Echobot IoT Botnet Casts a Wide Net with Raft of Exploit Additions

A variant of the Mirai Internet of Things IoT botnet known as “Echobot” has added 13 more vulnerability exploits to its bag of infiltration tricks, according to researchers. These target a range of devices, including routers, firewalls, IP cameras, server management utilities, a programmable logi...

Forcepoint VPN Client is Vulnerable to Privilege Escalation Attacks

A vulnerability has been discovered in the Forcepoint VPN Client software for Windows. The flaw could enable an attacker – with an existing foothold on a system – to achieve an escalation of privilege, persistence and in some cases defense evasion. The vulnerability CVE-2019-6145 stems from an...

VLC Media Player Allows Desktop Takeover Via Malicious Video Files

Two high-risk vulnerabilities in the VLC media player could allow an adversary to craft a malicious .MKV video file that could be used in an attack to gain control of the victim’s PC. The flaws were made public Monday by the developer of the open-source VLC media player, VideoLAN project, who als...

AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon Blasted For Data Privacy Policies

A U.S. senator has put telecommunication companies – AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon – on notice for their data-collection and retention policies. Last week, U.S. senator Ron Wyden D-Ore. sent an open letter to the CEOs of the four major telecom providers urging them to limit the data they...

Citrix Confirms Password-Spraying Heist of Reams of Internal IP

UPDATE Digital workspace and enterprise networks vendor Citrix has concluded its investigation into a 6TB data heist in March, which it said was the work of international cybercriminals who exploited weak passwords on an internal network. The attackers intermittently accessed Citrix’ infrastrucur...

Mozilla Patches Firefox Critical Flaw Under Active Attack

UPDATE Mozilla has released updates for the Firefox browser addressing a critical vulnerability that is being actively exploited in targeted attacks against Coinbase employees – and potentially other cryptocurrency organizations. The critical flaw CVE-2019-11707 is a type confusion vulnerability ...

Grindr Poses National Security Risk, U.S. Gov Says

UPDATE The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States CFIUS has named the ownership of popular gay dating app Grindr a national security risk, according to a report. Grindr describes itself as “the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.” A...

Gamers Beware: Nvidia Fixes High-Severity GeForce Experience Bug

Nvidia, a maker of gaming-friendly graphics processing units GPU, has patched a high-severity vulnerability in its GeForce Experience software, which could lead to code execution or denial-of-service of products if exploited. The vulnerability CVE‑2019‑5674 has a CVSS score of 8.8, making it high...

Facebook Stored Passwords in Plain Text For Years

Hundreds of millions of Facebook user passwords have been stored in plain text for years, the social media giant acknowledged on Thursday. KrebsOnSecurity, which first reported the news, said that specifically between 200 and 600 million passwords were stored in plain text as early as 2012, and...

Lenovo Watch X Riddled with Security Vulnerabilities

Researchers are raking the Lenovo Watch X over the security coals in a report that blasts the device for shipping with a half dozen “disturbing” privacy and security vulnerabilities. The budget $50 smartwatch was introduced in June 2018 and was initially praised for its design, features and...

IDenticard Zero-Days Allow Corporate Building Access, Location Recon

UPDATE Most denizens of corporate America are pretty familiar with building security, and the requirement to swipe a badge to enter a building or an office suite; and as a result, most workers likely go about their day feeling secure that their stuff is physically secure from outsiders...

Patch Released for Critical Apache Struts Bug

The Apache Software Foundation has patched a critical remote code execution vulnerability affecting all versions of the popular application development framework Struts since 2008. All web applications using the framework’s REST plugin are vulnerable. Users are advised to upgrade their Apache...

APT28 Using EternalBlue to Attack Hotels in Europe, Middle East

Russian-speaking cyberespionage group APT28, also known as Sofacy, is believed to be behind a series of attacks last month against travelers staying in hotels in Europe and the Middle East. APT28 notably used the NSA hacking tool EternalBlue as part of its scheme to steal credentials from busines...

