Cloudflare Axes Google reCAPTCHA Due to Privacy, Price

Cloudflare is nixing Google’s reCAPTCHA tool and replacing it with what the network services company’s CEO calls “a better CAPTCHA” service, hCaptcha. Google’s reCAPTCHA is a type of CAPTCHA an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart” that uses...

Microsoft Warns of Critical Windows Zero-Day Flaws

Microsoft is warning of critical zero-day flaws in its Windows operating system that could enable remote code execution. The unpatched flaws are being exploited by attackers in “limited, targeted” attacks, the company said. According to Microsoft, two remote code execution vulnerabilities exist i...

MTTD and MTTR: Two Metrics to Improve Your Cybersecurity

For any organization to protect itself from cyberattacks and data breaches, it’s critical to discover and respond to cyber threats as quickly as possible. Shutting the window of vulnerabilities promptly makes the difference between a mild compromise and a catastrophic data breach. Understanding...

BEC Scam Costs Media Giant Nikkei $29 Million

Media conglomerate Nikkei Inc. has fallen victim to a business email compromise BEC scam that fleeced the company out of $29 million. Nikkei is Japan’s largest financial media organization and lends its name to Japan’s premier stock index, which is the equivalent of the Dow Jones Industrial Avera...

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...

Imperva: Data Breach Caused by Amazon Cloud Misconfiguration

Imperva, the security vendor, said this week that a misconfiguration of an Amazon Web Services AWS cloud instance allowed hackers to exfiltrate information on customers using its Cloud Web Application Firewall WAF product. Formerly known as Incapsula, the Cloud WAF analyzes requests coming into...

Alabama Hospitals Pay Up in Ransomware Attack

An Alabama hospital system has paid its attackers in a ransomware attack that knocked its systems offline on Oct. 1. Officials at the DCH Health System didn’t say how much the hospitals paid for the decryption key, but noted that they have started a “methodical” process of system restoration. “We...

Apple iOS Patch Blunder Opens Updated iPhones to Jailbreaks

Apple’s most recent operating system update, iOS 12.4, accidentally unpatched a fix that had been issued in a previous update — leaving devices vulnerable to code execution and privilege-escalation attacks. The flaw also allows phones to be jailbroken — and a public jailbreak has just been releas...

Top UK Official Derides Huawei Claiming it has ‘Bad Security’

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A top official at the National Cyber Security Centre in the UK set his sights on Huawei, the telecom equipment giant, in an opening keynote session at the GSMA’s Mobile360 Security for 5G conference on Tuesday. Ian Levy, technical director at the agency, took the stage fo...

Joomla and WordPress Found Harboring Malicious Redirect Code

Security researchers are warning owners of Joomla and WordPress websites of a malicious redirect script that is pushing visitors to malicious websites. On Thursday, Eugene Wozniak, a security researcher with Sucuri, published a report outlining a rogue hypertext access .htaccess injector found on...

Shadow App Development: Insider Threat or Opportunity?

The demand for software within an enterprise is relentless. The typical enterprise is running hundreds of applications—perhaps thousands if it’s a global organization. And with the rapid digitalization of business processes underway, the amount of software in use in the typical business is only...

RSA Conference 2019: How to Defend Against an AI vs AI Flash War

SAN FRANCISCO – As perimeter cyber defenses adopt new strategies such artificial intelligence and machine learning, security experts predict adversaries will adopt similar techniques when it comes to an attack chain. Derek Manky, chief of security insights at Fortinet, said that “black-hat...

Malvertising Campaign Redirects Browsers To Terror Exploit Kit

Security experts are warning some “Quit Smoking” and “20 Minute Fat Loss” ads online are delivering more than sales pitches. According to researchers at Zscaler, ads are redirecting browsers to malicious landing pages hosting the Terror exploit kit. The campaigns have been sustained, with the...

Two New Edge Exploits Integrated into Sundown Exploit Kit

Six months of relative quiet around exploit kits recently changed when a public proof-of-concept attack disclosed by a Texas startup was integrated into the Sundown Exploit Kit. The proof-of-concept exploit was developed by Theori, a research and development firm in Austin, which opened its doors...

Microsoft Publishes Information Sharing Framework

Microsoft earlier this week published a 25-page framework offering guidance on how to effectively share information and what kinds of information need to be shared in order to reduce overall risk. Information sharing has been an oft-repeated refrain in security and policy-making circles for the...

