RSA Conference 2019: The Expanding Automation Platform Attack Surface

SAN FRANCISCO – Automation platforms are increasingly being used to chain multiple IoT devices together to create user-friendly smart applications – but that’s also creating unpredictable attack surfaces that can be hard to manage. A Trend Micro report released at RSA Conference 2019 warns that...

New Cryptominer Distributes XMRig in Aggressive Attacks

Hackers behind cryptominer attacks are growing more aggressive and ruthless. Case and point, a cryptominer malware sample dubbed WinstarNssmMiner has been tracked in 500,000 attacks in the past three days, earning the crooks $28,000, according to researchers. What makes the cryptominer so vicious...

Has Anyone Seen a Missing Scroll Bar? Phony Flash Update Redirects to Malware

Microsoft said it has received 70,000 reports this week of a new Trojan disguised as an Adobe Flash Player update that will change your browser’s home page and redirect a Web session to an attacker’s page. There are several clues something is amiss, namely part of the GUI for the supposed Flash 1...

Microsoft Pushes Out Two New Security Tools

In parallel with its release of 17 bulletins on Patch Tuesday this month, Microsoft also unveiled two new tools that are meant to help make a couple of common exploitation scenarios more difficult for attackers. The company released a tool called Office File Validation for some older versions of...

Microsoft issues Advisory on ASP.NET Hole

Microsoft has issued a security advisory for a recently disclosed vulnerability in the ASP.NET that could leave millions of Web pages vulnerable to attack. The company on Friday released Security Advisory 2416728 addressing the ASP.NET security hole, which was first disclosed by researchers at th...

Microsoft Teams Targeted With Takeover Trojans

Threat actors are targeting Microsoft Teams users by planting malicious documents in chat threads that execute Trojans that ultimately can take over end-user machines, researchers have found. In January, researchers at Avanan, a Check Point Company, began tracking the campaign, which drops...

Log4J-Related RCE Flaw in H2 Database Earns Critical Warning

Researchers discovered a bug related to the Log4J logging library vulnerability, which in this case opens the door for an adversary to execute remote code on vulnerable systems. However, this flaw does not pose the same risk as the previously identified in Log4Shell, they said. JFrog security...

InkySquid State Actor Exploiting Known IE Bugs

The InkySquid advanced persistent threat APT group, which researchers have linked to the North Korean government, was caught launching watering hole attacks against a South Korean newspaper using known Internet Explorer vulnerabilities. New analysis from Volexity reported its team of researchers...

Verizon: Pandemic Ushers in ⅓ More Cyber Misery

Thanks for just showing up, said the team that cranked out the Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report DBIR. It’s quite the accomplishment that we all made it through the “often frightening and always unpredictable dystopian wasteland that was 2020,” the carrier noted, with cybersecurity...

What COVID-19 Taught Us: Prepping Cybersecurity for the Next Crisis

Few could have anticipated the impact COVID-19 has had on business. It spread from an isolated outbreak to a global pandemic seemingly overnight, and IT leaders across the planet have had mixed success adjusting to the changes and uncertainty it has brought. While COVID-19 caught many businesses...

Magecart Hits Parents and Students via Blue Bear Attack

Blue Bear Software, an administration and e-commerce platform for K-12 schools and other educational institutions, is warning its customers that it has suffered a Magecart attack. Blue Bear’s platform enables management of school accounting, student fees and online stores. In a letter to those...

ID Thieves Turn to Snail Mail as Juicy Target for Financial Crimes

As it gets harder for cybercriminals to bypass business email compromise BEC defenses, some hackers are switching from email scams to real-mail cons. Researchers at Flashpoint said they are monitoring hacker forums where criminals are swapping tips on a growing ID theft and financial crime area,...

High-Severity Windows UAC Flaw Enables Privilege Escalation

Researchers disclosed details of a high-severity Microsoft Windows vulnerability that could give attackers elevated privileges – ultimately allowing them to install programs, and view, change or delete data. The bug stems from User Account Control UAC, a security feature of Windows within Secure...

