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...

TikTok Flaw Lay Bare Phone Numbers, User IDs For Phishing Attacks

A vulnerability in the popular TikTok short-form video-sharing platform could have allowed attackers to easily compile users’ phone numbers, unique user IDs and other data ripe for phishing attacks. TikTok, owned by ByteDance, has more than 800 million active users worldwide. The vulnerability,...

News Wrap: Microsoft Sway Phish, Malicious GIF and Spyware Attacks

Threatpost editors Tom Spring, Tara Seals and Lindsey O’Donnell-Welch talk about the biggest news stories of the week ended May 1, including: A “PhantomLance” espionage campaign discovered targeting specific Android victims, mainly in Southeast Asia — which could be the work of the OceanLotus APT...

$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...

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...

Exploit Fully Breaks SHA-1, Lowers the Attack Bar

A proof-of-concept attack has been pioneered that “fully and practically” breaks the Secure Hash Algorithm 1 SHA-1 code-signing encryption, used by legacy computers to sign the certificates that authenticate software downloads and prevent man-in-the-middle tampering. The exploit was developed by...

ThreatList: Healthcare Breaches Spike in October

October experienced a 44.44 percent month-over-month increase in healthcare data breaches, resulting in 661,830 healthcare records exposed or stolen during the month. That’s according to the Health and Human Services HHS Office for Civil Rights’ monthly report reported via HIPAA Journal. The...

ThreatList: Amidst Data Breaches, Account Creation Fraud Soars in 2019

The first half of 2019 saw a 13 percent increase in fraudulent activity compared to the previous six months, with a spike in June representing the highest-volume bot attack that’s been recorded since 2016, according to an analysis from LexisNexis Risk Solutions. The firm’s report, with data glean...

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...

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...

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...

RSAC 2019: New Operation Sharpshooter Data Reveals Higher Complexity, Scope

SAN FRANCISCO – An insidious reconnaissance campaign discovered in 2018, dubbed Operation Sharpshooter, is much more widespread than previously thought, researchers said. Operation Sharpshooter was first disclosed in December 2018, using a never-before-seen implant framework to infiltrate global...

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...

Elasticsearch Elastichoney Honeypot Shows 8,000 RCE Attacks

Hackers have taken an interest in Elasticsearch, a popular enterprise search engine. A researcher based in Texas, whose own Elasticsearch server was hacked, today published results collated from a honeypot he built to get a sense of how widespread attacks are against the vulnerability that did in...

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 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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Podcast: Insider Attacks May Soon Cost Less Than Malware-based Equivalent

As it becomes more difficult and expensive to infiltrate environments via malware, cybercriminals may start turning in the future to a more viable and less costly alternative: Insider threats. This podcast is brought to you by Code42. Threatpost talks to Tim Brown, vice president of security at...

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...

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...

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...

Oracle Warns of New Actively-Exploited WebLogic Flaw

Oracle said that a critical remote code execution flaw in its WebLogic Server is being actively exploited in the wild. The remote code execution flaw CVE-2019-2729 impacts a number of versions of Oracle’s WebLogic Server, used for building and deploying enterprise applications. The vulnerability...

Mobile Risks Boom in a Post-Perimeter World

Cybercriminals are now taking a mobile-first approach to hacking the enterprise. Case in point, last month a half-billion Apple iOS users were stung by an attack exploiting an unpatched bug in Chrome for iOS. Crooks managed to hijack user session and redirect traffic to malicious websites...

Medical Weed Dispensary Exposes Health Data for Thousands

A data breach at a medical marijuana dispensary company operating in Canada has sent the personal health privacy of about 34,000 patients up in smoke. An electronic medical record system used by Natural Health Services – a self-described “cannabinoid medical clinic that specializes in cannabis...

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 Fujitsu Wireless Keyboard Bug Allows Keystroke Injection

UPDATE Fujitsu is stopping sales for its popular wireless keyboard after a researcher discovered it is vulnerable to keystroke injection attacks that could allow an adversary to take control of a victim’s system. Researchers with Germany-based SySS reported on Friday that the high-severity...

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...

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...

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...

Top Six Security Bad Habits, and How to Break Them

Cybercrime is on the rise, and attacks are getting faster, more nuanced and increasingly sophisticated. The number of cyberattack-related data breaches rose 27 percent in 2021 — an upward trend that shows no signs of slowing down. Bad security habits, such as using the same password more than onc...

Squirrel Bug Lets Attackers Execute Code in Games, Cloud Services

An out-of-bounds read vulnerability in the Squirrel programming language lets attackers break out of sandbox restrictions and execute arbitrary code within a Squirrel virtual machine VM, thus giving a malicious actor complete access to the underlying machine. Given where Squirrel lives – in games...

Nigerian Threat Actors Solicit Employees to Deploy Ransomware for Cut of Profits

Researchers have discovered a Nigerian threat actor trying to turn an organization’s employees into insider threats by soliciting them to deploy ransomware for a cut of the ransom profits. Researchers at Abnormal Security identified and blocked a number of emails sent earlier this month to some i...

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...

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...

Magecart Credit-Card Skimmer Adds Telegram as C2 Channel

The e-commerce card-skimming landscape has a new wrinkle: Cybercriminals affiliated with the Magecart collective are using encrypted messaging service Telegram as a channel for sending stolen credit-card information back to its command-and-control C2 servers. That’s according to researchers who...

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...

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...

U.S. Pipeline Disrupted by Ransomware Attack

A ransomware attack has hit a natural gas compression facility in the U.S., the feds have warned. The attack resulted in a two-day pipeline shutdown as the unnamed victim worked to bring systems back online from backups. The attackers were able penetrate the IT portion of the facility’s network,...

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...

Apple Tackles Over a Dozen Bugs in its Catalina 10.15 Update

Apple wasted little time snuffing out bugs in its macOS Catalina operating system. On Tuesday, Apple rolled out 16 patches addressing a wide range of Catalina bugs in components such as CoreAudio, IOGraphics and WebKit. The security fixes are exclusively for macOS 10.15; so pre-Catalina releases ...

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...