Bash Vulnerability Exploits Dropping DDoS Bots

A honeypot run by researchers at AlienVault Labs has snared two separate pieces of malware attempting to exploit the Bash vulnerability. One sample is a repurposed IRC bot written in Perl that is trying to build a botnet to be used in distributed denial of service attacks DDoS, said Jaime Blasco,...

Archie Exploit Kit Spotted Leveraging Adobe, Silverlight Vulnerabilities

A relatively new exploit kit that borrows modules copied from the Metasploit Framework and exploits any older versions of Adobe Flash, Reader and, Silverlight the user may be using has begun to make the rounds. Jaime Blasco, the director of AlienVault Labs dug deeper into kit, known as Archie, on...

June 2014 Microsoft Patch Tuesday Security Updates

Prompted by the disclosure of a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8 more than six months after it was reported, Microsoft next Tuesday will finally issue a patch. HP’s Zero Day Initiative ZDI released on May 21 some detail on a previously unreported use-after-free bug in IE 8. No public...

Novel ‘Nerbian’ Trojan Uses Advanced Anti-Detection Tricks

A newly discovered and complex remote access trojan RAT is spreading via malicious email campaigns using COVID-19 lures and includes numerous features to evade analysis or detection by researchers, Proofpoint has found. Dubbed Nerbian RAT, the novel malware variant is written in the OS-agnostic G...

The Internet’s Most Tempting Targets

The number of exposed assets keeps climbing, but existing security strategies aren’t keeping up. Attack surfaces are getting more complex, and the excruciatingly hard part is figuring out where to focus. For every 1,000 assets on an attack surface, there is often only one that’s truly interesting...

Partially Unpatched VMware Bug Opens Door to Hypervisor Takeover

A security vulnerability in VMware’s Cloud Foundation, ESXi, Fusion and Workstation platforms could pave the way for hypervisor takeover in virtual environments – and a patch is still pending for some users. The issue affects a wide swath of the virtualization specialist’s portfolio and affects...

Threat Group Takes Aim Again at Cloud Platform Provider Zoho

State-backed adversaries expanded attacks against cloud platform company Zoho and its ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus software, a help desk and asset management solution. A recent campaign marks an uptick in attacks against the firm’s platform, which have also included past targeting of Zoho’s...

Critical Sage X3 RCE Bug Allows Full System Takeovers

Four vulnerabilities afflict the popular Sage X3 enterprise resource planning ERP platform, researchers found – including one critical bug that rates 10 out of 10 on the CVSS vulnerability-severity scale. Two of the bugs could be chained together to allow complete system takeovers, with potential...

New Crypto-Stealer ‘Panda’ Spreads via Discord

Yet another new information stealer – Panda Stealer – is being spread through a worldwide spam campaign. On Tuesday, Trend Micro researchers said that they first spotted the new stealer in April. The most recent wave of the spam campaign has had the biggest impact in Australia, Germany, Japan and...

Swiss Army knife For Information Security: What is Comprehensive Protection?

Written by Sergey Ozhegov, CEO of SearchInform In the early days of information security, we used to rely on antivirus and firewall in our arsenal. Once I even “caught” a leak with the help of the firewall logs: I noticed an atypically large data upload and found out that the user was uploading...

1.3M Clubhouse Users’ Data Dumped in Hacker Forum for Free

Clubhouse, the startup invitation-only chat app, is the latest social-media platform to see mammoth troves of user data collected and posted in underground forums. An SQL file containing the personal data of 1.3 million Clubhouse users has been posted in a hacker forum for free. Names, user IDs,...

533M Facebook Accounts Leaked Online: Check if You Are Exposed

More than 533 million Facebook users had their personal information posted to a public hacker forum, a move that is raising concerns about an uptick in cybercrime leveraging the credentials. The publicly released Facebook user data is believed to be part of a 2019 “Add Friend” Facebook security b...

