Serpent Backdoor Slithers into Orgs Using Chocolatey Installer

Researchers have discovered a cyberattack that uses unusual evasion tactics to backdoor French organizations with a novel malware dubbed Serpent, they said. A team from Proofpoint observed what they call an “advanced, targeted threat” that uses email-based lures and malicious files typical of man...

Zoom Addresses Vanity URL Zero-Day

A previously undisclosed bug in Zoom’s customizable URL feature has been addressed that could have offered a hacker a perfect social-engineering avenue for stealing credentials or sensitive information. Disclosed by Zoom and Check Point on Thursday, the security flaw existed in the “Vanity URL”...

Thousands of IoT Devices Bricked By Silex Malware

A 14-year-old hacker used a new strain of malware this week to brick up to 4,000 insecure Internet of Things devices – before abruptly shutting down his command and control server. The malware, dubbed Silex, was first discovered by Larry Cashdollar, senior security intelligence response engineer ...

Ke3chang APT Linked to Previously Undocumented Backdoor

The Ke3chang cyberespionage group, a.k.a. APT15, Mirage, Playful Dragon or Vixen Panda, has been tied to a backdoor called Okrum that has been used to target diplomatic missions throughout Europe and Latin America. The attribution widens the scope of known Ke3chang activity, an APT believed to be...

Mozilla Fixes Second Actively-Exploited Firefox Flaw

UPDATE Mozilla has fixed a high-severity vulnerability in its Firefox browser being actively exploited in the wild. The vulnerability CVE-2019-11708 is separate from a critical flaw under active attack that was patched earlier this week CVE-2019-11707. However, both vulnerabilities were discovere...

High-Severity RCE Bug Found in Popular Apache Cassandra Database

Researchers have shared details about a now-patched, high-severity security bug in the Apache Cassandra open-source NoSQL distributed database that’s easy to exploit and, if left unpatched, could enable attackers to gain remote code execution RCE. The bug, which involves how Cassandra creates...

Gafgyt Botnet Lifts DDoS Tricks from Mirai

Several variants of the Gafgyt Linux-based botnet malware family have incorporated code from the infamous Mirai botnet, researchers have discovered. Gafgyt a.k.a. Bashlite is a botnet that was first uncovered in 2014. It targets vulnerable internet of things IoT devices like Huawei routers, Realt...

Popular ThemeREX WordPress Plugin Opens Websites to RCE

A critical vulnerability in a WordPress plugin known as “ThemeREX Addons” could open the door for remote code execution in tens of thousands of websites. According to Wordfence, the bug has been actively exploited in the wild as a zero-day. The plugin, which is installed on approximately 44,000...

Podcast: Dating App Privacy and NASA Cyberattack

Beyond the regular drumbeat of security vulnerabilities and patches this week, a slew of stories covered varying topics ranging from NASA to Tinder. The Threatpost team broke down the most interesting stories of the week, including: A ransomware webinar hosted by Threatpost editor Tara Seals, whi...

Apple Rushes Out Patches for 0-Days in MacOS, iOS

Apple rushed out patches for two zero-days affecting macOS and iOS Thursday, both of which are likely under active exploitation and could allow a threat actor to disrupt or access kernel activity. Apple released separate security updates for the bugs – a vulnerability affecting both macOS and iOS...

Browser-in-the-Browser Attack Makes Phishing Nearly Invisible

We’ve had it beaten into our brains: Before you go wily-nily clicking on a page, check the URL. First things first, the tried-and-usually-but-not-always-true advice goes, check that the site’s URL shows “https,” indicating that the site is secured with TLS/SSL encryption. If only it were that eas...

Cybercriminals Are Selling Access to Chinese Surveillance Cameras

New research indicates that over 80,000 Hikvision surveillance cameras in the world today are vulnerable to an 11 month-old command injection flaw. Hikvision – short for Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology – is a Chinese state-owned manufacturer of video surveillance equipment. Their customers...

Zero-Day Attacks on Critical WooCommerce Bug Threaten Databases

A critical SQL-injection security vulnerability in the WooCommerce e-commerce platform and a related plugin has been under attack as a zero-day bug, researchers have disclosed. The exploitation prompted WooCommerce to release an emergency patch for the issue late on Wednesday. The bug could allow...

Microsoft Warns of Sneaky New Macro Trick

Microsoft is warning of an innovative new technique attackers are using to sneak macro malware past virus detection engines and add to the already huge uptick in reported macro attacks. According to researchers at Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center, they stumbled upon the macro technique in a...

How to Get a Handle on Patch Management

Patch management is a thankless job. Data shows, despite best efforts, that 80 percent of enterprise applications have at least one unpatched vulnerability in them, according research by Veracode. It is not for lack of trying that vulnerabilities persist. Last year 16,500 vulnerabilities were...

