Malicious Java App is Cross-Platform Botnet

Java-related security issues have remained relatively quiet during the past few months, especially after a rocky start to 2013 seemingly had one Java flaw after another in the news. Things might be starting to ramp up again with the discovery of a cross-platform Java-based botnet. Researchers at...

Fake Payroll Confirmation Email Leads to Black Hole Exploit Kit

Criminal hackers launched an attack campaign earlier this week in which they sent a slew of emails purporting to come from the financial software developer Intuit. The emails contained links that led to sites hosting the Blackhole exploit kit in an apparent attempt to infect the machines of...

Microsoft Defends Secure Boot in Windows 8

Microsoft officials are seeking to assuage concerns that its implementation of UEFI in Windows 8 will prevent users from loading non-Microsoft operating systems or applications on their machines. Despite concerns raised by security researchers and open-source advocates about vendor lock-in and...

Zoom Settlement: An $85M Business Case for Security Investment

Ransomware isn’t the only way lax security can cost a business eight figures in damage. Zoom just lost an $85 million class-action lawsuit this week for its cybersecurity missteps, proving that even the most essential and relied-upon brands can be tripped up by inadequate security. More...

Pro-Trump Gettr Social Platform Hacked On Day 1

Gettr, a social media platform set up by allies of former President Donald Trump, was still wet and squirming when it got hacked – twice. The first slap on the rump for the politically conservative platform came in the form of Sonic the Hedgehog-themed porn that flooded it over the Fourth of July...

Clop Raid: A Big Win in the War on Ransomware?

Yesterday’s noisy raid of the Clop ransomware gang in Ukraine was a major win according to most experts throughout the cybersecurity community, who said the moment marks a shift in the international war on ransomware. The raid, according to Ukrainian reports translated by eSpire analysts, include...

Google PPC Ads Used to Deliver Infostealers

Researchers have tracked down the origins of several increasingly prevalent info-stealers – including Redline, Taurus, Tesla and Amadey – that threat actors are delivering via pay-per-click PPC ads in Google’s search results. On Wednesday, breach prevention firm Morphisec posted an advisory in...

Novel Email-Based Campaign Targets Bloomberg Clients with RATs

A new email-based campaign by an emerging threat actor aims to spread various remote access trojans RATs to a very specific group of targets who use Bloomberg’s industry-based services. Cisco Talos Intelligence researchers discovered the campaign, dubbing it and its perpetrator “Fajan,” and...

Fake Google reCAPTCHA Phishing Attack Swipes Office 365 Passwords

Microsoft users are being targeted with thousands of phishing emails, in an ongoing attack aiming to steal their Office 365 credentials. The attackers add an air of legitimacy to the campaign by leveraging a fake Google reCAPTCHA system and top-level domain landing pages that include the logos of...

SolarWinds Orion Bug Allows Easy Remote-Code Execution and Takeover

Three serious vulnerabilities have been found in SolarWinds products: Two in the Orion User Device Tracker and one in the Serv-U FTP for Windows product. The most severe of these could allow trivial remote code execution with high privileges. The SolarWinds Orion platform is the network managemen...

Malicious Software Infrastructure Easier to Get and Deploy Than Ever

Simple to use and deploy offensive security tools, making it easier than ever for criminals with little technical know-how to get in on cybercrime are seeing a significant rise, researchers say. Recorded Future just released findings from its regular year-end observations of malicious...

Cybercriminals Ramp Up Exploits Against Serious Zyxel Flaw

Security experts are warning hackers are ramping up attempts to exploit a high-severity vulnerability that may still reside in over 100,000 Zyxel Communications products. Zyxel, a Taiwanese manufacturer of networking devices, on Dec. 23 warned of the flaw in its firmware CVE-2020-29583 and releas...

Zoom Impersonation Attacks Aim to Steal Credentials

A new Zoom-themed phishing attack is circulating through email, text and social media messages, aiming to steal credentials for the videoconferencing service. The Better Business Bureau BBB warned last week that the attack uses Zoom’s logo, and in a message tells recipients that their Zoom accoun...

