AMD Downplays CPU Threat Opening Chips to Data Leak Attacks

AMD is seeking to downplay side-channel attacks that can leak potentially sensitive data from its processors released between 2011 and 2019. The “Take A Way” attack, so-called by researchers with the Graz University of Technology in a new analysis this weekend, is a side-channel attack...

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...

RSAC 2020: GM's Transportation Future Hinges on Cybersecurity

SAN FRANCISCO — General Motors is working on self-driving cars, cars that monitor heart rates and other vital functions, zero-emission vehicles and more – all underpinned by exceedingly complex coding and relying on ubiquitous connectivity. But there’s a problem. The cyber-talent gap is hitting t...

Podcast: Managing an Out-Of-Control Security Tech Stack

This podcast is sponsored by Arctic Wolf. In this sponsored podcast, Threatpost podcast host Cody Hackett and Sam McLane, chief technology officer with Arctic Wolf, discuss important considerations when building a multi-layered cybersecurity strategy and best practices when evaluating security...

Fancy Bear Targets Sporting, Anti-Doping Orgs As 2020 Olympics Loom

At least 16 anti-doping authorities and sporting organizations around the world have been hit by cyberattacks as the world begins to gear up for the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, which kick off July 2020. The attacks, which began Sept. 16, have been linked to infamous Russian threat group Fancy Bea...

Senate Passes Bill Aimed At Combating Ransomware Attacks

The U.S. Senate has approved new legislation aimed at helping government agencies and private-sector companies combat ransomware attacks. The legislation comes as local governments and schools continue to be hit by sophisticated – and in some cases coordinated – ransomware attacks. The proposed...

More U.S. Utility Firms Targeted in Evolving LookBack Spearphishing Campaign

A spearphishing campaign, first spotted in July targeting three U.S. utility companies with a new malware variant, has evolved its tactics and extended its targeting to include nearly 20 companies. The campaign was first discovered in phishing emails, sent between July 19 and 25, which targeted...

WordPress Plugins Exploited in Ongoing Attack, Researchers Warn

Researchers are warning of an ongoing campaign exploiting vulnerabilities in a slew of WordPress plugins. The campaign is redirecting traffic from victims’ websites to a number of potentially harmful locations. Impacted by the campaign is a plugin called Simple 301 Redirects – Addon – Bulk Upload...

Apache Security Advisories Red Flag Wrong Versions in Patching Gaffe

Researchers have pinpointed errors in two dozen Apache Struts security advisories, which warn users of vulnerabilities in the popular open-source web app development framework. They say that the security advisories listed incorrect versions impacted by the vulnerabilities. The concern from this...

British Airways E-Ticketing Flaw Exposes Passenger Flight, Personal Data

A security bug discovered in British Airways’ e-ticketing system has the potential to expose passengers’ data, including their flight booking details and personal information. Researchers on Tuesday said that check-in links being sent by British Airways to their passengers via email are unencrypt...

RSAC 2019: Joomla! Flaw Exploited to Create Mass Phishing Infrastructure

SECOND UPDATE Editor’s Note: It has come to our attention that Check Point’s findings are being questioned by Joomla! and others in the open-source ecosystem. Our story accurately reflects Check Point’s report — but it’s clear that the news isn’t about Jmail or the vulnerability which is at least...

U.S. Senators Urge VPN Ban for Federal Workers Over Spying

UPDATE Two U.S. senators are taking bipartisan aim at foreign-owned virtual private networks VPNs, which they say are often headquartered “in countries that do not share American interests or values” – specifically, China and Russia. Sens. Ron Wyden D-Ore. and Marco Rubio R-Fla. have signed a joi...

Stealthy Malware Disguises Itself as a WordPress License Key

UPDATE A spam-injecting malware is targeting WordPress site owners by disguising itself as a legitimate license key for a WordPress design theme. According to analysis from Sucuri, a customer opened a malware removal ticket reporting “some weird spam URLs injected onto their WordPress website.”...

PewDiePie Hackers Say They Launched Second Printer Siege

UPDATE Hackers have claimed that they launched yet another attack tricking hundreds of thousands of printers globally to print pamphlets promoting YouTube celebrity “PewDiePie.” The latest incident comes on the heels of a similar hack last month. That’s when hackers claimed they commandeered 50,0...

Drupal Issues Highly Critical Patch: Over 1M Sites Vulnerable

Drupal released a patch for a “highly critical” flaw in versions 6, 7 and 8 of its CMS platform that could allow an attacker to take control of an affected site simply by visiting it. Drupal also warned an unprivileged and untrusted attacker could modify or delete data hosted on affected CMS...