Adobe Patches Critical Bugs in Illustrator, Media Encoder

Adobe Systems is warning Illustrator 2019 users that two critical memory-corruption vulnerabilities could allow for an attacker to remotely connect to a Windows machine, execute code and gain control of the targeted system. The create-suite behemoth also warned Tuesday, as part of its regular...

Researcher Discloses Second Steam Zero-Day After Valve Bug Bounty Ban

A researcher has disclosed a zero-day privilege-escalation vulnerability for the Steam gaming client after he said he was barred from the bug bounty program of Steam’s owner, Valve. The vulnerability is the second zero-day privilege-escalation vulnerability that has been released by independent...

20-Year-Old Bug in Legacy Microsoft Code Plagues All Windows Users

A 20-year-old vulnerability present in all versions of Microsoft Windows could allow a non-privileged user to run code that will give him or her full SYSTEM privileges on a target machine. The bug is notable because of where it resides: In a legacy, omnipresent protocol named Microsoft CTF. First...

Finding Beauty in the IT Architecture

I have a confession to make. I’m a sucker for good architecture. Visiting places like Singapore, London, Rome, Buenos Aires, and New York City, I quickly find myself gravitating towards beautiful archways, spires, and even the voids used in designing some of the world’s most amazing buildings. I...

Millions of Linux Servers Under Worm Attack Via Exim Flaw

A widespread campaign is exploiting a vulnerability in the Exim mail transport agent MTA to gain remote command-execution on victims’ Linux systems. Researchers say that currently more than 3.5 million servers are at risk from the attacks, which are using a wormable exploit. Specifically under...

Windows Zero-Day Drops on Twitter, Developer Promises 4 More

UPDATE A Windows zero-day exploit dropped by developer SandboxEscaper would allow local privilege-escalation LPE, by importing legacy tasks from other systems into the Task Scheduler utility. It’s the latest zero-day from SandboxEscaper, who said that she has four more in the hopper that she’d li...

WhatsApp Zero-Day Exploited in Targeted Spyware Attacks

UPDATE WhatsApp is urging users to update as soon as possible, after a zero-day vulnerability found in its messaging platform was exploited by attackers who were able to inject spyware onto victims’ phones in targeted campaigns. First reported by the Financial Times, the popular messaging app...

Microsoft to End Email Security Notifications

Update: Microsoft today has reversed course on its decision to suspend security email notifications, and will resume doing so on Thursday. The original decision, made in response to Canada’s antispam law set to go into effect tomorrow, was announced on Friday. This afternoon, however, a Microsoft...

Microsoft Revokes Trust in 28 of Its Own Certificates

UPDATED–In the wake of the Flame malware attack, which involved the use of a fraudulent Microsoft digital certificate, the software giant has reviewed its certificates and found nearly 30 that aren’t as secure as the company would like and has revoked them. Microsoft also released its new updater...

Microsoft Releases Anti-XSS Web Protection Library

Microsoft has released an open-source Web Protection Library WPL to help developers protect web sites from cross-site scripting attacks. The WPL, which is a set of .NET assemblies, is being offered as part of a defense in depth strategy to add an extra layer to any validation or secure coding...

Student Loan Breach Exposes 2.5M Records

EdFinancial and the Oklahoma Student Loan Authority OSLA are notifying over 2.5 million loanees that their personal data was exposed in a data breach. The target of the breach was Nelnet Servicing, the Lincoln, Neb.-based servicing system and web portal provider for OSLA and EdFinancial, accordin...

‘Elephant Beetle’ Lurks for Months in Networks

Researchers have identified a threat group that’s been quietly siphoning off millions of dollars from financial- and commerce-sector companies, spending months patiently studying their targets’ financial systems and slipping in fraudulent transactions amongst regular activity. The Sygnia Incident...

