Cisco Warns of Critical Nexus 9000 Data Center Flaw

A critical vulnerability in Cisco’s software-defined networking SDN software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to connect to a vulnerable data-center switch and take it over, with the privileges of the root user. The bug CVE-2019-1804, which has a CVSS severity rating of 9.8 out of...

Critical RCE Bug in Cisco WebEx Browser Extensions Faces 'Ongoing Exploitation'

A critical vulnerability in Cisco WebEx browser extensions that could allow unauthenticated remote code-execution RCE on targeted machines is being actively exploited in the wild. The news comes just days after Cisco issued a flurry of 24 different patches for its IOS XE operating system and warn...

Unpatched Windows Bug Allows Attackers to Spoof Security Dialog Boxes

A previously unknown bug in Microsoft Windows would allow an attacker to spoof Windows dialog boxes that surface when making changes to the Windows registry. This would allow an adversary to plant malware or make other nefarious changes in the registry while getting around Windows’ built-in...

Flaw in Multiple Airline Systems Exposes Passenger Data

Researchers have discovered that multiple airline e-ticketing systems do not encrypt check-in links. The security faux pas could allow bad actors on the same network as the victim to view – and in some cases even change – their flight booking details or boarding passes. Security researchers at...

Intel Details CPU ‘Virtual Fences’ Fix As Safeguard Against Spectre, Meltdown Flaws

Intel introduced hardware-based protections to its new chips to protect against the Spectre and Meltdown flaws that rocked the silicon industry when the vulnerabilities were made public in early 2018. Spectre and Meltdown, which account for three variants of a side-channel analysis security issue...

Microsoft Patches .NET Zero Day Vulnerability in September Update

An actively exploited zero-day vulnerability tied to Microsoft’s .NET framework is one of 25 critical and 54 important vulnerabilities fixed by Microsoft in its September Patch Tuesday security bulletin. According to Microsoft, the .NET framework vulnerability CVE-2017-8759 allows attackers to...

Chinese APT Combines Fresh Hodur RAT with Complex Anti-Detection

The Chinese advanced persistent threat APT Mustang Panda a.k.a. Temp.Hex, HoneyMyte, TA416 or RedDelta has upgraded its espionage campaign against diplomatic missions, research entities and internet service providers ISPs – largely in and around Southeast Asia. For one thing, the APT has deployed...

The 5 Most-Wanted Threatpost Stories of 2021

As 2021 draws to a close, and the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, it’s time to take stock of what resonated with our 1 million+ monthly visitors this year, with an eye to summing up some hot trends gleaned from looking at the most-read stories on the Threatpost site. While 2020 was all about...

Windows 10 Drive-By RCE Triggered by Default URI Handler

Researchers have discovered a drive-by remote code-execution RCE bug in Windows 10 via Internet Explorer 11/Edge Legacy – the EdgeHTML-based browser that’s currently the default browser on Windows 10 PCs – and Microsoft Teams. According to a report posted Tuesday by Positive Security, the...

Gutenberg Template Library & Redux Framework Bugs Plague WordPress Sites

Two vulnerabilities have been found in the Gutenberg Template Library & Redux Framework plugin for WordPress, which is installed on more than 1 million websites. They could allow arbitrary plugin installation, post deletions and access to potentially sensitive information about a site’s...

Fortress Home Security Open to Remote Disarmament

A pair of vulnerabilities in the Fortress S03 WiFi Home Security System could allow cyberattackers to remotely disarm the system, leaving homes open to unlawful entry. The Fortress platform is a consumer-grade home security system that allows users to mix and match various sensors, IP cameras and...

VMware Sounds Ransomware Alarm Over Critical Severity Bug

VMware patched a critical bug impacting its vCenter Server platform with a severity rating of 9.8 out of 10. The company said the flaw could allow a remote attacker to exploit its products and take control of a company’s affected system. VMware went a step further on Tuesday, calling on IT securi...

80% of Global Enterprises Report Firmware Cyberattacks

Attacks against firmware are snowballing, outstripping many organizations’ cyber-defenses, according to a survey from Microsoft. The report showed that more than 80 percent of enterprises have experienced at least one firmware attack in the past two years – but only 29 percent of security budgets...

Nosy Ex-Partners Armed with Instagram Passwords Pose a Serious Threat

Breakups can be traumatic in all sorts of ways. Now we know they can pose a serious cybersecurity threat too. A new survey found that an alarming number of people are still accessing their exes’ accounts without their knowledge — a handful for malicious reasons. The survey conducted during Novemb...

Critical VMware Zero-Day Bug Allows Command Injection; Patch Pending

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is warning of a zero-day bug affecting six VMware products including its Workspace One, Identity Manager and vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. The critical unpatched bug is a command injection vulnerability. In a separate VMware advisory,...

Black Hat USA 2020: Critical Meetup.com Flaws Reveal Common AppSec Holes

Critical flaws in the popular Meetup platform were revealed Monday as part of research unleashed at this week’s Black Hat USA 2020. The flaws, which have been patched, enable the full takeover of Meetup “Groups” by threat actors, who can also redirects payments and carryout other malicious action...