Darkhotel APT Group Targeting Top Executives in Long-Term Campaign

APT groups tend to be grouped together in a large amorphous blob of sinister intentions and similar targets, but not all APT crews are created equal. Researchers have identified a group that’s been operating in Asia for at least seven years and has been using hotel networks as key infection point...

Microsoft EMET 5.0 Technical Preview Released

SAN FRANCISCO – Enterprises beat up by wave after wave of Java exploits and calls to disable the platform may soon have some relief in sight. Microsoft’s free Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit will soon have a new feature that allows users to configure where plug-ins, especially those target...

Mozilla Adds Older Java Versions to Firefox Blocklist

Mozilla has made a change in Firefox that will block all of the older versions of Java that contain a critical vulnerability that’s being actively exploited. The decision to add these vulnerable versions of Java to the browser’s blocklist is designed to protect users who may not be aware of the...

How to Minimize Your Database Attack Surface

Database Management Systems DBMS have extended their capabilities far beyond simply serving as data storage and query systems. Contrary to what they were in the 1970...

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...

Microsoft accused of downplaying IIS flaw

A security researcher from nCircle is accusing Microsoft of gamesmanship in its description of an unpatched IIS vulnerability in the way the WebDAV extension decodes a requested URL. The end result is that a successful exploit would allow a hacker to bypass authentication and gain unauthorized...

Ukrainian DDoS Attacks Should Put US on Notice–Researchers

On Tuesday, institutions central to Ukraine’s military and economy were hit with a wave of denial-of-service DoS attacks, which sparked an avalanche of headlines around the world. The strike itself had limited impact — but the larger implications for critical infrastructure beyond the Ukraine are...

Zero Day in Ubiquitous Apache Log4j Tool Under Active Attack

An excruciating, easily exploited flaw in the ubiquitous Java logging library Apache Log4j could allow unauthenticated remote code execution RCE and complete server takeover — and it’s being exploited in the wild. The flaw first turned up on sites that cater to users of the world’s favorite game,...

Are You Guilty of These 8 Network-Security Bad Practices?

They say the first step in addressing a serious issue is admitting you have a problem. And so it is with network security. The ongoing explosion of ransomware events and breaches many of which the public never hears about is elevating network security to a top corporate priority. Employees are...

Multiple BusyBox Security Bugs Threaten Embedded Linux Devices

Researchers have discovered 14 critical vulnerabilities in a popular program used in embedded Linux applications, all of which allow for denial of service DoS and 10 that also enable remote code execution RCE, they said. One of the flaws also could allow devices to leak info, according to...

VPN Exposes Data for 1M Users, Leading to Researcher Questioning

Free virtual private network VPN service Quickfox, which provides access to Chinese websites from outside the country, exposed the personally identifiable information PII of more than a million users in just the latest high-profile VPN security failure. The incident has some security practitioner...

Unpatched iPhone Bug Allows Code Execution

A vulnerability in Apple iOS opens the door to remote code execution RCE, researchers found. The assessment is a revision from a previous understanding of the flaw that viewed it as a low-risk and somewhat wacky denial-of-service DoS problem affecting iPhone’s Wi-Fi feature. Apple fixed the...

5 Fundamental But Effective IoT Device Security Controls

As the pandemic continues to fuel the shift to remote work, numerous manufacturers have capitalized on this movement to create a multitude of handy internet of things IoT devices. While these devices may make our home and work lives more convenient, they greatly expand the attack surface for...

Critical Bug in VMWare Carbon Black Allows Takeover

A critical security vulnerability in the VMware Carbon Black Cloud Workload appliance would allow privilege escalation and the ability to take over the administrative rights for the solution. The bug CVE-2021-21982 ranks 9.1 out of 10 on the CVSS vulnerability-severity scale. The VMware Carbon...

Record Levels of Software Bugs Plague Short-Staffed IT Teams in 2020

2020 is shaping up to be a banner year for software vulnerabilities, leaving security professionals drowning in a veritable sea of patching, reporting and looming attacks, many of which they can’t even see. A trio of recent reports tracking software vulnerabilities over the past year underscore t...

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...

Google Squashes Critical Android Media Framework Bug

Google patched a critical vulnerability in the Media Framework of its Android operating system, which if exploited could lead to remote code execution attacks on vulnerable devices. Overall, Google fixed flaws tied to 53 CVEs as part of its September security updates for the Android operating...

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...

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...

Next-Gen Ransomware Packs a 'Human' Punch, Microsoft Warns

Researchers are warning that “human operated” ransomware campaigns are growing more sophisticated, adopting new infection tactics and lateral movement techniques that traditional defense teams aren’t equipped to handle. Researchers said that “auto-spreading” ransomware – like WannaCry and NotPety...