Microsoft Teams Users Under Attack in 'FakeUpdates' Malware Campaign

Attackers are using ads for fake Microsoft Teams updates to deploy backdoors, which use Cobalt Strike to infect companies’ networks with malware. Microsoft is warning its customers about the so-called “FakeUpdates” campaigns in a non-public security advisory, according to a report in Bleeping...

Wormable Apple iCloud Bug Allows Automatic Photo Theft

A group of ethical hackers cracked open Apple’s infrastructure and systems and, over the course of three months, discovered 55 vulnerabilities, a number of which would have given attackers complete control over customer and employee applications. Of note, a critical, wormable iCloud account...

OAuth Consent Phishing Ramps Up with Microsoft Office 365 Attacks

An APT known as TA2552 has been spotted using OAuth2 or other token-based authorization methods to access Office 365 accounts, in order to steal users’ contacts and mail. OAuth is an open standard for access delegation, commonly used as a way for people to sign into services without entering a...

BEC Hotshot with Opulent Social Media Presence to Face U.S. Charges

A Dubai resident with an elaborate lifestyle that he touted on social media – think designer clothes, expensive watches, luxury cars and charter jets – has arrived in the United States to face criminal charges. He is charged with conspiring to engage in money laundering, as part of a business ema...

'[F]Unicorn' Ransomware Impersonates Legit COVID-19 Contact-Tracing App

A fresh ransomware strain known as “FUnicorn” has emerged, first seen this week targeting users by pretending to be an official government COVID-19 contact tracing app. According to an advisory from the Computer Emergency Response Team CERT from the Agency for Digital Italy AgID, the malware fami...

TikTok Violated Children’s Privacy Law, FTC Complaint Says

The popular video sharing app TikTok has landed in hot water again over privacy issues. On Thursday, a group of privacy advocates filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission FTC alleging the platform failed to adequately protect children’s privacy. The complaint alleged that TikTok violat...

Zoom Beefs Up End-to-End Encryption to Thwart 'Zoombombers'

Video calling platform Zoom is boosting its security profile via the acquisition of a small startup called Keybase. The 25-person, New York-based company will provide more robust encryption for Zoom calls on paid subscriptions by implementing an end-to-end architecture. “Logged-in users will...

WHO, CDC and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Victims of Credential Dump, Report

Unknown threat actors have allegedly dumped nearly 25,000 email addresses and passwords from notable organizations involved in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, including credentials from prominent health organizations. Hackers have been using information belonging to groups such as World...

Zoom Removes Data-Mining LinkedIn Feature

Zoom has nixed a feature that came under fire for “undisclosed data mining” of users’ names and email addresses, used to match them with their LinkedIn profiles. The feature, the LinkedIn Sales Navigator, is a LinkedIn service used for sales prospecting. When users enter a web conference meeting,...

Defying Covid-19’s Pall: Pwn2Own Goes Virtual

Covid-19 has brought the world to grinding halt, but for the hacking competition Pwn2Own, that wasn’t the case. The event, planned for CanSecWest this week in Vancouver, went virtual along with the conference itself. Faced with travel restrictions and new social-distancing guidelines, contestants...

Critical Netgear Bug Impacts Flagship Nighthawk Router

Netgear is warning users of a critical remote code execution bug that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to take control of its Wireless AC Router Nighthawk R7800 hardware running firmware versions prior to 1.0.2.68. The warnings, posted Tuesday, also include two high-severity bugs impacting...

Free Download: The Ultimate Security Pros’ Checklist

You are a cybersecurity professional with the responsibility to keep your organization secured, you know your job chapter and verse, from high-level reporting duties to the bits and bytes of what malware targeted your endpoints a week ago. But it’s a lot to hold in one’s mind, so to make your lif...

