Execs Could Face Jail Time For Privacy Violations

A new data privacy bill threatens large tech firms, like Facebook, with tough penalties – including monetary fines and up to 20 years of jail time for executives – if they violate user privacy policies. The “Mind Your Own Business Act,” proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden D-Ore. on Thursday, gives the...

Nvidia Fixes High-Severity Flaws in GeForce Experience for Gamers

Nvidia, which makes gaming-friendly graphics processing units GPUs, has patched two high-severity flaws in its GeForce Experience software, which could allow denial of service, information disclosure and privilege escalation on impacted systems. GeForce Experience is software for gamers utilizing...

WordPress WP Live Chat Support Plugin Fixes XSS Flaw

For the second time this month a patch has been issued for the WordPress add-on called WP Live Chat Support Plugin. This time around it’s a cross-site scripting XSS vulnerability. The WP Live Chat Support is a popular WordPress plugin that allows users to install a pop-up “chat” plugin to their...

Zero-Day Flash Exploit Targeting Middle East

A zero-day vulnerability is being exploited in the wild in targeted attacks against Windows users in the Middle East, researchers warned Thursday. The Flash Player vulnerability CVE-2018-5002, a stack-based buffer overflow bug that could enable arbitrary code execution, was patched earlier today ...

Issues Arise With MS14-066 Schannel Patch

Some users who have installed the MS14-066 patch that fixes a vulnerability in the Schannel technology in Windows are having issues with the fix causing TLS negotiations to fail in some circumstances. The problem arises when users have TLS 1.2 enabled in certain configurations and it will sometim...

Amazon Kindle Vulnerable to Malicious EBooks

A security flaw in Amazon’s Kindle e-reader made it vulnerable to malicious eBooks, opening the door to turning the devices into bots, compromising personal information and more. That’s according to Check Point researcher Slava Makkaeveev, who released the findings Friday. Check Point disclosed t...

Ransomware Attacks Hit Major Utilities

Two state-owned utility companies in Brazil suffered separate ransomware attacks in the past week, forcing them to shut down some operations and services temporarily, In one case, sensitive data was stolen and dumped online, including network access logins and engineering plans. Centrais Eletrica...

ADT Security Camera Flaws Open Homes to Eavesdropping

UPDATE Researchers have publicly disclosed security flaws found in ADT-owned LifeShield security cameras, which, if exploited, could have allowed a local attacker to eavesdrop on victims’ conversations or tap into a live video feed. The LifeShield brand is owned by security giant ADT. Specificall...

Vancouver Metro Disrupted by Egregor Ransomware

The threat actors behind the Egregor ransomware are showing a prolificacy in their early months of activity. On the heels of targeting struggling U.S. retailer Kmart, the Egregor gang also disrupted the Vancouver metro system with a ransomware attack. Translink, the Canadian city’s public...

Drones are Quickly Becoming a Cybersecurity Nightmare

Drones are a growing threat for law enforcement and business security officers. In the run-up to Christmas 2018, rogue drones grounded planes at London Gatwick, the UK’s second-busiest airport. But, increasingly it’s not just the air traffic controllers sounding the alarms over drones, it’s also...

Microsoft Issues FixIt For XML Flaw

With attackers already exploiting the MSXML zero-day vulnerability, which affects a wide range of products, Microsoft has issued a FixIt tool for the bug that it is encouraging users to install as they prepare a full patch for the flaw. The vulnerability is a critical one, and, because it’s prese...

Microsoft Plans Record-Breaking Patch Tuesday

This month’s batch of security patches from Microsoft will be a record-breaking one: 16 bulletins addressing a whopping 49 security vulnerabilities. According to the company’s advance notice, four of the 16 bulletins will be rated “critical,” Microsoft’s highest severity rating. Microsoft rates a...

Actively Exploited Zero-Day Bug Patched by Microsoft

Microsoft has revealed 73 new patches for May’s monthly update of security fixes, including a patch for one flaw–a zero-day Windows LSA Spoofing Vulnerability rated as “important”—that is currently being exploited with man-in-the-middle attacks. The software giant’s monthly update of patches that...