Microsoft Patches USB-Related Flaw Used in Targeted Attacks

It used to be that dropping a USB stick in a parking lot in the hope that someone plugs the malicious peripheral into an important computer was the realm of penetration testers and ambitious nation-state actors. That’s just not so anymore. The practice has gone mainstream, even infiltrating popul...

Pwn2Own IE Vulnerabilities Missing from Microsoft Patch Tuesday Updates

UPDATE – In an unexpected turn, Microsoft’s monthly Patch Tuesday security updates released today did not include patches for Internet Explorer vulnerabilities used during the Pwn2Own contest one month ago. The popular hacker contest attracted researchers from all over who were targeting all the...

Facebook’s In-app Browser on iOS Tracks ‘Anything You Do on Any Website’

Users of Apple’s Instagram and Facebook iOS apps are being warned that both use an in-app browser that allows parent company Meta to track ‘every single tap’ users make with external websites accessed via the software. Researcher Felix Krause, who outlined how Meta tracks users in a blog posted...

Millions of Java Apps Remain Vulnerable to Log4Shell

Four months after the discovery of the zero-day Log4Shell critical flaw, millions of Java applications still remain vulnerable to compromise, researchers have found. Rezilion expected that due to the “massive amount of media coverage” the bug unsurprisingly received, the majority of applications...

The Uncertain Future of IT Automation

The majority of today’s cybersecurity breaches stem from unpatched vulnerabilities and outdated systems, which means that many cyberattacks are preventable. Unfortunately, it can be challenging for IT teams to keep up with the pace of new patches every month, especially when employee devices are...

SAP to Give Threat Briefing on Uber-Severe ‘ICMAD’ Bugs

There’s a trio of critical vulnerabilities, fixed on Tuesday, in SAP business applications that use the ubiquitous Internet Communication Manager ICM: the component that gives SAP products the HTTPS web server they need to connect to the internet or talk to each other. The vulnerabilities,...

Trend Micro Bugs Threaten Home Network Security

Three security vulnerabilities have been found in Trend Micro’s Home Network Security systems, which can allow denial of service DoS, privilege escalation, code execution and authentication bypass. The Home Network Security Station is an all-in-one device that scans for vulnerabilities for...

Scammers Pose as Meal-Kit Services to Steal Customer Data

Attackers are piggybacking off the booming market for meal-kit delivery services since the pandemic, and sending SMS phishing messages doctored up to look like they’re legitimate correspondence from popular brand names — including HelloFresh and Gousto. This is just another example of why the wor...

Cisco Plugs Security Hole in Small Business Routers

A popular line of small business routers made by Cisco Systems are vulnerable to a high-severity vulnerability. If exploited, the flaw could allow a remote – albeit authenticated – attacker to execute code or restart affected devices unexpectedly. Cisco issued fixes on Wednesday for the flaw in i...

Cyberattackers Target Top Russian Cybercrime Forums

Maza, a place online for fraudsters and extorters to connect to pull off their operations, has been breached by an unknown attacker, in just the latest in a series of attacks targeting elite Russian-language cybercrime forums. Members are worried that their data is being used by researchers and l...

Chinese Hackers Hijacked NSA-Linked Hacking Tool: Report

New research has found evidence that a Chinese-affiliated threat group APT31 has hijacked a hacking tool previously used by the Equation Group which has been tied to the U.S. National Security Agency, or NSA. The tool in question, dubbed “Jian,” is used to exploit a local privilege-escalation LPE...

Aliens and UFOs: A Final Frontier for Social Engineers

Buried deep within the most recent round of COVID-19 stimulus legislation was a little provision with potentially explosive consequences: The Pentagon has six months to release a full report on what they know about the existence of what they term Unidentified Aerial Phenomena UAP — or UFOs to the...