Zero Day Initiative Bug Hunters Rake in $1.5M in 2019

Zero Day Initiative ZDI awarded more than $1.5 million in cash and prizes to bug-hunters throughout 2019, it said, resulting in 1,035 security vulnerability advisories for the year. Most of those advisories 88 percent were published in conjunction with a patch from the vendor, Zero Day Initiative...

Coronavirus Campaigns Spread Emotet, Malware

As the coronavirus originating in the Wuhan province of China continues to stir widespread fears about a global public health crisis, some see an opportunity in the outbreak. A recent spate of malicious, botnet-driven emails is using the coronavirus as a theme, according to telemetry from IBM...

Trolls-For-Hire Pave Way For Sophisticated Social Media Hacks

NEW ORLEANS – Researchers have observed the blossoming of a new type of social media nuisance they are calling Trolling-as-a-Service. They say these rabble-rousing efforts have emerged as a clever new way for hackers to launch coordinated and dangerous attacks via Facebook and Twitter. Speaking a...

Intel Fixes High-Severity Flaw in Performance Analysis Tool

Intel is warning of a high-severity vulnerability in its performance analysis tool called Intel VTune Profiler. If exploited the flaw allows an adversary to perform a privilege escalation attack, giving them elevated and unauthorized system access to a targeted system. The VTune Profiler, formerl...

Serious Security Flaws Found in Children's Connected Toys

Various connected toys for children – hot off the shelves from this holiday shopping season – have been found with deep-rooted security issues, including missing authentication for device pairing and a lack of encryption for connected online accounts. The research, formed by a partnership between...

Iran Targets Mideast Oil with ZeroCleare Wiper Malware

A freshly-discovered wiper malware dubbed “ZeroCleare” has been deployed to target the energy and industrial sectors in the Middle East. According to IBM’s X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services IRIS, ZeroCleare so-named because of the program database pathname of its binary file was...

Authorities Break Up Imminent Monitor Spyware Organization

The developers behind a commodity remote-access tool RAT that allows full control of a victim’s computer has been taken down by Australian and global authorities. The Imminent Monitor RAT IM-RAT first appeared in 2012, the work of a developer going by the handle of “Shockwave,” according to...

Google Discloses Android Camera Hijack Hack

Researchers have disclosed a high-severity issue that could allow attackers to hijack the Google Camera App, the built-in smartphone camera for Android phones. The issue was fixed for Google-manufactured phones in July – but Google said patches are still rolling out to smartphones in the broader...

Stealthy Malware Flies Under AV Radar with Advanced Obfuscation

Researchers warn hackers are putting a new spin on old injection techniques and successfully end-running endpoint protection. They are tracking a campaign, that kicked off in January, that is still going strong exploiting weaknesses in web browsers. The objective is to hide in the background of...

Stubborn Malware Targets QNAP NAS Hardware Specifically

UPDATE Top-selling network attached storage devices NAS made by QNAP Systems are being singled out by attackers, who have crafted malware specifically designed for the vendor’s hardware. Researchers at the Finland’s National Cyber Security Centre NCSC-FI reported the targeted attacks late last...

California Bans Deepfakes in Elections, Porn

California has passed a law that bans the use of deepfake technology in political speech, and for non-consensual use in adult content. Deepfakes are a manipulation of images and recordings, created by artificial intelligence technology, that make it appear as if an individual is doing or saying...

Magecart Hits 80 Major eCommerce Sites in Card-Skimming Bonanza

UPDATE More than 80 global eCommerce sites have been uncovered that were actively compromised by Magecart groups. Magecart, a loose affiliation of attack groups responsible for the payment-card attacks on Ticketmaster, Forbes, British Airways, Newegg and others, typically insert virtual credit-ca...

Ransomware Sees Triple-Digit Spike in Corporate Detections

LAS VEGAS — As cybercriminals continue to chase the most lucrative attack vectors they can find, ransomware attacks are migrating from consumer targets to organizations, businesses, municipalities and beyond. For the first time, consumer detections have fallen below organizational infections, as ...