Researchers: NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware Should Spark Bans, Apple Accountability

News of a zero-click zero-day in Apple’s iMessage feature being incorporated into the notorious Pegasus mobile spyware from NSO Group has drawn a variety of reactions from the security community, including concerns about the security of Apple’s closed ecosystem, and varying views on NSO Group’s...

‘An0m’ Encrypted-Chat Sting Leads to Arrest of 800

Law enforcement agencies have been selling encrypted phones to organized crime gangs for years, monitoring their conversations in what’s being called the biggest law enforcement sting ever. Since 2018, agencies have been overseeing the distribution of hardened, encrypted devices that have enabled...

Magecart Goes Server-Side in Latest Tactics Changeup

Magecart Group 12, known for skimming payment information from online shoppers, was fingered for last September’s gonzo attack on more than 2,000 e-Commerce sites, and now researchers have issued a report explaining how they did it, detailing a new technical approach. The skimmers are still “very...

How to Get into the Bug-Bounty Biz: The Good, Bad and Ugly

Zero-day disclosures, those known bugs without a fix, can have potentially catastrophic results. One of the best ways to combat them is by discovering them before the bad guys do. Some of the biggest tech brands on the planet have been pummeled by a rash of high-profile zero-day exploits. In the...

Ransomware Attack Strikes Spain’s Employment Agency

The Spanish State Employment Service SEPE in Spain has been hit by a cyberattack, suspending its communications systems across hundreds of offices and delaying thousands of appointments. SEPE is an “autonomous body” in Spain that manages and controls unemployment benefits. The cyberattack hit...

Manchester United: IT Systems Disrupted in Cyberattack

The Manchester United football club in the U.K. has confirmed that the team fell victim to a cyberattack on its systems. Man U., one of the most popular soccer teams in the world, said that it was suffering ongoing IT disruptions. “The club has taken swift actions to contain the attack and is...

Silver Peak SD-WAN Bugs Allow for Network Takeover

Silver Peak’s Unity Orchestrator, a software-defined WAN SD-WAN management platform, suffers from three remote code-execution security bugs that can be chained together to allow network takeover by unauthenticated attackers. SD-WAN is a cloud-based networking approach used by enterprises and...

MGM Grand Breach Leaked Details of 10.6 Million Guests Last Summer

A hacking forum this week published details of more than 10.6 million guests who stayed at MGM Resorts, the result of a breach due to unauthorized access to a cloud server that occurred at the famous Las Vegas hotel and casino last summer. The incident—revealed in a published report on ZDNet...

OpenBSD Hit with Authentication, LPE Bugs

An authentication bypass and three local privilege-escalation LPE bugs have been uncovered in OpenBSD, the Unix-like open-source operating system known for its security protections. The most severe of the vulnerabilities is the bypass CVE-2019-19521, which is remotely exploitable. OpenBSD uses BS...

Norman Cryptominer Employs Sophisticated Obfuscation Tactics

A never-before-seen cryptomining variant, dubbed “Norman” after one of its executable files, has been spotted in the wild using various techniques to hide and avoid discovery. The levels of obfuscation are notable for their sheer depth, according to an analysis. Varonis uncovered an initial sampl...

ThreatList: Latest DDoS Trends by the Numbers

Fresh statistics reveal a mix bag of good news and bad when it comes to distributed denial-of-service attacks in Q4 2018. According to the latest numbers available, the sheer number of attacks are down, but the length of time those attacks last have reached record lengths. The numbers come from...

Picking Up Where Neutrino Left Off: RIG Pushing CrypMIC Ransomware

When an exploit kit fades away, it usually doesn’t take long for another to take its place in the limelight, especially when the kit is an integral part of the ransomware ecosystem. That’s exactly what’s happened over the past few weeks as researchers say they’ve seen an uptick in RIG Exploit Kit...

