How I Got Here: Katie Moussouris

Dennis Fisher talks with Katie Moussouris of Microsoft about her childhood exploits with Commodore 64 programming, ignoring her Barbies, growing up as a hacker, her days as a pen tester and the challenges of working on security at Microsoft. Download: 12moussouris.mp3 Microsoft image via Robert...

Researcher Will Demo Bypass of Windows Service Isolation Feature

A prominent researcher will use an upcoming security conference in Buenos Aires to demonstrate an exploit that allows hackers to bypass the Windows Service Isolation feature, despite Microsoft’s efforts to close the security loophole. Security researcher Cesar Cerrudo of Argeniss Information...

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...

Microsoft Accounts Targeted by Russian-Themed Credential Harvesting

While legitimate concerns abound about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict sparking a far-reaching cyberwarfare conflagration around the globe, small-time crooks are also ramping up their efforts amid the crisis. Phishing emails to Microsoft users warning of Moscow-led account hacking have started to...

Yandex Pummeled by Potent Meris DDoS Botnet

Technical details tied to a record-breaking distributed-denial-of-service DDoS attack against Russian internet behemoth Yandex are surfacing as the digital dust settles. A massive botnet, dubbed Mēris, is believed responsible, flooding Yandex with millions of HTTP requests for webpages at the sam...

Lewd Phishing Lures Aimed at Business Explode

Attackers have amped up their use of X-rated phishing lures in business email compromise BEC attacks. A new report found a stunning 974-percent spike in social-engineering scams involving suggestive materials, usually aimed at male-sounding names within a company. The Threat Intelligence team wit...

‘FragAttacks’: Wi-Fi Bugs Affect Millions of Devices

A Belgian security researcher specializing in Wi-Fi bugs has unearthed a clutch of new ones, which he called FragAttacks, that affect the Wi-Fi standard itself. The name is short for “fragmentation and aggregation attacks.” Some bugs date back to 1997, meaning that computers, smartphones or other...

Emerging MakeFrame Skimmer from Magecart Sets Sights on SMBs

Researchers have observed a new skimmer from the prolific Magecart Group that has been actively harvesting payment-card data from 19 different victim websites, mainly belonging to small- and medium-sized businesses SMBs, for several months. RiskIQ researchers first discovered the skimmer, dubbed...

WordPress, Apache Struts Attract the Most Bug Exploits

WordPress and Apache Struts vulnerabilities were the most-targeted by cybercriminals in web and application frameworks in 2019 – while input-validation bugs edged out cross-site scripting XSS as the most-weaponized weakness type. That’s according to the RiskSense Spotlight Report, which analyzed...

IoT Insecurity: When Your Vacuum Turns on You

SAN FRANCISCO – Hackable Internet of Things IoT devices are on full display this week at the RSA Conference 2020. They include everything from baby monitors to Wi-Fi chips. One such device is a connected vacuum cleaner, the Trifo Ironpie M6. According to researchers with Checkmarx, the vacuum has...

Tianfu Cup Round-Up: Safari, Chrome, D-Link Routers and Office 365 Successfully Hacked

Hackers over the weekend successfully compromised widely used software and hardware–including browsers Safari and Chrome, D-Link routers and the Office 365 suite–using zero-day vulnerabilities at the annual Tianfu Cup gathering. The hacking competition, held in Chengdu, China, is very similar to...

Ransomware Attacks Leave U.S. Hospitals Turning Away Patients

A rash of ransomware attacks this week targeted hospitals in the U.S. and Australia. The cyberattacks froze the computer systems of several medical facilities, to the point where they needed to turn away new patients and even cancel surgery appointments. A ransomware attack, reported on Tuesday,...

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...

Chinese Spies Stole NSA Cyberweapons Long Before Shadow Brokers Leak

Hacking tools allegedly developed by the National Security Agency NSA were being used in the wild by at least one APT long before the Shadow Brokers released the now-infamous trove of U.S. cyberweapons, new analysis suggests. According to researchers at Symantec, an attack group affiliated with t...

Hackers Take Down Safari, VMware and Oracle at Pwn2Own

Hackers took down Apple Safari, VMware Workstation, and Oracle VirtualBox on Wednesday, the first day of Pwn2Own, the annual hacking competition held in tandem with the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver. Contestants with the team of Fluoroacetate Amat Cama and Richard Zhu were the first to hit p...

