and disturbing – cybercrime trends, to an op-ed in the New York Times that took aim at Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Threatpost editors Lindsey O’Donnell and Tom Spring break down this week’s biggest news. This weeks topics include:...

Adobe Fixes 43 Critical Acrobat and Reader Flaws

Adobe issued patches for 43 critical vulnerabilities in Acrobat and Reader – including a fix for a zero-day flaw that researchers at 0patch temporarily fixed on Monday. That bug could enable bad actors to steal victims’ hashed password values. Overall, Adobe patched 75 important and critical...

Two Nasty Outlook Bugs Fixed in Microsoft’s Feb. Patch Tuesday Update

Microsoft issued 50 security fixes as part of its February Patch Tuesday release, covering vulnerabilities in Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, Edge and its JavaScript engine ChakraCore. Fourteen of the vulnerabilities are labeled as critical, 34 as important and two as moderate. Two notable...

SideWalk Backdoor Linked to China-Linked Spy Group ‘Grayfly’

The novel backdoor technique called SideWalk, seen in campaigns targeting US media and retailers late last month, has been tied to an adversary that’s been around for quite a while: namely, China-linked Grayfly espionage group. ESET researchers, who named and discovered the new “SparklingGoblin”...

Defeating Ransomware-as-a-Service? Think Intel-Sharing

The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack put a glaring spotlight on the ransomware scourge – and, in particular, on the rise of ransomware-as-a-service RaaS. That attack was perpetrated by DarkSide, a RaaS platform that purportedly first surfaced last August. While the group now claims they’re don...

Zero-Day Bug Impacts Problem-Plagued Cisco SOHO Routers

Cisco Systems said it will not fix a critical vulnerability found in three of its SOHO router models. The bug, rated 9.8 in severity out of 10, could allow unauthenticated remote users to hijack targeted equipment and gain elevated privileges within effected systems. The three Cisco router models...

Adobe Fixes Critical ColdFusion Flaw in Emergency Update

In an unscheduled security update, Adobe is warning of a critical security flaw in its ColdFusion platform, used for building web applications. The security alert comes two weeks after Adobe’s regularly-scheduled updates. During these updates, the tech company issued patches for a slew of critica...

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 Fixes RCE Flaws in Out-of-Band Windows Update

Microsoft has issued out-of-band patches for two “important” severity vulnerabilities, which if exploited could allow for remote code execution. One flaw CVE-2020-17023 exists in Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code is a free source-code editor made by Microsoft for Windows, Linux and macOS. The other...

DDoS Attacks Target Amazon, SoftLayer and Telecom Infrastructure

The last 30 days has seen a renewed increase in distributed denial-of-service DDoS activity, according to researchers, who said that they have observed a number of criminal campaigns mounting TCP reflection DDoS attacks against corporations. Researchers at Radware said that the list of victims...

Intel CPUs Vulnerable to Sensitive Data Leakage in NetCAT Attack

Researchers have identified a new side-channel attack impacting all modern Intel server processors made since 2012. The vulnerability could allow bad actors to sniff out encrypted passwords as they are being typed into a secure shell session SSH; but, luckily, such an attack would be difficult to...

The Modern-Day Heist: IP Theft Techniques That Enable Attackers

The Great Train Robbery of 1963 in Buckinghamshire, U.K., was orchestrated by a gang of 15 robbers that devised and executed a well-laid-out plan over the course of several months. Fast-forward 56 years and we’re still seeing gangs of modern-day robbers orchestrating elaborate plans – only in 201...

ZombieLoad Pioneer: The Story Behind Intel’s Latest Side Channel Flaw

The release of a new speculative execution vulnerability called ZombieLoad last week follows a similar disclosure path as Meltdown and Spectre. Threatpost caught up with one of the researchers behind the discovery of ZombieLoad to find out how. ZombieLoad was discovered and reported by Michael...

Sony Smart TV Bug Allows Remote Access, Root Privileges

As the number of smart TVs grows, so does the number of vulnerabilities inside of them. On Thursday, security researchers revealed that eight Sony Bravia smart TV models are vulnerable to three separate bugs, one rated critical. The flaws – a stack buffer overflow, a directory traversal and a...

CGI Script Vulnerability 'Httpoxy' Allows Man-in-the-Middle Attack

An old scripting vulnerability that impacts a large number of Linux distributions and programing languages allows for man-in-the-middle attacks that could compromise web servers. The vulnerability, which affects many PHP and CGI web-apps, was revealed Monday in tandem with the release of a bevy...

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...

Russian APTs Furiously Phish Ukraine – Google

While Russia is fighting a physical war on the ground against Ukraine, advanced persistent threat APT groups affiliated with or backing Vladimir Putin’s government are ramping up phishing and other attacks against Ukrainian and European targets in cyberspace, Google is warning. Researchers from...

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...

2 More Google Chrome Zero-Days Under Active Exploitation

Google is asking Chrome desktop users to prepare to update their browsers once again as two more zero-day vulnerabilities have been identified in the software. Both allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to compromise an affected system via the web. And both are being actively exploited in the...

Critical WordPress Plugin Flaw Allows Complete Website Takeover

A critical vulnerability in popular WordPress plugin Simple Social Buttons enables non-admin users to modify WordPress installation options – and ultimately take over websites. Simple Social Buttons enables users to add social-media sharing buttons to various locations of their websites. The plug...

May Patch Tuesday Fixes Two Bugs Under Active Attack

Microsoft’s May Patch Tuesday fixes include two critical remote code-execution vulnerabilities, both of which are under active attack. The most serious of the two is tied to a Windows 10 VBScript engine and can be triggered when a victim visits a malicious website. “A user need only visit a...

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...

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...

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...

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...

EvilQuest Mac Ransomware Has Keylogger, Crypto Wallet-Stealing Abilities

A rare new ransomware strain targeting macOS users has been discovered, called EvilQuest. Researchers say the ransomware is being distributed via various versions of pirated software. EvilQuest, first discovered by security researcher Dinesh Devadoss, goes beyond the normal encryption capabilitie...

New JhoneRAT Malware Targets Middle East

Researchers are warning of a new remote access trojan RAT, dubbed JhoneRAT, which is being distributed as part of an active campaign, ongoing since November 2019, that targets victims in the Middle East. Once downloaded, the RAT gathers information on the victims’ computers and is also able to...

Magento Warns E-Commerce Sites to Upgrade ASAP to Prevent Attacks

The popular e-commerce platform Magento is urging web administrators to install its latest security update in order to defend against malicious attacks in the wild that could exploit a critical remote code-execution vulnerability. While the company didn’t specify what kinds of potential attacks...

Theory: 'Simple Hack' Behind Bezos’ Alleged Compromising Images

Researchers are shooing away theories of an elaborate “deep state” hacking plot against Jeff Bezos tied to the alleged tawdry images of him and girlfriend Lauren Sanchez. They say, alleged images that Bezos claims that the National Enquirer is threatening to release were likely obtained via a...