$4,000 COVID-19 'Relief Checks' Cloak Dridex Malware

Cybercriminals have wasted no time in hopping on the American Rescue Plan – the COVID-19 relief legislation just signed into law – as a lure for email-based scams. According to researchers at Cofense, a campaign began circulating in March that capitalized on Americans’ interest in the forthcoming...

2021 Cybersecurity Trends: Bigger Budgets, Endpoint Emphasis and Cloud

After shrinking in 2020, cybersecurity budgets in 2021 climb higher than pre-pandemic limits. Authentication, cloud data protection and application monitoring will top the list of CISO budget and cybersecurity priorities. According to experts, these are just a few of the themes to dominate the ye...

Cisco Webex 'Ghost' Flaw Opens Meetings to Snooping

A vulnerability in Cisco’s Webex conferencing application could allow an attendee to act as a “ghost” in the meeting – allowing them to spy in on potentially sensitive company secrets. To exploit the flaw CVE-2020-3419, attackers can be remote – however, they would need access to join the Webex...

Critical Adobe Illustrator, Bridge and Magento Flaws Patched

Adobe is warning of critical flaws in Adobe Bridge, Adobe Illustrator and the Magento e-commerce platform. If exploited, the most severe vulnerabilities could enable remote code execution on affected systems. Adobe’s out-of-band security update, released on Tuesday, addressed vulnerabilities tied...

Eight Common OT / Industrial Firewall Mistakes

Most industrial sites deploy firewalls as the first line of defense for their Operations Technology OT / industrial networks. However, configuring and managing these firewalls is a complex undertaking. Configuration and other mistakes are easy to make. This article explores eight common mistakes...

Dark_Nexus Botnet Compromises Thousands of ASUS, D-Link Routers

A new botnet has compromised hundreds of ASUS, D-Link and Dasan Zhone routers over the past three months, as well as Internet of Things IoT devices like video recorders and thermal cameras. The botnet, called darknexus based on a string it prints in its banner, uses processes similar to previous...

Google’s War on Android App Permissions, 60 Percent Successful

Overzealous Android apps that needlessly ask for permissions to handset resources such as contact lists and location data are not only obnoxious, but also potential privacy threats. To address this hot-button issue with Android users Google implemented a strict permission policy designed to curb...

Hackers Cashing In On Healthcare Industry Security Weaknesses

SAN FRANCISCO – Cybercriminals are pushing boundaries in looking for new ways to cash in on the healthcare space – whether it is persuading desperate patients to download health information apps that actually infect their devices with malware, attacking hospitals with ransomware attacks or even...

Google Bans 600 Android Apps for Obnoxious Ads

Google has removed nearly 600 Android apps from the Play Store for serving up obnoxious, invasive ads that aren’t easily “x’d” out of. The internet giant said the enforcement action was a strike against mobile ad fraud. Google said Thursday that the apps violated its disruptive ads policy – and a...

Pwn2Own Tokyo Roundup: Amazon Echo, Routers and Smart TVs Fall to Hackers

Another Pwn2Own has drawn to a close, with Team Fluoroacetate researchers Amat Cama and Richard Zhu taking home the Master of Pwn title for the third year in a row. Overall, contestants in the Tokyo 2019 event earned more than $315,000 over the two-day hacking contest, for uncovering 18 different...

How to Secure Critical Infrastructure When Patching Isn't Possible

Cyberattacks are on the rise and threatening our digital life and our most intimate information — but also our operational realities. Attacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants, water works, airports and the like transportation ranks among the highest-value targets for cyberattackers...

Trump, Putin and Politics Name-Dropped to Peddle Malware

With the U.S. presidential elections looming, bad actors are tapping into the political craze with several malware distribution campaigns, using high-profile political names to tap into victims’ emotions and convince them to click on malicious links. Researchers have uncovered hundreds of...

News Wrap: Dentist Offices Hit By Ransomware, Venmo Faces Privacy Firestorm

In this week’s news wrap podcast, editor Lindsey O’Donnell and Tara Seals break down the top news of the week – from ransomware attacks to companies responding to outcry over privacy issues. Top stories include: Ring announced it is working with more than 400 US police departments to streamline...