Cisco Fixes Critical Flaw in Wireless VPN, Firewall Routers

Cisco is urging customers to update their wireless VPN and firewall routers, after patching a critical vulnerability that could allow unauthenticated, remote attackers to execute arbitrary code. The vulnerability, CVE-2019-1663, has a CVSS score of 9.8 and impacts the Cisco RV110W Wireless-N VPN...

'Cloudborne' IaaS Attack Allows Persistent Backdoors in the Cloud

An attack scenario affecting various cloud providers could allow an attacker to implant persistent backdoors for data theft into bare-metal cloud servers, which would be able to remain intact as the cloud infrastructure moves from customer to customer. This opens the door to a wide array of attac...

Exposed: Instagram, OKCupid, Mumsnet All Face Data Concerns

It has once again been busy on the data privacy/exposure front as the week kicks off, with Instagram, dating site OKCupid and the UK’s powerhouse discussion site, Mumsnet, all making recent news. A report on GDPR breach notifications rounds out the latest. First up, Instagram users are apparently...

TheMoon Rises Again, With a Botnet-as-a-Service Threat

TheMoon, an IoT botnet targeting home routers and modems, is entering a new phase, as it were: It has added a previously undocumented module that allows it to be sold as-a-service to other malicious actors. This has already had significant real-world consequences, according to CenturyLink Threat...

Tales of WordPress Plugin Insecurity Overblown Researchers Say

The insecurity of WordPress plugins has been well documented, especially over the last year, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not as bad as it seems, experts claim. Hendrik Buchwald, a researcher and cofounder of RIPS, a German firm that performs static source code analysis, recently combe...

Microsoft to Fix Broken Patch Tuesday Security Update

Microsoft is still hammering away at a fix for a security update released last week that caused a small number of computers to crash and blue screen. “We are aware of some issues related to the recent updates and we are working on a fix,” a Microsoft representative today told Threatpost. MS14-045...

Windows XP End of Life a Security Milestone

Forget for a moment the impending cryptoapocalypse because of aging and/or subverted encryption standards and algorithms. Microsoft this week put out the word on the scourge that is Windows XP. The latest Microsoft Security Intelligence Report goes to great pains to encourage users to move off th...

Navy Hires Contractor to Data-Mine Gaming Consoles

The U.S. Navy recently hired an outside contractor, Obscure Technologies, to develop computer forensics tools capable of analyzing network traffic and stored data on gaming consoles. The contract, valued at $177,237.50, calls on Obscure Technologies to create hardware and software tools that can ...

FireSheep Fallout: Microsoft Adds HTTPS Option for Hotmail

Three weeks after researchers unveiled a plugin that allows Firefox Web browser users to snoop on the Webmail and social networking sessions of those around them, Microsoft has announced an option that will allow users of its Hotmail Web e-mail program to browse securely. The company said on...

Microsoft Sees Rampant Log4j Exploit Attempts, Testing

No surprise here: The holidays bought no Log4Shell relief. Threat actors vigorously launched exploit attempts and testing during the last weeks of December, Microsoft said on Monday, in the latest update to its landing page and guidance around the flaws in Apache’s Log4j logging library. “We have...

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...

FIN8 Targets US Bank With New ‘Sardonic’ Backdoor

The financially motivated FIN8 cybergang used a brand-new backdoor – dubbed Sardonic by the Bitdender researchers who first spotted it – in attempted but unsuccessful breaches of networks belonging to two unidentified U.S. financial organizations. It’s a nimble newcomer, researchers wrote: “The...

Critical Jira Flaw in Atlassian Could Lead to RCE

Atlassian has dropped a patch for a critical vulnerability in many versions of its Jira Data Center and Jira Service Management Data Center products, which can lead to arbitrary code execution. Atlassian is a platform that’s used by 180,000 customers to engineer software and manage projects, and...

Google Rolls Out Fixes for High-Severity Android System Flaws

Google has released patches addressing high-severity flaws in its System component. The flaws could be remotely exploited to gain access to additional permissions. Overall, 50 flaws were patched as part of Google’s October security update for the Android operating system, released on Monday. As...

Critical Slack Bug Allows Access to Private Channels, Conversations

A critical vulnerability in the popular Slack collaboration app would allow remote code-execution RCE. Attackers could gain full remote control over the Slack desktop app with a successful exploit — and thus access to private channels, conversations, passwords, tokens and keys, and various...