Cyberattackers Serve Up Custom Backdoor for Oracle Restaurant Software

ModPipe, a previously unknown backdoor, has been purpose-built to attack restaurant point-of-sale PoS solutions from Oracle. It’s notable for its unusual sophistication, according to researchers, evidenced by its multiple modules. The code is specifically taking aim at the Oracle MICROS Restauran...

Researcher: I Hacked Trump’s Twitter by Guessing Password

Dutch ethical hacker Victor Gevers claims it only took five attempts to guess the password to President Donald Trump’s Twitter account — “maga2020!”. That’s all he needed to hijack the @realdonaldtrump handle, according a report from Dutch newspaper de Volksrant, because it lacked even the most...

NSA Mass Surveillance Program Illegal, U.S. Court Rules

A U.S. federal appeals court ruled that the controversial National Security Agency NSA mass surveillance program exposed in 2013 was illegal – and may have even been unconstitutional. The call comes seven years after former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden outed the mass surveillan...

Government VPN Servers Targeted in Zero-Day Attack

As the Chinese government turns to virtual private networks VPNs to provide access to official resources for those working remotely amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the DarkHotel APT has seized the opportunity to target those VPNs in a zero-day attack, researchers said. According to security analysts...

Trump, Sanders Are the Top Brands for Cybercriminals

Unwanted and malicious emails using political-themed lures has spiked as the presidential primary season cranks into high gear – with Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders representing the lion’s share of subject line themes. Since the beginning of the year, Proofpoint researchers have tracked subject...

Small Tax-Preparation Firms at Higher Risk this Tax Season, Report

This tax season crooks are targeting users with a new crop of scams that include leveraging remote desktop software and compromising small tax-prep company websites. “If you have the word ‘tax’ in your domain name; you’re a target this year,” warns Sherrod DeGrippo, senior director of threat...

FTCODE Ransomware Now Steals Chrome, Firefox Credentials

FTCODE, a PowerShell-based ransomware that targets Italian-language users, has added new capabilities, including the ability to swipe saved web browser and email client credentials from victims. Samples of the ransomware, which has been around since 2013, were recently observed in September 2019...

Mozilla Updates Firefox Browser: Zero-Day Bug Patched, Fingerprinting Nixed

UPDATE Mozilla patched a critical vulnerability actively being exploited in the wild with its latest update to the Firefox browser. Mozilla said in a security bulletin Wednesday that it was “aware of targeted attacks in the wild that were abusing the flaw. A successful attack “could make it...

267M Facebook Users’ Phone Numbers Exposed Online

A database exposing the names, phone numbers and Facebook user IDs of millions of platform users was left unsecured on the web for nearly two weeks before it was removed. Security researcher Bob Diachenko, who along with Comparitech discovered the unsecured Elasticsearch database, believe it...

Gustuff Android Banker Switches Up Technical Approach

An Instagram-initiated campaign using the Gustuff Android mobile banking trojan has rolled out in October, featuring an updated version of the malware that lowers its detection profile. How the cybercriminals are rolling out the campaign is the same as a previous offensive seen in June, according...

.WAVs Hide Malware in Their Depths in Innovative Campaign

UPDATE Audio .WAV files are the latest hiding place for obfuscated malicious code; a campaign has been spotted in which malicious content was secretly woven throughout the file’s audio data. The embedded code consists of two different payloads: A XMRig/Monero CPU cryptominer and Metasploit code...

Pitney Bowes Hit with Ransomware Attack

Shipping services company Pitney Bowes was hit with a ransomware attack that disrupted customer access to key services, the company said Monday. The attack comes on the heels of an FBI advisory on Oct. 2 that U.S. companies should be on alert for ransomware attacks, which are increasing in...

TikTok Scammers Cash In On Adult Dating, Impersonation Tricks

As social media platform TikTok becomes the top App Store download in 2019 – and the number three app download on Google Play and on platforms overall – scammers are looking to cash in on the troves of younger users of the popular platform. Tenable researcher Satnam Narang, who has been tracking...