Chrome 76 Dumps Default Adobe Flash Player Support

Google has launched the latest iteration of the Chrome browser for Windows, Mac and Linux, which blocks Adobe Flash Player default support and comes with more than 40 security fixes. Though plans to deprecate Adobe Flash in Chrome have been brewing for years, Chrome 76 takes an official first ste...

Facebook Removes Accounts Used to Infect Thousands With Malware

Facebook has shut down more than 30 accounts spreading malware through malicious links that purport to be news about the ongoing political situation in Libya. The campaign, ongoing since 2014, has infected tens of thousands of victims with remote access trojans RATs, according to researchers. The...

Chinese Hackers Behind 2015 Anthem Data Breach Indicted

Two Chinese nationals have been charged in the massive 2015 data breach of health insurer Anthem that impacted more than 78 million people. Fujie Wang, 32, and another Chinese man, who remains unnamed, were allegedly part of a China-based hacking group that was behind the breach of Indiana-based...

High-Severity PrinterLogic Flaws Enable Remote Code Execution

A slew of high-severity flaws have been disclosed in the PrinterLogic printer management service, which could enable a remote attacker to execute code on workstations running the PrinterLogic agent. PrinterLogic’s Print Management software allows businesses to deploy and use remote printers...

Google Gives Users More Choice with Location-Tracking Apps

Anyone who uses a mobile app knows how convenient the features that use location data can be, from getting turn-by-turn directions and finding nearby restaurants to fitness-tracking and weather integration. But these rich mobile “experiences” – as app developers call them – can be a double-edged...

RSA Conference 2019 Recap

SAN FRANCISCO – The RSA Conference 2019 is wrapping up, and Threatpost has been on the show floor this week covering the barrage of security news from the conference – including the annual cryptographers’ panel, big tech companies’ thoughts on privacy, and new vulnerabilities and patches that wer...

Trivial Post-Intrusion Attack Exploits Windows RID

An novel post-intrusion attack technique allows hackers to hijack a Windows system component called RID, allowing the adversaries to assign administrative privileges to “guest” and other low-level accounts. The technique is simple and does not require a lot of sophistication, security researcher...

Intel CPUs Undermined By Fresh Speculative Execution Flaws

UPDATE Three new speculative execution design flaws in Intel CPUs were disclosed today, this time impacting Intel’s Software Guard Extensions SGX technology, its OS and system management mode SMM and hypervisor software. The three vulnerabilities would allow attacks on Intel Core and Xeon...

Oracle Sets All-Time Record with July Critical Patch Update

Oracle has released a massive Critical Patch Update CPU for July, addressing 334 security vulnerabilities covering a vast swathe of its enterprise portfolio. Of the 334 vulnerabilities covered this month, 61 are rated critical, with a CVSS rating between nine and 10. Oracle said in its advisory...

Equifax Says 2.4 Million More People Impacted By Massive 2017 Breach

Equifax said that an additional 2.4 million Americans have had their personal data stolen as part of the company’s massive 2017 data breach, including their names and some of their driver’s license information. The additional identified victims bring the total of those implicated in what has beco...

Critical Code Execution Flaw Patched in PeopleSoft Core Engine

Organizations that have their PeopleSoft installations exposed to the internet should pay special attention to a remote code execution vulnerability patched on Tuesday as part of Oracle’s massive quarterly Critical Patch Update. The flaw, CVE-2017-10366, allows an attacker to gain remote code...

Remote Wi-Fi Attack Backdoors iPhone 7

Google on Tuesday disclosed details and a proof-of-concept exploit for a Wi-Fi firmware vulnerability in Broadcom chipsets patched this week in iOS 11. The attack enables code execution and persistent presence on a compromised device. “The exploit gains code execution on the Wi-Fi firmware on the...

