Thousands of MikroTik Routers Hijacked for Eavesdropping

A full 7,500+ MikroTik routers are forwarding their owners’ traffic to eavesdropping cybercriminals – while 239,000 more have had their Socks4 proxy enabled, maliciously and surreptitiously. This means the bad actors can gain access to any of the files or data being passed by the router to and fr...

How MikroTik Routers Became a Cybercriminal Target

The routers leveraged by the Mēris botnet in a massive distributed denial-of-service DDoS attack against Russia’s internet giant Yandex have also been the unwitting platform for numerous cyberattacks, researchers have found. This is due to a persistent vulnerable state that’s difficult for...

Apple Hurries Patches for Safari Bugs Under Active Attack

Apple issued two out-of-band security fixes for its Safari web browser, fixing zero-day vulnerabilities that “may have been actively exploited,” according to a Monday security bulletin by the company. The bugs affect sixth-generation Apple iPhones, iPads and iPod touch model hardware, released...

Wind River ‘Security Incident’ Affects SSNs, Passport Numbers

Wind River Systems, which develops embedded system software, on Friday warned of a “security incident” that had exposed personnel records. One or more files were downloaded from the company’s network on or around September 29, it said. Affected data included information maintained within the...

Police Use of Facial Recognition is Just Fine, Say Most Americans

Despite the appetite for dystopian surveillance dramas on TV and in film, most Americans actually do trust law enforcement to not abuse facial recognition technology, according to a new survey. According to the Pew Research Center, a full 56 percent said that they trust police and officials to us...

HTTP Bugs Open Websites to DoS Attacks

Eight bugs in the implementation of HTTP/2, the most recent version of the HTTP protocol, can be exploited to launch denial of service attacks. The flaws were found in vendor server configurations ranging from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apache. Bugs are similar in nature and can be exploited b...

Osiris Banking Trojan Displays Modern Malware Innovation

After staying dormant for few years, the Kronos banking trojan resurfaced in July in a form dubbed Osiris. A wider analysis of how the banking trojan is evolving shows innovative development on the part of its authors, with an eye to broader malware trends. Osiris first appeared in July in three...

China PLA Unit 78020 Cyberespionage Naikon APT

Chinese president Xi Jinping is supposed to have dinner this evening with U.S. president Barack Obama. Wonder if the name Ge Xing will come up? Ge Xing is the subject of a joint report published this morning by ThreatConnect and Defense Group Inc., computer and national security service providers...

Relentless Log4j Attacks Include State Actors, Possible Worm

Call it a “logjam” of threats: Attackers including nation-state actors have already targeted half of all corporate global networks in security companies’ telemetry using at least 70 distinct malware families — and the fallout from the Log4j vulnerability is just beginning. Researchers manning...

Google Research Pinpoints Security Soft Spot in Multiple Chat Platforms

Google Project Zero researcher Natalie Silvanovich outlined what she believes is a common theme when it comes to serious vulnerabilities impacting leading chat platforms. The research, published Tuesday, identifies a common denominator within chat platforms, called “calling state machine”, which...

Critical Adobe Flaw Fixed in Out-of-Band Security Update

Adobe has released an out-of-band patch for a critical vulnerability in its Creative Cloud Desktop Application for Windows. The flaw can be exploited by an attacker to delete specific arbitrary files on the victim’s system. Creative Cloud acts as a central console for desktop users to quickly...

Dexphot Malware Hijacks 80K+ Devices to Mine Cryptocurrency

Microsoft is warning of malware, Dexphot, that has infected more than 80,000 machines, sucking up their CPU power in order to mine cryptocurrency. Researchers first discovered Dexphot in October 2018 and saw its activity peak during July. They said that the malware has a complex attack chain and...

Chrome Bug, Not Avid Software, Causes Damage to MacOS File Systems

Researchers have tracked a problem that caused corruption to the file systems of macOS users to a bug in a Google Chrome update after users originally feared it was a problem with Avid Media Composer. People using the Avid software for video editing on macOS platforms posted warnings Tuesday on...

A Spate of University Breaches Highlight Email Threats in Higher Ed

Oregon State University announced Friday that hackers potentially made off with 636 student records and family records of students containing personally identifiable information PII, after a successful email attack in early May. This comes on the heels of email-based breaches at Graceland...

Intel Fixes Critical, High-Severity Flaws Across Several Products

Intel has issued an updated advisory for more than 30 fixes addressing vulnerabilities across various products – including a critical flaw in Intel’s converged security and management engine CSME that could enable privilege-escalation. The bug CVE-2019-0153 exists in a subsystem of Intel CSME,...

Apple Fixes Pesky FaceTime Bug in iOS 12.1.4 Update

Apple has patched a major flaw in its Group FaceTime feature that allowed callers to eavesdrop on people they called even if they never picked up. It also said it would pay a reward to the teen that identified the bug. The update comes along with a slew of other fixes in its release of iOS 12.1.4...

