Dailymotion Fights Ongoing Credential-Stuffing Attack

Dailymotion, the video-sharing platform, said Friday that it had fallen victim to a “large-scale” and ongoing credential-stuffing assault by attackers looking to harvest user data. The French YouTube competitor said in an alert that it has “successfully contained the attacks following the...

Monero: Cybercrime's Top Choice for Mining Malware

An academic analysis of cryptomining malware has determined that the Monero virtual currency XMR is “by far” the most popular cryptocurrency to mine among cybercriminals. And, it would appear that cryptomining as a criminal enterprise is unlikely to wane anytime soon. After examining approximatel...

6 Signs of Successful Threat Hunting

When a threat hunting program is established by an organization, their goal is to proactively hunt threats, with a focus on newer, more sophisticated attacks for which reliable signatures or indicators are not yet available. However, without an effective threat hunting program, the attacker is...

Major OS Players Misinterpret Intel Docs, and Now Kernels Can Be Hijacked

Multiple operating system vendors issued coordinated patches this week to address a common vulnerability across their platforms, which was introduced thanks to widespread misinterpretation of Intel developer documentation. According to the CERT/CC team, most major players including Apple, FreeBSD...

Newly Published Exploit Code Used to Spread Mirai Variant

Qihoo 360 Netlab researchers reported on Friday that they are tracking an uptick in botnet activity associated with a variant of Mirai. Targeted are ports 23 and 2323 on internet-connected devices made by ZyXEL Communications that are using default admin/CenturyL1nk and admin/QwestM0dem telnet...

Cisco, Netgear Readying Patches for Samba Vulnerability

Device manufacturers are combing through code again this week to determine whether their products are affected by a vulnerability tied to the SMB file-sharing protocol. The vulnerability, CVE-2017-7494 disclosed last Wednesday, affects versions of 3.5.0 onward of Samba, the free software...

Google Chrome 57 Browser Update Patches 'High' Severity Flaws

Google released an updated version of its Chrome browser on Thursday to fix nine high-severity vulnerabilities that if exploited could allow adversaries to take control of targeted systems. As part of the update, Google thanked nearly two dozen bug hunters with bug bounty payments totaling $38,00...

Oracle Patches 270 Vulnerabilities With First CPU of 2017

Oracle patched 270 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, many remotely exploitable, across 45 different products–including its E-Business Suite, Financial Services software, and MySQL database–as part of its quarterly Critical Patch Update CPU. The massive update comes close breaking Oracle’s record-settin...

Cisco Patches Critical Vulnerability in Facility Events Response System

Cisco Systems issued a security bulletin Wednesday for a critical vulnerability found in its IP Interoperability and Collaboration System IPICS. The feature is a key part of a mechanism used by Cisco to facilitate emergency responses for “facility events.” The vulnerability CVE-2016-6397, accordi...

Office, Java Patches Erase Latest APT 28 Zero Days

An APT group thought to be tied to Russia is flying against conventional wisdom, having as recently as the last three weeks dropped its sixth zero-day in the past four months. Given the underground value of unpatched and unreported vulnerabilities, this is highly unusual behavior, even for a...

Adobe Auto-Update Flash Player Zero Day Patch

Adobe on Saturday began patching a zero-day vulnerability in Flash Player, exploits for which have been included in the notorious Angler Exploit Kit. This is the second of two previously unreported critical flaws in the software that have been patched in the last five days. Adobe last Thursday se...

Patching Bash Vulnerability a Challenge for ICS, SCADA

While the most urgent focus where the Bash vulnerability is concerned is around Internet-facing web servers, embedded systems and industrial control systems are not exempt from worry. Experts are concerned about Linux-based industrial control systems and SCADA equipment, in particular, that may b...

Android Root Access Vulnerability Affecting Most Devices

A recently disclosed vulnerability in version 3.14.5 of the Linux kernel is also present in most versions of Android and could give attackers the ability to acquire root access on affected devices. Researchers at Lacoon Mobile Security are calling the bug “TowelRoot,” because it is the very same...

The Java Zero-Day Procession Continues

After a glorious 72-hour stretch without one, security researchers confirmed yesterday that they found yet another zero-day vulnerability in Oracle’s thoroughly troubled Java platform. With a little help from Hermes Bojaxhi and his team at Cyber Engineering Services, researchers from the security...