EternalBlue Exploit Used in Retefe Banking Trojan Campaign

Criminals behind the Retefe banking Trojan have added a new component to their malware that uses the NSA exploit EternalBlue. The update makes Retefe the latest malware family to adopt the SMBv1 attack against a patched Windows vulnerability, and could signal an emerging trend, said researchers a...

FDA Recalls 465K Pacemakers Tied to MedSec Research

The United States Federal Drug Administration is recalling 465,000 pacemakers that attackers can gain unauthorized access to issue commands, change settings and maliciously disrupt. Affected are four models manufactured by Abbott Laboratories. According to the FDA, the recalls of affected...

Protecting Cloud APIs Critical to Mitigating Total Compromise

When it comes to cloud computing, APIs more or less drive everything, but in the eyes of some researchers, existing security controls around them haven’t kept pace. While individual components of a system can be secure, when that system gets deployed in the cloud it can often become insecure – an...

September 2015 Microsoft Patch Tuesday Security Bulletins

Microsoft today patched a vulnerability in its graphics component present in Windows, Office and Lync that has been publicly attacked, and is one of five vulnerabilities patched this month that have been publicly disclosed. Microsoft released a dozen bulletins today, five of them it rates critica...

Attackers Exploiting Windows OLE Vulnerability

Attackers are using a zero day vulnerability in nearly all supported versions of Windows in a series of targeted attacks. The flaw is in the OLE technology in Windows and can be used for remote code execution is a targeted user opens a rigged Office file. Microsoft is warning customers that there...

IE 11 Stands Up to Pwn2Own Exploit Attempt

VANCOUVER – Successful exploits at the Pwn2Own contest get all the glitz, but the rarities are the exploits that fail. A group of four young South Korean hackers from ASRT, all of them well shy of their thirtieth birthdays, stood in proxy for Jung Hoon Lee. Lee was home fulfilling a military...

65 Sites Compromised in ZeroAccess Trojan Attacks

As many as 65 websites have been compromised in an attack that has snared another Washington, D.C.-area media website as well as a number of travel and leisure sites. While the sites aren’t topically related, they’re all hosting advertisements injected with malicious code hosted on...

Ruby on Rails Exploit Harvests IRC Botnet

Developers who have not updated their Ruby on Rails installations with a five-month-old security patch would do well to secure the Web development framework now. Exploit code has surfaced for CVE-2013-0156 that is being used to build a botnet of compromised servers. Exploit code has been publicly...

Microsoft Fix It a Temporary Patch for IE 8 Zero Day Flaw

Microsoft has released a Fix-It to address an Internet Explorer 8 zero-day that was exploited in a watering hole attack against the U.S. Department of Labor website last week. The Fix It is a temporary mitigation until a patch is released. Microsoft’s next scheduled Patch Tuesday security updates...

Exploit Code Surfaces for CVE-2012-1875 Internet Explorer Bug

Less than a week after Microsoft released a patch for a critical vulnerability in Internet Explorer, attack code has become publicly available in the form of a module for the Metasploit Framework. The bug is serious one that enables an attacker to bypass both ASLR and DEP, the two main anti-explo...

Botnets Hit Perl Testers With Denial of Service Attack

According to a posting on the CPAN Testers’ blog, the CPAN Testers’ server has been being aggressively scanned by “20-30 bots every few seconds” in what they call “a dedicated denial of service attack”; these bots “completely ignore the rules specified in robots.txt”. Read the full article. The H...

Partial disclosure: Was it a cat I saw?

Quite often in our industry, two or five people can look at the same problem from different angles, and see radically different things. Rare is the situation that reads the same to everyone, forwards and backwards. It’s all about perspective. In my appearance on the ‘Partial Disclosure Dilemma’...

Log4Shell Vulnerability Targeted in VMware Servers to Exfiltrate Data

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA and Coast Guard Cyber Command CGCYBER released a joint advisory warning the Log4Shell flaw is being abused by threat actors that are compromising public-facing VMware Horizon and Unified Access Gateway UAG servers. The VMware Horizon is a...