Critical Cisco Bug in VPN Routers Allows Remote Takeover

A critical security vulnerability in a subset of Cisco Systems’ small-business VPN routers could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to take over a device – and researchers said there are at least 8,800 vulnerable systems open to compromise. Cisco addressed the bugs CVE-2021-1609 as part of ...

Novel Online Shopping Malware Hides in Social-Media Buttons

A payment card-skimming malware that hides inside social-media buttons is making the rounds, compromising online stores as the holiday shopping season gets underway. According to researchers at Sansec, the skimmer hides in fake social-media buttons, purporting to allow sharing on Facebook, Twitte...

APT Exploits Microsoft Zerologon Bug: Targets Japanese Companies

China-backed APT Cicada joins the list of threat actors leveraging the Microsoft Zerologon bug to stage attacks against their targets. In this case, victims are large and well-known Japanese organizations and their subsidiaries, including locations in the United States. Researchers observed a...

Two Zoom Zero-Day Flaws Uncovered

UPDATE Two zero-day flaws have been uncovered in Zoom’s macOS client version, according to researchers. The web conferencing platform vulnerabilities could give local, unprivileged attackers root privileges, and allow them to access victims’ microphone and camera. As of Thursday, the two...

ISS World Hit with Malware Attack that Shuts Down Global Computer Network

A Denmark-based global facility-management company was hit with a major cyber attack this week that shut down its worldwide computer systems for a few days and disrupted operations across its global network of employees. ISS World cut off access to shared IT services across its customer sites and...

Elegant sLoad Carries Out Spying, Payload Delivery in BITS

A fresh analysis of the trojan sLoad sheds light on the growing trend of advanced malware “living off the land” of a targeted system and successfully evading detection and carrying out malicious activities. SLoad is a PowerShell downloader type of malware and is known for its impressive...

Android Ransomware Spreads Via 'Sex Simulation Game' Links on Reddit, SMS

Researchers are warning of a new Android ransomware being spread via links in online forums and SMS messages. The malicious links purport to connect back to a sex simulation game, but in reality lead to ransomware that encrypts victims’ files. The Android ransomware, dubbed Android/Filecoder.C, h...

Firmware Bugs Plague Server Supply Chain, 7 Vendors Impacted

Two firmware vulnerabilities impacting Lenovo, Acer and five additional server brands allow adversaries to brick servers, run arbitrary code on targeted systems and maintain a persistent foothold – surviving even an operating system reinstallation. The bugs are tied to Gigabyte motherboards used ...

New Linux Malware ‘HiddenWasp’ Borrows from Mirai, Azazel

A new strain of malware targeting Linux systems has been identified by researchers. The malware, dubbed HiddenWasp, is believed to be used as part of a second-stage attack against already-compromised systems and is composed of a rootkit, trojan and deployment script. “The ratio of Linux threats h...

Critical WinRAR Flaw Found Actively Being Exploited

A critical 19-year-old WinRAR vulnerability disclosed last week has now been spotted actively being exploited in a spam campaign spreading malware. The campaign, discovered by researchers with 360 Threat Intelligence Center, takes advantage of a path-traversal WinRAR vulnerability, which could...

ThreatList: Banking Trojans Are Still The Top Big Bad for Email

While APT activity and a raft of malware types continue to capture the notice of researchers and journalists, it turns out that trusty old banking trojans remain the top email-borne threat out there. According to Proofpoint’s latest quarterly report, analyzing trends for the fourth quarter of 201...

Remote Desktop Protocol Clients Rife with Remote Code-Execution Flaws

UPDATE LAS VEGAS — Multiple critical vulnerabilities in the commonly used Remote Desktop Protocol RDP would allow a malicious actor to achieve remote code-execution over a client’s computer. According to Check Point research released Tuesday at the CPX360 event in Las Vegas, both open-source and...

"Collection #1" Data Dump Hacker Identified

UPDATE Researchers say they have identified the threat actor behind the massive “Collection 1” data dump which exposed hundreds of millions of credentials on a hacking forum in January. Recorded Future researchers said this weekend that an individual using the monikor “C0rpz” has claimed as early...