Microsoft Patches Critical Remote Flaws in Word, IE and Windows

A rare critical Microsoft Word vulnerability was patched today by Microsoft, one of seven security updates pushed out repairing 11 flaws in its December security update. The Word vulnerability earned a critical rating because the Outlook email client uses Word to display documents in the Outlook...

Microsoft Shifts to 'Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure' Policy

Microsoft is changing the way in which it handles vulnerability disclosures, now moving to a model it calls coordinated vulnerability disclosure, in which the researcher and the vendor work together to verify a vulnerability and allow ample time for a patch. However, the new philosophy also...

Microsoft to Give Security Guidelines for Agile

Microsoft will release on Tuesday guidelines for developers building online applications and for those using the Agile code-development process. The Agile guidelines apply principles from Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle SDL to Agile, an umbrella term for a development model frequently...

CanSecWest: Caution, community at play

CanSecWest, in beautiful Vancouver BC, is one of my favorite conferences each year. It’s a cozy little security con that brings together security researchers from all parts of the security ecosystem. Like a PhNeutral or a BlueHat, one never quite knows what to expect out of a CanSecWest, but we d...

Watering Hole Attacks Push ScanBox Keylogger

A China-based threat actor has ramped up efforts to distribute the ScanBox reconnaissance framework to victims that include domestic Australian organizations and offshore energy firms in the South China Sea. The bait used by the advanced threat group APT is targeted messages that supposedly link...

No More Ransom Saves Victims Nearly €1 billion Over 5 Years

To date, the No More Ransom repository of ransomware decryptors has helped more than 6 million victims recover their files, keeping nearly a billion euros out of the hands of cybercriminals, according to a Monday release. Launched five years ago, No More Ransom is maintained via cooperation betwe...

Suspected ‘Dr HeX’ Hacker Busted for 9 Years of Phishing

A Moroccan man suspected of being “Dr HeX” – the prolific threat actor behind a nine-year cyber-blitz on thousands of victims through phishing, website defacing, malware development, fraud and carding – has been arrested. Interpol announced the bust – which took place in Morocco in May – on...

Building SIEM for Today’s Threat Landscape

It’s easy to see how the changing security landscape has shaped the evolution of the security information and event management SIEM practice area — and how it continues to. But architecting an effective SIEM approach requires a well-thought-out strategy. A combination of security information...

DOJ: Creep Coach Finagles Nude Athlete Photos

A former track-and-field coach who worked at several universities has been arrested and is facing up to five years in prison for attempting to solicit nude photos of his athletes through sham social-media accounts and cyberstalking. The Department of Justice alleged that Steve Waithe, while...

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...

DDoS Attacks Wane in Q4 Amid Cryptomining Resurgence

Distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks dropped significantly at the end of 2020, down 31 percent in the fourth quarter, according to researchers. The reason? Cybercriminals have switched their efforts and their botnets to cryptomining. According to an analysis from Kaspersky published Tuesday...

Discord-Stealing Malware Invades npm Packages

Three malicious software packages have been published to npm, a code repository for JavaScript developers to share and reuse code blocks. The packages represent a supply-chain threat given that they may be used as building blocks in various web applications; any applications corrupted by the code...

Ransomware Attackers Publish 4K Private Scottish Gov Agency Files

On the heels of a ransomware attack against the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency SEPA, attackers have now reportedly published more than 4,000 files stolen from the agency – including contracts and strategy documents. After hitting SEPA on Christmas Eve with the attack, cybercriminals...

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...

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...

IBM Settles Lawsuit Over Weather Channel App Data Privacy

IBM, the owner of the Weather Channel mobile app, has reached a settlement with the Los Angeles city attorney’s office after a 2019 lawsuit alleged that the app was deceiving its users in how it was using their geolocation data. The 2019 lawsuit claimed, the app’s permission prompt for users to...

NSA, FBI Warn of Linux Malware Used in Espionage Attacks

UPDATE The U.S. government is warning of new malware, dubbed Drovorub, that targets Linux systems. It also claims the malware was developed for a Russian military unit in order to carry out cyber-espionage operations. The malware, Drovorub, comes with a multitude of espionage capabilities,...

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...

Joomla Resources Directory Users Exposed in Leaky AWS Bucket

An Amazon Web Services AWS cloud storage bucket that was left open to the public internet has exposed thousands of Joomla users’ personal information. About 2,700 individuals who signed up to use the Joomla Resources Directory JRD – a community forum for finding developers and service providers...