Lazarus Group Adds Magecart to the Mix

The Lazarus Group, state-sponsored hackers affiliated with North Korea, has added digital payment-card skimming to their repertoire, researchers said, using Magecart code. Lazarus members are targeting online payments made by American and European shoppers. Among the victims is Claire’s, the...

ZLoader-Laced Emails Masquerade As CVs From Job-Seekers

Cybercriminals are taking advantage of the massive uptick in unemployment across the U.S. in a recent spear-phishing campaign, which purports to be CVs sent from job-seekers – but actually spreads banking credential-stealing malware. Researchers recently uncovered emails that distributed maliciou...

Emerging APT Mounts Mass iPhone Surveillance Campaign

A recently discovered, mass-targeted watering-hole campaign has been aiming at Apple iPhone users in Hong Kong – infecting website visitors with a newly developed custom surveillance malware. The bad code – the work of a new APT called “TwoSail Junk” – is delivered via a multistage exploit chain...

No 'Silver Bullet' Fix for Alexa, Google Smart Speaker Hacks

Researchers this week disclosed new ways that attackers can exploit Alexa and Google Home smart speakers to spy on users. The hacks, which rely on the abuse of “skills,” or apps for voice assistants, allow bad actors to eavesdrop on users and trick them into telling them their passwords over the...

WhatsApp Flaw Opens Android Devices to Remote Code Execution

A security researcher has identified a flaw in the popular WhatsApp messaging platform on Android devices, which could allow attackers to launch privilege elevation and remote code execution RCE attacks on victims. Exploiting the flaw—described in a Wednesday post on GitHub by a Singapore-based...

Defense Takeaways from Three Adversary Playbooks

In these days of advanced threats, the perimeter defense strategy – though still useful and necessary – is incomplete. IT security teams need as much information about existing threats as possible, so they know what to look for and how to position proactive countermeasures. Creating and using...

Iran-linked APT33 Shakes Up Cyberespionage Tactics

Following a recent report detailing APT33’s infrastructure and tactics, the Iranian state-sponsored threat actor shook up its cyberespionage efforts by adopting new tools and reassigning key domain infrastructure. The infrastructure overhaul stems from a March 2019 Symantec report exposing the...

Insider Threats Get Mean, Nasty and Very Personal

SAN FRANCISCO – Companies keep watchful eyes on disgruntled employees who are insider threat risks. But Code42’s CISO Jadee Hanson said distraught employees, that are particularly vulnerable to outside ploys, should be equally scrutinized. Hanson said factors such as terminal illnesses, divorce o...

RSAC 2019: Container Escape Hack Targets Vulnerable Linux Kernel

Researchers at CyberArk have created a proof-of-concept attack that allows adversaries to bypass container security, escape the container and compromise an entire host system. However, the attack scenario is limited, in that a successful attack depends on unpatched vulnerabilities to be present i...

Facebook Boots Hundreds of Iran-Linked Accounts For Spreading Misinformation

Facebook has booted hundreds of Iran-linked pages, groups and accounts from its social media platform that it claimed were promoting misinformation. According to Facebook, it removed 783 pages, groups and accounts that engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” that were misleading users about...

Scareware and Phishing Scams Play on Windows 8 Launch

Windows 8 isn’t yet a week old, but the scammers and phishing crews already are taking their swings at it, setting up new campaigns based on the shiny new operating system. Security researchers have identified a new scareware campaign playing off of the Windows 8 launch, as well as a phishing ema...

Revamped Pwn2Own to Offer $105K in Prizes, Cash From Google for Chrome 0-Days

The Pwn2Own contest at the CanSecWest conference has become one of the landmark events on the calendar each year, as researchers gather with nervous vendors in a tiny room to see who can own which browser on which platform and how quickly. But this year’s contest will have a much different look...

Microsoft To Patch Critical Office Flaw

Microsoft will use its monthly patch to fix a critical security hole in versions of its Microsoft Office suit that could allow attackers to run malicious code on vulnerable systems. The company announced details of its upcoming monthly patch for November on Thursday. This months patch also includ...

Microsoft Battles Alureon Rootkit

For the second month in a row, Microsoft has tried to eradicate a mutating rootkit that has blocked some Windows users from installing security updates. Read the full article. Computerworld...

Feds: APTs Have Tools That Can Take Over Critical Infrastructure

Threat actors have built and are ready to deploy tools that can take over a number of widely used industrial control system ICS devices, which spells trouble for critical infrastructure providers—particularly those in the energy sector, federal agencies have warned. In a joint advisory, the...

Critical Firefox Zero-Day Bugs Allow RCE, Sandbox Escape

Mozilla has released an emergency update for its Firefox browser that addresses two critical security vulnerabilities that cybercriminals have actively exploited in the wild as zero days. Both are use-after-free bugs, which are memory-corruption issues that occur when an application continues to...

Fujitsu SaaS Hack Sends Govt. of Japan Scrambling

Threat actors have stolen files from several official government agencies of Japan by hacking into Fujitsu’s software-as-a-service SaaS platform and gaining access to its systems. The Japan-based tech giant temporarily disabled ProjectWEB enterprise after learning of the attack, which is known to...