Unique Monokle Android Spyware Self-Signs Certificates

A never-before-publicized mobile spy tool, a mobile surveillanceware remote access trojan RAT for Android called Monokle, has been spotted using novel techniques to exfiltrate data. According to the Lookout researchers who discovered Monokle in the wild, the malware has the ability to self-sign...

Tor Browser Issues Update for Critical System Takeover Flaw

Tor Browser has updated to version 8.5.2, to address a critical security flaw in Mozilla’s Firefox browser that is under active exploit in the wild. The critical flaw CVE-2019-11707 is a type confusion vulnerability in the Array.pop, which is an array method that is used in JavaScript objects in...

Salesforce Woes Linger as Admins Clean Up After Service Outage

After a massive service outage on Friday, software-as-a-service giant Salesforce restored partial access to its affected customers over the weekend, while admins continued with cleanup into Monday. The outage was brought on by a scripting error that affected all Pardot marketing automation softwa...

Google's April Android Security Bulletin Warns of 3 Critical Bugs

Google has fixed three critical remote code execution bugs in its Android operating system, which could allow a remote attacker to hijack a vulnerable system simply by sending a malicious file. The flaws are part of Google’s April Android Security Bulletin, which includes patches for three critic...

Cardinal RAT Resurrected to Target FinTech Firms

A malware family called Cardinal RAT has reappeared, after two years of silence, in a series of attacks that have been targeting Israel-based financial technology firms. After Cardinal RAT was first detected in 2017, the malware disappeared for two years. But now, in this latest campaign,...

Argentinian Teen Becomes First to Earn $1M in Bug Bounties with HackerOne

A 19-year-old that goes by the handle “@trytohack” became the first white hat hacker to surpass $1 million in bounty awards on the HackerOne platform. The Argentinian researcher, whose real name is Santiago Lopez, started reporting security weaknesses to companies in 2015 on HackerOne, when he wa...

Google Ditches Passwords in Latest Android Devices

Half of all Android users can now log into apps and websites on their devices – without having to remember a cumbersome password. On Monday, Google and the Fast IDentity Online FIDO Alliance announced that devices running Android 7 or later are certified by the FIDO2 standard, meaning that users...

NotPetya Linked to Industroyer Attack on Ukraine Energy Grid

The massive NotPetya ransomware outbreak that crippled organizations around the world last year turns out to have links to the Industroyer backdoor, which targets industrial control systems ICS and took down the Ukrainian power grid in Kiev in 2016. In fact, the same threat actor – dubbed TeleBot...

ZeroAccess Returns, Resumes Click-Fraud Activity

Long thought dead, the peer-to-peer P2P ZeroAccess botnet has resurfaced, and as of just a few weeks ago, has returned to propagating click-fraud scams. Researchers with Dell’s SecureWorks revealed Wednesday that they witnessed the botnet restart itself from March 21 to July 2, 2014 and that...

New Bug in Internet Explorer Used in Targeted Attacks

There’s a new flaw in all of the current versions of Internet Explorer that is being used in some targeted attacks right now. Microsoft has confirmed the bug and said it is working on a fix, but has no timeline for the patch release yet. The company did not rule out an emergency out-of-band patch...

Apple Mega Patch Covers 88 Mac OS X Vulnerabilities

Apple Mega Patch Covers 88 Mac OS X Vulnerabilities Apple today released one of its biggest Mac OS X security updates in recent memory, covering a whopping with fixes for 88 documented vulnerabilities. The Mac OS X v10.6.3 update, which is considered “critical,” covers flaws that could lead to...

Critical Vulnerability in Premium WordPress Themes Allows for Site Takeover

A critical privilege escalation flaw found in two themes used by more than 90,000 WordPress sites can allow threat actors to take over the sites completely, researchers have found. WordFence Threat Intelligence Team researcher Ramuel Gall discovered the flaw, one of five vulnerabilities he found...