Cisco Warns of High-Severity SD-WAN Flaws

Cisco Systems has fixed three high-severity vulnerabilities in its software-defined networking for wide-area network SD-WAN solutions for business users. If exploited, the flaws could enable bad actors to execute commands with root privileges on affected systems. To exploit the vulnerabilities...

This Stalkerware Delivers Extra-Creepy Features

Researchers are sending up a red flag over the distribution of an aggressive stalkerware app called Monitor Minor. In a report released Monday, researchers said the Android version of the app gives stalkers near absolute control of targeted devices, going so far as allowing them to capture the...

Critical Bugs in Rockwell, Johnson Controls ICS Gear

Security vulnerabilities that require very little skill to exploit have been discovered in industrial control systems ICS gear from Rockwell Automation and Johnson Controls, which anchor a flurry of bug disclosures impacting critical infrastructure. First, a set of critical vulnerabilities in...

Sen. Schumer Pushes for TSA Employee Ban on TikTok App at Work

The Transportation Safety Authority TSA has become the latest federal agency to ban the use of TikTok among its employees based on national-security fears over how ByteDance, the Beijing-based company that owns the app, uses the data collected by it. Some TSA employees have used the app to create...

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...

Satan Ransomware Reborn to Torment Businesses

A ransomware with the un-snappy moniker of “5ss5c” has emerged on the scene and appears to be in active development. According to independent researcher Bart Blaze, the malware is the successor to the Satan ransomware, and its authors are still experimenting with focused targeting China, for now...

Facebook Security Debacles: 2019 Year in Review

Facebook Security: 2019 Year in Review Facebook spent the past year both trying to deal with the consequences of the Cambridge Analytica scandal that rocked its public relations in 2018, as well as other issues afflicting the social media platform – from data security challenges to political...

Apple Removes 17 Malicious iOS Apps From App Store

Researchers have uncovered 17 apps on Apple’s official App Store infected with malware. Apple has since removed the apps from the App Store – but a “significant” number of iOS users could have installed them, researchers said. Once downloaded, the malicious apps infect victims with a trojan...

Intimate Details on Healthcare Workers Exposed as Cloud Security Lags

Yet another non-password protected cloud database has come to light, this time exposing a raft of highly personal information on healthcare workers and traveling nurses – including drug tests and arrest records. The incident showcases the unfortunate reality that cloud data security remains a...

Asus, Lenovo and Other Routers Riddled with Remotely Exploitable Bugs

More than a hundred vulnerabilities have been found in small office/home office SOHO routers and network-attached storage devices NAS from vendors that include Asus, Zyxel, Lenovo, Netgear and other top names, which open them up to remote attackers. That’s according to Independent Security...

4 Dating Apps Pinpoint Users' Precise Locations – and Leak the Data

Four popular dating apps that together can claim 10 million users have been found to leak precise locations of their members. “By simply knowing a person’s username we can track them from home, to work,” explained Alex Lomas, researcher at Pen Test Partners, in a blog on Sunday. “We can find out...

Hackers Favor Weekdays for Attacks, Share Resources Often

Do threat actors carry out phases of their attack on different days of the week? Do threats use the same infrastructure for exploitation and control? These may not be the sort of questions that cybersecurity professional usually think about, but their implications can actually have an important...

Google Touts Android Q's New Security Update Process and Better Privacy Controls for Apps

Google said its next-generation mobile operating system, Android Q, revamps the way it delivers direct over-the-air updates and will bolster individual app privacy controls. Google detailed Android Q 10.0 at the Google I/O 2019 developer conference on Tuesday. There it touted almost 50 changes to...

Microsoft Outlook Breach Widens in Scope, Impacting MSN And Hotmail – Report

UPDATE A recently-disclosed Microsoft email-platform breach is reportedly much worse than previously thought, now impacting a large number of Outlook accounts as well as MSN and Hotmail email accounts. On Friday, a slew of Outlook users reported receiving notifications from Microsoft. The...

Romanian Duo Convicted of Malware Scheme Infecting 400,000 Computers

A Romanian duo has been convicted for infecting hundreds of thousands of computers with malware that scooped up credentials and financial information, and scamming victims out of millions of dollars. The two, Bogdan Nicolescu, 36, and Radu Miclaus, 37, were convicted by a federal jury in Ohio on...

Lazarus Group Widens Tactics in Cryptocurrency Attacks

North Korea-linked APT Lazarus Group has been spotted targeting the cryptocurrency business again, adding Apple users to the mix by using PowerShell scripts to control macOS malware, and honing its Windows strategy. The campaign has been active since at least November 2018, according to an analys...