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...

Five OAuth Bugs Lead to Github Hack

A Russian security researcher was able to take five low severity OAuth bugs in the coding site Github and string them together to create what he calls a “simple but high severity exploit” that gave him unfettered access to users’ private repositories. Bangkok-based researcher Egor Homakov –...

Russia May Use Ransomware Payouts to Avoid Sanctions

Russia may ramp up ransomware attacks against the United States as a way to ease the financial hurt it’s under due to sanctions, U.S. federal authorities are warning. Those sanctions have been levied against the nation and Vladimir Putin’s government due to its invasion of Ukraine. The Financial...

Google Play Apps Remain Vulnerable to High-Severity Flaw

UPDATE Researchers are warning that several popular Google Play applications – including mobile browser app Edge – have yet to push out an important update addressing a high-severity vulnerability in the Google Play Core Library. The vulnerability exists in Google Play Core Library, which is...

Clever Phishing Attack Bypasses MFA to Nab Microsoft Office 365 Credentials

A new phishing campaign can bypass multi-factor authentication MFA on Office 365 to access victims’ data stored on the cloud and use it to extort a Bitcoin ransom or even find new victims to target, security researchers have found. Researchers at Cofense Phishing Defense Center discovered the...

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...

iPhone Zero-Days Anchored Watering-Hole Attacks

A total of 14 iPhone vulnerabilities – including two that were zero-days when discovered — have been targeted by five exploit chains in a watering hole attack that has lasted years. The watering holes deliver a spyware implant that can steal private data like iMessages, photos and GPS location in...

Gen Z Interns and Social Media: A Perfect Security Storm

Researchers are warning of a new security Achilles’ heel for enterprises, and it may not be what they expect. That threat is interns. According to researchers, interns are unwittingly posting confidential and valuable company insights via social media that pose a security risk to the companies th...

Fortune Favors the Bold? Man Steals Microsoft Founder's Identity, Credit Card

When one Pennsylvanian man couldn’t foot his bills, he opted to steal the identity of someone that could – one of the world’s richest men, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen. An AWOL solider from Pittsburgh swiped Allen’s Citibank credit card account information earlier this year to...

Critical Citrix DDoS Bug Shuts Down Network, Cloud App Access

A critical security bug in the Citrix Application Delivery Controller ADC and Citrix Gateway could allow cyberattackers to crash entire corporate networks without needing to authenticate. The two affected Citrix products formerly the NetScaler ADC and Gateway are used for application-aware traffi...

New APT ChamelGang Targets Russian Energy, Aviation Orgs

A new APT group has emerged that’s specifically targeting the fuel and energy complex and aviation industry in Russia, exploiting known vulnerabilities like Microsoft Exchange Server’s ProxyShell and leveraging both new and existing malware to compromise networks. Researchers at security firm...

Magento Sites Vulnerable to RCE Stemming From Magmi Plugin Flaws

Researchers have disclosed two flaws that could enable remote code execution attacks on the Magento Mass Import Magmi plugin, an open source database client that imports data into Magento. Magmi is a Magento database client written in PHP, which is used to perform raw bulk operations on the model...

Billions of Devices Impacted by Secure Boot Bypass

Billions of Windows and Linux devices are vulnerable to cyberattacks stemming from a bug in the GRUB2 bootloader, researchers are warning. GRUB2 which stands for the GRand Unified Bootloader version 2 is the default bootloader for the majority of computing systems. Its job is to manage part of th...

Hackers Turn to OpenDocument Format to Avoid AV Detection

Attackers have a new obfuscation technique that uses the OpenDocument file format for sneaking payloads past antivirus software. Past macro-based attacks have relied on malware hitching a ride with .docx, .zip, .jar and many other file formats. But researchers at Cisco Talos said that because the...

Ransomware 'Remediation' Firm Exposed; Researchers Weigh in on Paying

A company that claimed to use technology tools to help victims with ransomware cleanup was found to secretly be paying the ransom, while collecting a premium from their clients, according to an expose out this week. The situation brings the core dilemma of business-focused ransomware directly int...

Critical Rockwell Automation Bug in Drive Component Puts IIoT Plants at Risk

A critical denial-of-service DoS vulnerability has been found in a Rockwell Automation industrial drive, which is a logic-controlled mechanical component used in industrial systems to manage industrial motors. The vulnerability was identified in Rockwell Automation’s PowerFlex 525 drive component...

GhostHook Attack Bypasses Windows 10 PatchGuard

A bypass of PatchGuard kernel protection in Windows 10 has been developed that brings rootkits for the latest version of the OS within reach of attackers. Since the introduction of PatchGuard and DeviceGuard, very few 64-bit Windows rootkits have been observed; Windows 10’s security, in particula...

Badlock Bug in Samba SMB Protocol

Despite the Badlock hype machine cranked up high, we don’t know much about this impending soul-crushing vulnerability other than it could be bad, it could be in the Windows Server Message Block and it already has its own requisite logo and website. Nonetheless, we have a little more than two week...