Elevating Privileges Via Windows Installers

There’s an odd bit of behavior that some Windows systems will exhibit when certain kinds of installers are launched, automatically elevating the privileges of the installer process to system-level privileges. In theory, the issue shouldn’t be exploitable because at one point in the process the...

How Assumptions May Be Making Us All Less Secure

In the space of a given year, untold thousands of vulnerabilities are found in operating systems, applications and plug-ins. In many cases, the affected vendors fix the flaws, either with a patch, a workaround or some other mitigation. But there’s also a huge population of security bugs that...

Hackers for Hire: Adversaries Employ ‘Cyber Mercenaries’

A for-hire cybercriminal group is feeling the talent-drought in tech just like the rest of the sector and has resorted to recruiting so-called “cyber-mercenaries” to carry out specific illicit hacks that are part of larger criminal campaigns. Dubbed Atlas Intelligence Group A.I.G., the cybergang...

Apple Issues Emergency Fix for NSO Zero-Click Zero Day

Apple users should immediately update all their devices – iPhones, iPads, Macs and Apple Watches – to install an emergency patch for a zero-click zero-day exploited by NSO Group to install spyware. The security updates, pushed out by Apple on Monday, include iOS 14.8 for iPhones and iPads, as wel...

Microsoft Signed Malware That Spreads Through Gaming

Microsoft signed a driver being distributed within gaming environments that turned out to be a malicious network filter rootkit. G DATA malware analyst Karsten Hahn first noticed the rootkit, publicly posting the find on June 17 and simultaneously reaching out to Microsoft. Hahn noted that the co...

Fake Forcepoint Chrome Extension Hacks Windows Users

Cybercriminals have been using a novel approach to exfiltrate data that involves directly injecting malicious Google Chrome extensions onto victims’ Windows machines via the abuse of Google’s cloud synching function. The goal of the recently-identified campaign is to manipulate data in internal w...

2021 Healthcare Cybersecurity Priorities: Experts Weigh In

Healthcare cybersecurity is in triage mode. As systems are stretched to the limits by COVID-19 and technology becomes an essential part of everyday patient interactions, hospital and healthcare IT departments have been left to figure out how to make it all work together, safely and securely. Most...

Microsoft Azure Flaws Open Admin Servers to Takeover

Researchers have disclosed two flaws in Microsoft’s Azure web hosting application service, App Services, which if exploited could enable an attacker to take over administrative servers. Azure App Services is an HTTP-based service for hosting web applications, and is available in both Microsoft...

Google Yanks 106 ‘Malicious’ Chrome Extensions

Google removed 106 Chrome browser extensions Thursday from its Chrome Web Store in response to a report that they were being used to siphon sensitive user data. In the research, also published Thursday, Awake Security alleged millions of Chrome users have been targeted by threat actors. The...

Google Patches Chrome Browser Zero-Day Bug, Under Attack

Google said Monday it has patched a Chrome web browser zero-day bug being actively exploited in the wild. The flaw affects versions of Chrome running on the Windows, macOS and Linux platforms. The zero-day vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-6418, is a type of confusion bug and has a severity rati...

Intel Warns of Critical Info-Disclosure Bug in Security Engine

A critical security bug in the Intel Converged Security and Manageability Engine CSME could allow escalation of privilege, denial of service or information disclosure. The details are included in a bug advisory that in total covers 77 vulnerabilities, 67 of which were found by internal Intel staf...

DEF CON 2019: 35 Bugs in Office Printers Offer Hackers an Open Door

LAS VEGAS — At least 35 significant vulnerabilities in six commonly used enterprise printers have been uncovered, manufactured by HP, Ricoh, Xerox, Lexmark, Kyocera and Brother. The bugs will be presented by NCC Group at a DEF CON session entitled “Why You Should Fear Your Mundane Office Equipmen...