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...

Active Exploits Hit Vulnerable WordPress ThemeGrill Plugin

Researchers are urging users of a vulnerable WordPress plugin, ThemeGrill Demo Importer, to update as soon as possible after discovering attackers are actively exploiting a flaw in the plugin. The ThemeGrill Demo Importer plugin is owned by ThemeGrill, which offers various templates for website...

Critical, Unpatched 'MDhex' Bugs Threaten Hospital Devices

A collection of six cybersecurity vulnerabilities in a range of GE Healthcare devices for hospitals has been discovered. Dubbed “MDhex” by the researchers at CyberMDX who discovered them, the bugs would allow attackers to disable the devices, harvest personal health information PHI, change alarm...

Get Ready for the Microsoft Windows 7 EOL on January 14th

January 14, 2020, is a day cybersecurity stakeholders should pay attention to, as it marks the end of Microsoft support in Windows 7. From a security perspective, both the routine monthly security patches as well as hot fixes for attacks in the wild will not be available, effectively making any...

Office 365 Admins Targeted in Ongoing Phishing Scam

A phishing campaign that uses legitimate organizations’ Office 365 infrastructure to send emails has emerged onto the cyberscam scene. According to Michael Tyler at PhishLabs, cybercriminals are looking to compromise Microsoft Office 365 administrator accounts to send out phishing lures – thus...

Insider Threats, a Cybercriminal Favorite, Not Easy to Mitigate

LAS VEGAS – Insider threats are an ongoing top danger for companies — but when it comes to mitigation efforts, incident-response teams face an array of challenges. Discussions with various incident-response teams revealed that between 25 to 30 percent of data breaches involved an external actor...

Avast Network Breached As Hackers Target CCleaner Again

Czech antivirus vendor Avast on Monday warned that hackers were able to access its internal network using a temporary VPN account. Avast said that it believes that the intrusion, first detected on Sept. 25, was likely targeting its CCleaner business in a supply chain attack. CCleaner, which is...

Microsoft Blacklists Dozens of New File Extensions in Outlook

Microsoft is banning almost 40 new types of file extensions on its Outlook email platform. The aim is to protect email users from what it deems “at-risk” file attachments, which are typically sent with malicious scripts or executables. The move will prevent users from downloading email attachment...

FunkyBot Malware Intercepts Android Texts, 2FA Codes

An Android malware dubbed “FunkyBot” has started making the scene in Japan, operated by the same attackers responsible for the FakeSpy malware. It intercepts SMS messages sent to and from infected devices. According to FortiGuard Labs, the malware named after logging strings found in the...

Apple Sues Corellium Over iOS 'Replica' Security Testing Software

Apple has sued startup Corellium for copyright infringement, alleging that the company has developed “exact digital replicas” of its iPhone operating system without authorization – from the code down to the graphical user interface. While details about Florida-based Corellium on its website are...

Researcher: Not Hard for a Hacker to Capsize a Ship at Sea

Maritime transport still contributes in an important way to the world’s economy, with on-time shipments influencing everything from commodities availability and spot pricing to the stability of small countries. Unfortunately, capsizing a ship with a cyberattack is a relatively low-skill enterpris...

Microsoft Fixes 17 Critical Bugs in July Patch Tuesday Release

UDPATE Browser vulnerabilities took center stage in Microsoft’s July Patch Tuesday security bulletin. In all, Microsoft patched 17 bugs rated critical, with ten tied to scripting engine flaws impacting Internet Explorer. In total, Microsoft is reporting 53 bugs: 17 critical, 34 rated important, o...

Complete Microsoft EMET Bypass Developed

SAN FRANCISCO — Researchers at Bromium Labs are expected to announce today they have developed an exploit that bypasses all of the mitigations in Microsoft’s Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit EMET. Principal security researcher Jared DeMott is scheduled to deliver a presentation this morning...

Microsoft to Pay $200,000 for Innovative Defense Technology in Blue Hat Prize Program

LAS VEGAS–In the face of mounting external pressure to begin paying bug bounties, Microsoft is instead launching a new program that will pay a $200,000 top prize to a security researcher who develops the most innovative defensive security technology. The program is designed to “inspire researcher...

Inside a Malicious PDF Attack

PDFs are widely used business file format, which makes them a common target for malware attacks. On the surface, PDFs are secure, but because they have so many “features,” hackers have learned how to hide attacks deep under the surface. By using a number of utilities, we are able to reverse...