Research Reveals Huge Cache of FTP, Email Credentials Stolen by Waledac

Researchers have discovered that the gang behind the once-and-future botnet Waledac has gathered nearly 500,000 stolen passwords for email accounts, along with close to 125,000 sets of pilfered credentials for FTP accounts. The discovery isn’t so surprising in its details, but rather in its scope...

Skeletons in the Closet: Security 101 Takes a Backseat to 0-days

Rarely a month goes by without the infosec industry being plagued by a new zero-day apocalypse. Most recently in December 2021, the world was swept by a series of vulnerabilities in Log4J – a popular logging system used by thousands of systems around the world. While writing this article, the...

Severe WordPress Plug-In UpdraftPlus Bug Threatens Backups

The WordPress plug-in “UpdraftPlus” was patched on Wednesday to correct a vulnerability that left sensitive backups at risk, potentially exposing personal information and authentication data. UpdraftPlus is a tool for creating, restoring and migrating backups for WordPress files, databases,...

Sharp SIM-Swapping Spike Causes $68M in Losses

SIM-swapping – the practice of duping mobile carriers into switching a target’s phone services to an attacker-controlled phone – is on the rise, the Feds are warning – leading to millions in losses for consumers who found their bank accounts drained and other accounts taken over. Subscriber...

Why Healthcare Keeps Falling Prey to Ransomware and Other Cyberattacks

The healthcare industry is under attack like never before. What started as a surge in criminal activity during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic has now metastasized into a full-blown crisis within the healthcare industry worldwide. The recent disruptive ransomware attacks on Scripps...

Microsoft Gets Second Shot at Banning hiQ from Scraping LinkedIn User Data

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted LinkedIn another legal option to try to prevent rival hiQ Labs from scraping public information from its user profiles, something the Microsoft-owned professional networking platform has claimed is a violation of user privacy and a misuse of its data. The court...

Identity Theft Spikes Due to COVID-19 Relief

Cases of identity theft in the United States doubled in 2020, mainly due to cybercriminals taking advantage of people affected economically by COVID-19 who filed to receive government benefits. This is according to the Federal Trade Commission FTC, which received about 1.4 million reports of...

Windows Zero-Day Still Circulating After Faulty Fix

A high-severity Windows zero-day that could lead to complete desktop takeover remains dangerous after a “fix” from Microsoft failed to adequately patch it. The local privilege-escalation bug in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 CVE-2020-0986 exists in the Print Spooler API. It could allow a local attack...

TA416 APT Rebounds With New PlugX Malware Variant

The TA416 advanced persistent threat APT actor is back with a vengeance: After a month of inactivity, the group was spotted launching spear-phishing attacks with a never-before-seen Golang variant of its PlugX malware loader. TA416, which is also known as “Mustang Panda” and “RedDelta,” was spott...

Microsoft Zerologon Flaw Under Attack By Iranian Nation-State Actors

Microsoft is warning that an Iranian nation-state actor is now actively exploiting the Zerologon vulnerability CVE-2020-1472, adding fuel to the fire as the severe flaw continues to plague businesses. The advanced persistent threat APT actor, which Microsoft calls MERCURY also known as MuddyWater...

SMS Attack Spreads Emotet, Steals Bank Credentials

Attackers are sending SMS messages purporting to be from victims’ banks – but once they click on the links in the text messages, they are asked to hand over their banking credentials and download a file that infects their systems with the Emotet malware. Emotet has continued to evolve since its...

Android Keyboard App Could Swindle 40M Users Out of Millions

Researchers are warning users to delete a popular Android keyboard app that, once downloaded, makes unauthorized purchases of premium digital content. Google told Threatpost it has removed the app from its Google Play marketplace – but researchers say it was downloaded on at least 40 million phon...

Iran-linked Hackers Target Trump 2020 Campaign, Microsoft says

A group of hackers tied to Iran has been attempting to break into accounts associated with the 2020 reelection campaign of President Trump, researchers have discovered. Researchers from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center said they first observed activity from a group called Phosphorus in...