Microsoft Patches Office Bug Actively Being Exploited

Security experts are urging network administrators to patch a Microsoft Office vulnerability that has been exploited in the wild. The vulnerability CVE-2017-11826 could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Office file. It was one of 62 vulnerabilities patched by Microso...

Microsoft Patches Publicly Disclosed IE, Edge Vulnerabilities

Microsoft today patched a half-dozen critical browser vulnerabilities that have been publicly disclosed, but apparently not used in attacks as of yet. The critical Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge bulletins are among six released today, along with six others with a severity rating of importan...

OpenSSL Fixes Critical Bug Introduced by Latest Update

OpenSSL today released an emergency security update after a patch in its most recent update issued last week introduced a critical vulnerability in the cryptographic library. The new flaw affects only OpenSSL 1.1.0a, which was made available last Thursday; users are urged to update to 1.1.0b...

Netgear Router Update Removes Hardcoded Crypto Keys

Netgear has released firmware updates for two of its router products lines, patching vulnerabilities that were reported in January. Users should update to firmware version 1.0.0.59, which includes fixes for an authentication bypass vulnerability and also addresses a hard-coded cryptographic key...

Badlock Windows, Samba Man-in-the-Middle Vulnerability

Weeks of anxiety and concern over the Badlock vulnerability ended today with an anticlimactic thud. Badlock was the security boogeyman since the appearance three weeks ago of a website and logo branding the bug as something serious in Samba, an open source implementation of the server message blo...

Emergency Java Patch Re-Issued for 2013 Vulnerability

Oracle yesterday released an emergency patch for a Java vulnerability that was improperly patched in 2013. Researchers at Security Explorations in Poland two weeks ago disclosed that a Java patch for an issue the company reported in 2013, CVE-2013-5838, was still trivially exploitable, and it...

Adobe Issues HotFix For ColdFusion

Adobe this afternoon released hotfixes and security updates for three of its products that patch a handful of vulnerabilities, none of which are being publicly exploited. The most serious vulnerabilities were in ColdFusion, Adobe’s web application development platform. The hotfix affects ColdFusi...

Era Ends With Break Up of Trustworthy Computing Group at Microsoft

In a move that has surprised many in the security community, Microsoft has disbanded its Trustworthy Computing unit, the group that was responsible for the pioneering work that helped reverse the company’s security reputation and make Windows a much more secure and reliable computing platform. Th...

Second NSA Crypto Tool Found in RSA BSafe

A team of academics released a study on the maligned Dual EC DRBG algorithm used in RSA Security’s BSafe and other cryptographic libraries that includes new evidence that the National Security Agency used a second cryptographic tool alongside Dual EC DRBG in Bsafe to facilitate spying. Allegation...

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...

Universities Put Email Users at Cyber Risk

Top U.S. universities are among the worst in the world at protecting users from email fraud, lacking security measures to prevent common threat tactics such as domain spoofing or other types of fraudulent emails, researchers have found. Ninety-seven percent of the top 10 universities in the Unite...

FBI: Rise in Business Email-based Attacks a $43B Headache

The FBI warned the global cost of business email compromise BEC attacks is $43 billion for the time period of June 2016 and December 2021. According to FBI report, 241,206 complaints were lodged by the agency’s Internet Crime Center IC3. BEC or email account compromise EAC are an advanced scammin...

Rickroll Grad Prank Exposes Exterity IPTV Bug

UPDATE When Township High School District 214 in Illinois got rickrolled all at once across its six different schools just before graduation, it was more than a meticulously executed senior prank. Cybersecurity star-in-the-making and recent high-school graduate Minh Duong found, and was able to...

OpenSea ‘Free Gift’ NFTs Drain Cryptowallet Balances

Users of OpenSea, the world’s largest digital-collectible marketplace, have found their cryptocurrency wallets ripped off thanks to cyberattackers weaponizing security bugs that allowed them to highjack user accounts. The attacks revolved around boobytrapped art files, which circulated in the for...

HPE Warns Sudo Bug Gives Attackers Root Privileges to Aruba Platform

Hewlett Packard Enterprise HPE is warning a vulnerability in Sudo, an open-source program used within its Aruba AirWave management platform, could allow any unprivileged and unauthenticated local user to gain root privileges on a vulnerable host. Rated high in severity, HPE warns the Sudo flaw...

Windows EoP Bug Detailed by Google Project Zero

It looked like Google Project Zero blew its own 90-day disclosure window when, on Wednesday, it disclosed an elevation of privilege EoP flaw in Windows that it reported to Microsoft just over a month ago on July 8. But no: It turns out that Microsoft flip-flopped on whether or not it was planning...

