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...

Attackers Target Intuit Users by Threatening to Cancel Tax Accounts

Just in time for tax season, Intuit is warning customers of a phishing campaign that threatens to close user accounts if they don’t click on a malicious link. The attacks on the accounting-software specialist that many people use for filing U.S. income tax forms comes as phishers overall are...

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...

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...

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...

Apple Accidentally Notarizes Shlayer Malware Used in Adware Campaign

Apple accidentally approved one of the most popular Mac malware threats – OSX.Shlayer – as part of its security notarization process. The Apple notary service is an automated system on recent macOS versions that scans software ranging from macOS apps, kernel extensions, disk images and installer...

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...

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,”...

High-Severity Bug Leaves Cisco TelePresence Gear Open to Attack

Cisco Systems has patched two high-severity vulnerabilities that can be exploited by remote unauthenticated adversaries to launch denial of service attacks. Impacted are Cisco’s TelePresence Video Communication Server and the company’s ASA 5500-X Series Firewalls. The vulnerability with the wides...

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...

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...

Red October Attackers Return With CloudAtlas APT Campaign

The attackers behind the Red October APT campaign that was exposed nearly two years ago have resurfaced with a new campaign that is targeting some of the same victims and using similarly constructed tools and spear phishing emails. Red October emerged in January 2013 and researchers found that th...

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...

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...

Keeper Threat Group Rakes in $7M from Hundreds of Compromised E-Commerce Sites

Since its launch three years ago, the Keeper threat group has compromised more than 570 e-commerce websites, from online liquor stores to Apple product resellers. And experts warn of future, increasingly sophisticated attacks against online merchants worldwide. The Keeper group, a faction of the...

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...

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft Addresses Two Zero-Days in 60-Flaw Roundup

Microsoft has rolled out its August Patch Tuesday fixes, addressing 19 critical vulnerabilities, including fixes for two zero-day vulnerabilities that are under active attack. Overall, the company patched a total of 60 flaws, spanning Microsoft Windows, Edge, Internet Explorer IE, Office, .NET...

Menswear Brand Zegna Reveals Ransomware Attack

High-end Italian fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna revealed on Monday that it was the target of a ransomware attack last August — and that it managed to recover its systems from back-up without paying a ransom. The Milan-based firm already had revealed on Aug. 6, 2021, that it became aware of...

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,...

China Suspected of News Corp Cyberespionage Attack

The Chinese hackers responsible for an attack on media giant News Corp last month likely were seeking intelligence to serve China’s interests in a cyberespionage incident that shows the persistent vulnerability of corporate networks to email-based attacks, security professionals said. Reports on...

9.3M+ Androids Running ‘Malicious’ Games from Huawei AppGallery

Why would a game about a cat’s “cute diary” need permission to make phone calls or suss out your location? It doesn’t: “Cat cute diary” is one of 190 trojanized games that Doctor Web malware analysts have found on AppGallery, the official app store for Huawei Android. They’re littering the Androi...

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...

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...

AMD Radeon Graphics Cards Open VMware Workstations to Attack

A remote code-execution bug exists in some configurations of the AMD Radeon graphics card that could allow an attacker to take control of a targeted system. The hack entails luring users of vulnerable systems to visit a specially crafted website that can deliver “a malformed pixel shader” to eith...

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...

Backdoor Found in Utility for Linux, Unix Servers

In an unnerving twist, when a critical zero-day vulnerability was reported in a Unix administration tool, called Webmin, it was revealed the flaw was no accident. According to researchers, the vulnerability was a secret backdoor planted in the popular utility nearly a year before its discovery. T...

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...

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...

RSA Conference 2019: BleedingBit Flaws Continue to Plague Firms

UPDATE SAN FRANCISCO – Mobile key platform UniKey has patched vulnerabilities related to the infamous BleedingBit attack in its platform. BleedingBit is an issue in Bluetooth Low-Energy chips made by Texas Instruments and used in millions of wireless access points, which was disclosed in November...

On Microsoft's XP Patches, Hidden Cobra, MacRansom, and More

Mike Mimoso and Chris Brook discuss the news of the week, including Microsoft’s XP patches, Hidden Cobra, a Nigerian BEC campaign, MacRansom, and more. Download: ThreatpostNewsWrapJune162017.mp3 Music by Chris Gonslaves...