Democrats and Doctors Behind Latest Wave of Leaked Data

Data leakage via misconfigured Amazon storage buckets struck twice in the past few weeks. In July, almost 14,000 documents detailing patient social security numbers and medical data – such as mental illness or cancer – was exposed in a misconfigured storage bucket owned by healthcare vendor Medic...

Carbanak Source Code Unveils a Startlingly Complex Malware

A look under the hood of FIN7’s notorious Carbanak backdoor – the result of nearly 500 total hours of analysis across 100,000 lines of code and dozens of binaries – shows that the malware is highly sophisticated – more sophisticated than expected. It’s a Cadillac in a sea of golf carts, if you...

Exploits for Social Warfare WordPress Plugin Reach Critical Mass

UPDATE Active exploits for a recently disclosed bug in a popular WordPress plugin, Social Warfare, are snowballing in the wild – potentially putting more than 40,000 websites at risk. The vulnerability, CVE-2019-9978, tracks both a stored cross-site scripting XSS vulnerability and a remote...

Easter Attack Affects Half a Billion Apple iOS Users via Chrome Bug

UPDATE About a half a billion Apple iOS users and counting have been hit by session-hijacking cybercriminals bent on serving up malware. They’re exploiting an unpatched flaw in the Chrome for iOS browser, to bypass sandboxing and hijack user sessions, targeting iPhone and iPad users. The attacks...

Intel Patches High-Severity Flaws in Media SDK, Mini PC

Intel has released security updates addressing two high-severity vulnerabilities in its Intel Media Software Development Kit SDK and Intel NUC mini PC. Overall, the chip giant on Tuesday patched four flaws across its products; the most severe of these vulnerabilities exist in Intel’s Media Softwa...

Google Warns of Growing Android Attack Vector: Backdoored SDKs and Pre-Installed Apps

Google is reporting an uptick in efforts by bad actors to plant potentially harmful applications PHAs on Android devices via pre-installed apps and by bundling them with system updates delivered over the air. The technique is especially troubling, Google said, because PHAs are often malicious and...

Threatpost Data: Password Managers Are Worth the Risk, Readers Say

Despite a high-profile memory-related vulnerability in password managers capturing headlines last week, a recent Threatpost poll found that 84 percent of respondents use password managers – while only 10 percent said they don’t due to security risks. There have been vulnerabilities found before i...

Cross-Site Scripting Flaw in Apache ActiveMQ Threatens Web Visitors

Researchers have found a cross-site scripting XSS flaw in Apache ActiveMQ that could enable a remote attacker with no privileges to launch an array of attacks against visitors to compromised websites. The vulnerability CVE-2018-8006 was disclosed today and impacts ActiveMQ versions earlier than...

Multiple Bugs Found in QNAP Q’Center Web Console

Researchers found an array of high severity vulnerabilities in network storage vendor QNAP’s web console, which could enable an authenticated attacker to gain privileges and execute arbitrary commands on the system. The web-based platform, Q’center, allows users to manage network attached storage...

Targeted Spy Campaign Hits Russian Service Centers

A series of espionage attacks have been uncovered, targeted at service centers in Russia that provide maintenance and support for a variety of electronic goods. The payload is a commercial version of the Imminent Monitor tool, which is freely available for purchase as legitimate software. Its...

NFL Players and Agents Targeted in Database Extortion Attempt

A misconfigured database containing records belonging to 1,133 National Football League players and their agents was exposed via an unsecured Elasticsearch server. The database belongs to the NFL Players Association and includes the home address, phone numbers and IP addresses for hundreds of...

Windows SMB Zero Day to Be Disclosed During DEF CON

LAS VEGAS—A 20-year-old Windows SMB vulnerability is expected to be disclosed Saturday during a talk at DEF CON. Microsoft has said it will not patch the vulnerability, which allows an attacker to remotely crash a Windows server with relative ease using only 20 lines of Python code and a Raspberr...