Israeli Government Agencies Visit NSO Group Offices

UPDATE Authorities from multiple agencies of the Israeli government paid a visit the offices of the NSO Group as part of a new investigation into claims that the secretive firm is selling its spyware to threat actors for targeted attacks, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. A single twe...

MosaicLoader Malware Delivers Facebook Stealers, RATs

A never-before-documented Windows malware strain dubbed MosaicLoader is spreading worldwide, acting as a full-service malware-delivery platform that’s being used to infect victims with remote-access trojans RATs, Facebook cookie stealers and other threats. That’s according to Bitdefender...

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...

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,...

Conti Gang Demands $40M Ransom from Florida School District

UPDATE The Conti Gang has demanded a $40 million ransom from a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., school district after a ransomware attack last month. Attackers stole personal information from students and teachers, disrupted the district’s networks, and caused some services to be unavailable. The incident...

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...

Critical WordPress-Plugin Bug Found in 'Orbit Fox' Allows Site Takeover

Two vulnerabilities one critical in a WordPress plugin called Orbit Fox could allow attackers to inject malicious code into vulnerable websites and/or take control of a website. Orbit Fox is a multi-featured WordPress plugin that works with the Elementor, Beaver Builder and Gutenberg site-buildin...

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...

Adobe Fixes 16 Critical Code-Execution Bugs Across Portfolio

Adobe has released 18 out-of-band security patches in 10 different software packages, including fixes for critical vulnerabilities that stretch across its product suite. Adobe Illustrator was hit the hardest. There are 16 critical bugs, all of which allow arbitrary code execution in the context o...

Instagram 'Help Center' Phishing Scam Pilfers Credentials

Turkish-speaking cybercriminals are sending Instagram users seemingly legitimate messages from the social media company, with the aim of stealing their Instagram and email credentials. Researchers said that the campaign has been targeting hundreds of celebrities, startup business owners, and othe...

Vermont Taxpayers Warned of Data Leak Over the Past Three Years

The Vermont Department of Taxes may have been exposing taxpayer data that could be used in credential scams for more than three years due to a vulnerability in its online tax filing system. A notice PDF posted on the department’s website warned taxpayers who filed a Property Transfer Tax return...

StrongPity APT Back with Kurdish-Aimed Watering Hole Attacks

The APT group known as StrongPity is back with a new watering-hole campaign, targeting mainly Kurdish victims in Turkey and Syria. The malware served offers operators the ability to search for and exfiltrate any file or document from a victim’s machine. The group a.k.a. Promethium is operating a...

NTT Communications Data Breach Affects Customers, Threatens Supply Chain

Japan-based systems integrator NTT Communications has disclosed a recent data breach that it said impacted hundreds of customers. The total affected comes to as many as 621 customers, the company said, but security experts worry about the impacts of the data breach due to the company’s positionin...

Edison Mail iOS Bug Exposes Emails to Strangers

Edison Mail, a popular third-party email app, has warned thousands of iOS users that their emails may have been compromised after a security flaw exposed emails to complete strangers. Edison Mail, owned by Edison Software Inc., is in the top 100 productivity apps on the Apple app store, and touts...

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...

Official Government COVID-19 Mobile Apps Hide a Raft of Threats

A rash of COVID-19 Android mobile apps have emerged that are aimed at helping citizens in Iran, Italy and Colombia track symptoms and virus infections. However, they’re also putting people’s privacy and the security of their data at risk, researchers have found. Security researchers at the ZeroFO...

WHO Targeted in Espionage Attempt, COVID-19 Cyberattacks Spike

The World Health Organization WHO has attracted the notice of cybercriminals as the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic continues to play out, with a doubling of attacks recently, according to officials there. Problematically, evidence has also now apparently surfaced that the DarkHotel APT group has tri...

News Wrap: Valentine's Day Scams and Emotet's Wi-Fi Hack

Threatpost editors Tara Seals and Lindsey O’Donnell-Welch break down the top stories for this week, ended Feb. 14, including: Recent phishing scams – including ones with a romance hook – continue to trick victims, showing that phishing tactics still work in stealing millions from individuals,...

WhatsApp Bug Allows Malicious Code-Injection, One-Click RCE

Security researchers have identified a JavaScript vulnerability in the WhatsApp desktop platform that could allow cybercriminals to spread malware, phishing or ransomware campaigns through notification messages that appear completely normal to unsuspecting users. And, further investigation shows...