Microsoft Releases Automatic Updater for Certificate Revocation Lists, Plans to Invalidate Short RSA Keys

As part of its response to the Flame malware and its usage of a forged Microsoft certificate to sign malicious files, Microsoft has changed the way that Windows handles certificates, releasing an automatic updater function that will recognize and flag untrusted certificates. The new functionality...

Google Patches Actively Exploited Chrome Bug

While people were celebrating the Fourth of July holiday in the United States, Google quietly rolled out a stable channel update for Chrome to patch an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability, the fourth such flaw the vendor has had to patch in its browser product so far this year. Chrome 103...

Reporting Mandates to Clear Up Feds’ Hazy Look into Threat Landscape – Podcast

You know that hazy window that’s been obscuring the cyber threat landscape, leaving the feds squinting to try to see what’s really going on? The government has recently pulled out some squeegees. Case in point: the government spending deal that President Biden signed into law on Friday. The bill...

Zero-Click Flaws in Widely Used UPS Devices Threaten Critical Infratructure

Three critical security vulnerabilities in widely used smart uninterruptible power supply UPS devices could allow for remote takeover, meaning that malicious actors could cause business disruptions, data loss and even physical harm to critical infrastructure, researchers have found. Researchers a...

Windows 0-Days Used Against Dissidents in Israeli Broker’s Spyware

A set of unique spyware strains created by an Israeli firm and allegedly used by governments around the world to surveil dissidents has been defanged by Microsoft, the software giant said. The private company, called variously Candiru, Grindavik, Saito Tech and Taveta and dubbed “Sourgum” by...

Hundreds of Millions of Dell Users at Risk from Kernel-Privilege Bugs

Five high-severity security flaws in Dell’s firmware update driver are impacting potentially hundreds of millions of Dell desktops, laptops, notebooks and tablets, researchers said. The bugs have gone undisclosed for 12 years, and could allow the ability to bypass security products, execute code...

Spyware App on Google Play Gets Boot, Returns Days Later

A music-streaming app offered on Google Play, harboring spyware that stole victims’ contacts, files and SMS messages, made its way onto the official Android app marketplace not once, but twice. The spyware was hidden in an app called Radio Balouch also known as RB Music. The app itself was actual...

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...

Irked Researcher Discloses Facebook WordPress Plugin Flaws

UPDATE A WordPress security researcher claims he has found two WordPress plugins developed by Facebook called Facebook for WooCommerce and Messenger Customer Chat. The researcher claims both have cross-site request forgery flaws. The researcher published the bugs on the Plugin Vulnerabilities...

FireOS Flaw Allowed Limited Content Injection in Amazon Tablets

A vulnerability in the operating system of Amazon’s Fire Tablets could allow a hacker to inject malicious content into Settings, Legal and Compliance, Terms of Use and Privacy sections of the device. The bug could also allow an adversary to capture the serial number of the tablet. The Fire Tablet...

Slack Plugs Token Security Hole

Popular collaboration and communication firm Slack rushed to plugged a security hole in its platform Thursday that was leaking some of its users’ private chats and files for anyone to access. Slack, a leading tool used by companies to communicate internally, was alerted by security firm Detectify...

Icefog Targeted APT Attacks Hit South Korea, Japan

An espionage campaign featuring precise targeting of victims and malware that allows the attackers one-on-one interaction with compromised systems has been uncovered. Government agencies, manufacturers, high tech companies and media organizations in South Korea and Japan have been the primary...

Protecting Phones From Pegasus-Like Spyware Attacks

Pegasus spyware from the Israeli firm NSO Group is nearly invisible. It sends messages to compromise targeted phones without setting off any alarm bells to the phone’s user. There’s little you can do to protect yourself, say experts. But little isn’t nothing. Our guest today is Adam Weinberg, whi...

Adobe Patches 11 Critical Bugs in Popular Acrobat PDF Reader

Eleven critical bugs in Adobe’s popular and free PDF reader, Acrobat, open both Window and macOS users to attacks ranging from an adversary arbitrarily executing commands on a targeted system to data leakage tied to system-read and memory flaws. In a Tuesday security bulletin, which included...

Tax Season Ushers in Quickbooks Data-Theft Spike

Cybercriminals are ready for tax season with new malware designed to exfiltrate Quickbooks data and post it on the internet, according to a new report from ThreatLocker. Attackers use email to deliver the malware, which the ThreatLocker’s CEO Danny Jenkins told Threatpost is a simple, 15-line pie...

LAPD Bans Facial Recognition, Citing Privacy Concerns

The Los Angeles Police Department LAPD has banned the use of commercial facial-recognition services – citing “public trust” considerations. The move comes in the wake of a report that showed that more than 25 employees of the department had performed 475 searches so far using the Clearview AI, an...