Netgear Won't Patch 45 Router Models Vulnerable to Serious Flaw

UPDATE Netgear will not patch 45 router models that are vulnerable to a high-severity remote code execution flaw, the router company revealed last week. However, the company says that routers that won’t receive updates are outdated or have reached EOL End of Life. The remote code execution...

Revamped HawkEye Keylogger Swoops in on Coronavirus Fears

There’s a new variant of the HawkEye keylogging malware making the rounds, featuring expanded info-stealing capabilities. Its operators are looking to capture the zeitgeist around the novel coronavirus. It’s being distributed using spam that purports to be an “alert” from the Director-General of...

$100K Paid Out for Google Cloud Shell Root Compromise

Google has awarded its inaugural annual top prize for the Google Cloud Platform GCP, for vulnerabilities found in the Google Cloud Shell. The find — a container escape that leads to host root access and the ability to use privileged containers — has earned $100,000 for Dutch researcher Wouter ter...

WordPress Plugin Has Unpatched Privilege Escalation Flaw, Warn Researchers

A WordPress plugin, Slick Popup, has a serious privilege escalation flaw – and it has yet to be patched. WordPress plugin Slick Popup, which has 7,000 active installs and provides a tool for displaying the Contact Form 7 as a popup on WordPress websites. However, researchers with Wordfence said...

Critical Flaw in Cisco Elastic Services Controller Allows Full System Takeover

A critical vulnerability in the Cisco Elastic Services Controller could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to take full control of impacted systems – merely by sending a crafted request. Cisco Elastic Services Controller is a virtual network functions manager, which enables businesses to...

Hacking Team Flash Zero Day Weaponized in Exploit Kits

Handlers for three major exploit kits have managed to utilize in short order a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player uncovered among the 400 Gb of data stolen from Hacking Team. Experts, including French researcher Kafeine and a number of others from security companies, revealed last night...

Microsoft Brings HSTS to Windows 7 and 8.1

In the midst of a relatively light Patch Tuesday, Microsoft yesterday introduced an extra measure of security for users running Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 machines: HSTS. Short for HTTP Strict Transport Security, HSTS is a browser header that forces any sessions sent over...

Scenes from Black Hat USA 2013

!More from Wednesday’s Legal Access Panel Briefinghttps://media.threatpost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/103/2013/08/07043123/panel.j...

Researchers Uncover Targeted Attack Campaign Using Android Malware

Android attacks have become all the rage in the last year or two, and targeted attacks against political activists in Tibet, Iran and other countries also have been bubbling up to the surface more and more often lately. Now those two trends have converged with the discovery of a targeted attack...

An End to Offensive Security Research? Unlikely

Many industries tend to run in identifiable cycles. Financial services, the auto industry, entertainment–they all have cycles. Because the security industry isn’t nearly as old as any of these, it hasn’t had much of a chance to establish such cycles. But one seems to be appearing now in the form ...

U.S. Reigns As Most Bot-Infected Country

The U.S. has by far the highest number of bot-infected computers of any country in the world, with nearly four times as many infected PCs as the country in second place, Brazil, according to a new report by Microsoft. The quarterly report on malicious software and Internet attacks shows that whil...

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...

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...

MacOS Being Picked Apart by $49 XLoader Data Stealer

There’s a new version of the old FormBook form-stealer and keylogger that’s added Mac users to its hit list, and it’s selling like hotcakes on underground markets for as low as $49. It’s not only cheap; it’s easy. The data stealer is distributed in the form of malware-as-a-service MaaS and stands...

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...

Bizarro Banking Trojan Sports Sophisticated Backdoor

A never-before-documented Brazilian banking trojan, dubbed Bizarro, is targeting customers of 70 banks scattered throughout Europe and South America, researchers said. According to an analysis from Kaspersky released Monday, Bizarro is a mobile malware, aimed at capturing online-banking credentia...

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...

FIFA 21 Blockbuster Release Gives Fraudsters an Open Field for Theft

The hotly anticipated release of blockbuster video game FIFA 21 on Oct. 6, along with the return of professional play, are giving soccer fans reason to celebrate. And, unsurprisingly, cybercriminals are already figuring out how to capitalize. A report from researcher Christopher Boyd at...

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...

High-Severity Flaws Plague Intel Graphics Drivers

Intel has issued security patches for six high-severity vulnerabilities in its Windows graphics drivers which, if exploited, could enable escalation of privilege, denial of service DoS and information disclosure. The graphics driver is software that controls how graphic components work with the...