Trivial Bug Turns Home Security Cameras Into Listening Posts

A vulnerability in the consumer-grade Amcrest IP2M-841B IP home security video camera would allow an attacker to remotely listen to the camera’s audio over the internet, without authentication. “Essentially, if this thing is connected directly to the internet, it’s anyone’s listening device,”...

Troy Hunt Looks to Sell Have I Been Pwned

Citing overwhelming demands on his time, Troy Hunt is looking for a buyer for his site, Have I Been Pwned HIBP. HIBP offers a free service for consumers wanting to know if their user names and passwords have been compromised in a data breach; it also offers commercial services that include alerts...

Intel CPUs Impacted By New Class of Spectre-Like Attacks

A new class of side channel vulnerabilities impacting all modern Intel chips have been disclosed, which can use speculative execution to potentially leak sensitive data from a system’s CPU. Intel said that the newest class of vulnerabilities, dubbed Microarchitectural Data Sampling MDS, consist o...

Microsoft Patches Two Win32k Bugs Under Active Attack

Microsoft released patches for two Win32k bugs actively under attack, along with fixes for four additional bugs that are publicly known, as part of its March Patch Tuesday security bulletin. The Win32k bugs are both elevation of privilege vulnerabilities, rated important, and tied to the way...

Highly Critical Drupal CMS Flaw Affects Millions of Websites

The Drupal open-source content management system platform has issued an advisory for a highly critical remote-code execution RCE flaw in the Drupal core. The vulnerability CVE-2019-6340 arises from the fact that “some field types do not properly sanitize data from non-form sources,” according to...

Ukraine-Russia Cyber Warzone Splits Cyber Underground

The Russia-Ukraine cyber warzone has split the Conti ransomware gang into warring factions, leading to a Ukrainian member spilling 60,000 of the group’s internal chat messages online. On Monday, vx-underground – an internet collection of malware source code, samples and papers that’s generally...

U.S. Agencies Must Adopt Vulnerability-Disclosure Policies by March 2021

The U.S. government’s cybersecurity agency is now requiring federal agencies to implement vulnerability-disclosure policies VDPs, which would give ethical hackers clear guidelines for submitting bugs found in government systems, by next March. Currently, most federal agencies lack a formal...

Newsletter WordPress Plugin Opens Door to Site Takeover

Newsletter, a WordPress plugin with more than 300,000 installations, has a pair of vulnerabilities that could lead to code-execution and even site takeover. The Newsletter plugin offers site admins a visual editor that can be used to create newsletters and email campaigns from within WordPress...

Magecart Gang Attacks Olympic Ticket Reseller and Survival Food Sites

UPDATE A faction of the Magecart threat group, Magecart group 12, has been linked to a recent digital card skimmer attack bent on stealing payment data from a slew of websites, including ones selling anything from Olympic tickets to emergency preparation kits. Over the past few weeks, the group h...

Critical Exim Flaw Opens Millions of Servers to Takeover

UPDATE Researchers are urging users to upgrade their Exim servers immediately after millions of servers were found to be vulnerable to a critical flaw that could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to take full control of them. Exim, which is free software used on Unix-like operating systems...

News Wrap: WhatsApp, Microsoft, Intel and Cisco Flaws

This week was filled with flaws, flaws and more flaws: From a zero-day under active exploit in the WhatsApp messaging app, to Patch Tuesday glitches addressed by Microsoft. Threatpost breaks down the top vulnerabilities of the week, including: A WhatsApp zero-day vulnerability being exploited in...

Adobe Fixes 24 Critical Flaws in Acrobat Reader, Flash, Shockwave Player

Adobe has fixed 24 critical arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities across multiple products, including Acrobat Reader, Adobe Flash, and Adobe Shockwave Player. Overall, Adobe issued fixes for 43 different CVE numbers across eight different products, Tuesday, as part of a regularly-scheduled...