Microsoft Warns of 25 Critical Vulnerabilities in IoT, Industrial Devices

Security researchers at Microsoft are warning the industry about 25 as-yet undocumented critical memory-allocation vulnerabilities across a number of vendors’ IoT and industrial devices that threat actors could exploit to execute malicious code across a network or cause an entire system to crash...

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...

NSA Warns: Patched VMware Bug Under Active Attack

Active attacks against a flaw in VMware’s Workspace One Access continue, three days after the vendor patched the vulnerability and urged customers to fix the bug classified as a zero-day at the time. Now the U.S. National Security Agency NSA has escalated concerns and on Monday warned that foreig...

Cisco Patch-Palooza Tackles 29 High-Severity Bugs

Cisco Systems released a barrage of patches, Thursday, aimed at fixing bugs in the networking giant’s ubiquitous IOS operating system. The patches plug holes in a wide range of products and address denial-of-service, file overwrite and input validation attacks. The advisory was planned and part o...

Tuesday’s Magento 1 EOL Leaves Clock Ticking on 100K Online Stores

With Magento 1 reaching end-of-life EOL on Tuesday, Adobe is making a last-ditch effort to urge the 100,000 online stores still running the outdated version to migrate to Magento 2. Magento is a popular, Adobe-owned open-source e-commerce platform that powers many online shops. After June 30...

Adobe Addresses Critical Flash, Framemaker Flaws

Adobe has released patches addressing a wave of critical flaws in its Framemaker and Flash Player products, which, if exploited, could lead to arbitrary code-execution. Overall, Adobe stomped out flaws tied to 42 CVEs for its regularly scheduled February updates, with 35 of those flaws being...

ICS Attackers Set To Inflict More Damage With Evolving Tactics

Future attacks on industrial control system ICS networks may inflict even more damage in the long run, according to new research. Analysts expect them to evolve from attacks that have immediate, direct impact to those with multiple stages and attack vectors that are more stealthy. While it remain...

Mattress Company Leaks Data Records of 387K Customers

A Wisconsin mattress company leaked the records of 387,000 customers online in a database that lacked password protection, a security researcher has found. The incident once again demonstrates the potential security consequences of failing to take even the simplest security measures to protect...

EA Games Patches Account-Hijacking Bug

Researchers chained together two vulnerabilities in the Electronic Arts EA gaming platform and developed a proof-of-concept attack that allowed for possible account takeovers. A successful attack could allow a malicious actor to gain access to a user’s account and steal credit card information or...

Some ASUS Updates Drop Backdoors on PCs in 'Operation ShadowHammer'

A supply-chain attack dubbed “Operation ShadowHammer” has been uncovered, targeting users of the ASUS Live Update Utility with a backdoor injection. The China-backed BARIUM APT is suspected to be at the helm of the project. According to Kaspersky Lab, the campaign ran from June to at least Novemb...

BSides SF 2019: Remote-Root Bug in Logitech Harmony Hub Patched and Explained

SAN FRANCISCO – Users of Logitech’s Harmony Hub have been wide open to an attack for years because of four unpatched vulnerabilities that left any IoT device connected at risk to remote takeover. The bugs were patched by Logitech in November, but for the first time the researchers that discovered...

Researcher Says 5 Million Machines Exposing RDP Service Online

With exploit code for the MS12-020 RDP vulnerability available in various places, the question now becomes, if a worm or large-scale attack appears, how big is the target base? As it turns out, it’s pretty big. As in, five million machines big. Dan Kaminsky, a network security researcher, last we...

Samba ‘Fruit’ Bug Allows RCE, Full Root User Access

A critical severity vulnerability in the Samba platform could allow attackers to gain remote code execution with root privileges on servers. Samba is an interoperability suite that allows Windows and Linus/Unix-based hosts to work together and share file and print services with multi-platform...

Third Log4J Bug Can Trigger DoS; Apache Issues Patch

No, you’re not seeing triple: On Friday, Apache released yet another patch – version 2.17 – for yet another flaw in the ubiquitous log4j logging library, this time for a DoS bug. Trouble comes in threes, and this is the third one for log4j. The latest bug isn’t a variant of the Log4Shell...

Microsoft Translation Bugs Open Edge Browser to Trivial UXSS Attacks

Microsoft patched two bugs in its Chromium-based Edge browser last week, one of which could be used by an attacker to bypass security and to remotely inject and execute arbitrary code on any website just by sending a message. That security-bypassing bug, CVE-2021-34506, is rated CVSS 5.4, or...

PDF Feature ‘Certified’ Widely Vulnerable to Attack

Certified portable document format PDF files are used to securely sign agreements between two parties while keeping the contents’ integrity protected, but a new report found the security protections on most certified PDF applications were inadequate and left organizations exposed to a number of...

MFA Bypass Bugs Opened Microsoft 365 to Attack

Bugs in the multi-factor authentication system used by Microsoft’s cloud-based office productivity platform, Microsoft 365, opened the door for hackers to access cloud applications via a bypass of the security system, according to researchers at Proofpoint. The flaws exist in the implementation o...