Black Hat: Scaling Automated Disinformation for Misery and Profit

LAS VEGAS – Researchers recently demonstrated the weaponization of deep neural networks that can be used to shape public opinion, enrage people on Twitter and possibly spark QAnon 2.0. The research, presented last week at Black Hat by Drew Lohn, senior fellow at the Center for Security and...

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Plugs Critical Bug in Edge Platform Tool

Hewlett Packard Enterprise HPE is urging customers to patch one of its premier edge application management tools that could allow an attacker to carry out a remote authentication bypass attack and infiltrate a customer’s cloud infrastructure. Join Threatpost for “Fortifying Your Business Against...

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...

Emotet Now Hacks Nearby Wi-Fi Networks to Spread Like a Worm

A newly uncovered Emotet malware sample has the ability to spread to insecure Wi-Fi networks that are located nearby to an infected device. If the malware can spread to these nearby Wi-Fi networks, it then attempts to infect devices connected to them — a tactic that can rapidly escalate Emotet’s...

Mobile Carrier Customer Service Ushers in SIM-Swap Fraud

Mobile carriers have left the door wide open to SIM-swap attacks, particularly when it comes to prepaid accounts, researchers have found. SIM swapping is a form of fraud that allows crooks to bypass SMS-based two-factor authentication 2FA and crack online banking or other high-value accounts...

Apple iTunes Bug Actively Exploited in BitPaymer/iEncrypt Campaign

Bad actors are actively targeting a vulnerability in the Windows version of Apple iTunes to deliver BitPaymer/iEncrypt ransomware. It’s a new attack pattern that is difficult to detect, security researchers revealed Thursday. Researchers from Morphisec Labs in August identified the abuse of the...

Bug in NVIDIA’s Tegra Chipset Opens Door to Malicious Code Execution

A flaw impacting millions of mobile and internet of things IoT devices running NVIDIA’s Tegra processor opens the door for a variety of attacks, including device hijacking or siphoning of data. The warning comes from researcher Triszka Balázs, who discovered the flaw and asserts that the bug...

Exploring the Top 15 Most Common Vulnerabilities with HackerOne and GitHub

Join vulnerability experts Michiel Prins, cofounder of HackerOne, and Greg Ose, GitHub’s application security engineering manager, as Threatpost editor Tom Spring moderates a discussion on the 15 most common vulnerability types. Registration Required Originally presented in March 2019, this webin...

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...

Cybercriminals Have a Heyday with WinRAR Bug in Fresh Campaigns

A recently discovered vulnerability in the WinRAR file archival utility has been exploited in a slew of new campaigns, including one with a never-before-seen payload. The flurry of activity shows no sign of waning as cybercriminals continue to find success exploiting the bug. The campaigns take...

RSAC 2019: An Antidote for Tech Gone Wrong

SAN FRANCISCO – Tech innovation can move faster than its own good might dictate, often leaving the public interest as an afterthought. Take, for example, hot-button topics such as artificial intelligence, network neutrality and social network user privacy – and consider the ensuing debates. The...

Data Breach Bonanza: Dating Apps, Equifax, Mass Credential Dumps

In a week full of cyber-incidents and marked by the Valentine’s Day holiday, data breach news was surging. Equifax may have been hacked by spies, two huge credential spills on the Dark Web did their part to endanger people online and several companies admitted to data exposures, data breaches and...

Prepare to Defend Your Network Against Swarm-as-a-Service

The digital world we now inhabit creates unprecedented opportunities – both for good and for ill. One of these possibilities is swarm-based tools that can be used to either attack or defend the network. This possibility, or set of possibilities, has arisen due to dramatic advances in swarm-based...

Microsoft Ships Anti-Exploit Tool for IT Admins

LAS VEGAS — Microsoft today released a new tool to help IT administrators backport anti-exploit mitigations like ASLR Address Space Layout Randomization and DEP Data Execution Prevention to older versions of Windows. The tool, called Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit EMET works by applying...

Tax-Season Scammers Spoof Fintechs, Including Stash, Public

Threat actors have new targets in their sites this tax season during the annual barrage of cyber-scams as people file their U.S. income-tax documents. Novel email campaigns are spoofing popular financial technology fintech applications and their tax notifications to try to dupe victims into givin...