Microsoft Warns: Another Unpatched PrintNightmare Zero-Day

One day after dropping its scheduled August Patch Tuesday update, Microsoft issued a warning about yet another unpatched privilege escalation/remote code-execution RCE vulnerability in the Windows Print Spooler that can be filed under the PrintNightmare umbrella. The news comes amid plenty of...

SSRF Flaw in Fintech Platform Allowed for Compromise of Bank Accounts

A server-side request forgery SSRF flaw in an API of a large financial technology fintech platform potentially could have compromised millions of bank customers, allowing attackers to defraud clients by controlling their bank accounts and funds, researchers have found. A team at Salt Security’s...

Hackers Exploit Fortinet Flaw in Sophisticated Cring Ransomware Attacks

Threat actors are exploiting a Fortinet vulnerability flagged by the feds last week that delivers a new ransomware strain, dubbed Cring, that is targeting industrial enterprises across Europe. Researchers say the attackers are exploiting an unpatched path-reversal flaw, tracked as CVE-2018-13379,...

StrandHogg 2.0 Critical Bug Allows Android App Hijacking

A critical privilege-escalation vulnerability affecting Android devices has been found that allows attackers to hijack any app on an infected phone – potentially exposing private SMS messages and photos, login credentials, GPS movements, phone conversations and more. The bug is dubbed the...

LabKey Vulnerabilities Threaten Medical Research Data

A trio of vulnerabilities in a popular open source medical data collaboration tool leaves important healthcare research data and potentially subject information open to multiple cross site scripting XSS attacks. The flaws are serious as they allow an attacker to retrieve user credentials once a...

Low-Detection Phishing Kits Increasingly Bypass MFA

More and more phishing kits are focusing on bypassing multi-factor authentication MFA methods, researchers have warned – typically by stealing authentication tokens via a man-in-the-middle MiTM attack. As MFA continues to see widespread consumer and business adoption – a full 78 percent of...

WordPress XSS Bug Allows Drive-By Code Execution

A just-patched stored cross-site scripting XSS vulnerability in WordPress allowed drive-by remote code-execution, according to an analysis. The bug exists in the built-in editor Gutenberg, which is found in WordPress 5.0 and above. Zhouyuan Yang, a threat-researcher at FortiGuard Labs, said that...

PoC Attack Escalates MikroTik Router Bug to ‘As Bad As It Gets’

A new hacking technique used against vulnerable MikroTik routers gives attackers the ability to execute remote code on affected devices. The technique is yet another security blow against the MikroTik router family. Previous hacks have left the routers open to device failures, cyptojacking and...

D-Link, IoT Devices Under Attack By Tor-Based Gafgyt Variant

Researchers have discovered what they say is the first variant of the Gafgyt botnet family to cloak its activity using the Tor network. Gafgyt, a botnet that was uncovered in 2014, has become infamous for launching large-scale distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks. Researchers first discover...

Adobe Warns Windows, macOS Users of Critical-Severity Flaws

Adobe Systems has stomped out critical-severity flaws across its Adobe Prelude, Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Lightroom applications. If exploited, the serious vulnerabilities could lead to arbitrary code execution. Overall, Adobe issued patches for flaws tied to one important-rated and thre...

Microsoft Addresses Two Zero-Days Under Active Attack

Two elevation-of-privilege vulnerabilities that have been exploited in the wild as zero-days are at the heart of September’s Patch Tuesday update from Microsoft. The two EoP vulnerabilities under active attack consist of CVE-2019-1214, which exists in the Windows Common Log File System CLFS Drive...

Carrier IQ Hires a Chief Privacy Officer

Carrier IQ, a startup heavily bruised last fall by harsh criticism of its handset diagnostic software, today announced it’s hired a high-profile lawyer as its Chief Privacy Officer. According to a news release, Magnolia Mansourkia Mobley, a CIPP and former Verizon executive, will be tasked with...

Microsoft Has Busy April Patch Tuesday with Zero-Days, Exchange Fixes

Microsoft had its hands full Tuesday snuffing out five zero-day vulnerabilities, a flaw under active attack and applying more patches to its problem-plagued Microsoft Exchange Server software. In all, Microsoft released patches for 110 security holes, 19 classified critical in severity and 88...

Microsoft: Unpatched Bug in Windows Print Spooler

Microsoft has warned of yet another vulnerability that’s been discovered in its Windows Print Spooler that can allow attackers to elevate privilege to gain full user rights to a system. The advisory comes on the heels of patching two other remote code-execution RCE bugs found in the print service...

FruityArmor Apt Exploits Yet Another Windows Graphics Kernel Flaw

A just-patched zero-day vulnerability in win32k.sys – the Windows graphics kernel component – is at the heart of a probable sighting of the FruityArmor APT group – an under-the-radar cyberespionage gang active in the Middle East. A recent campaign uncovered by Kaspersky Lab led researchers to the...

RSAC 2019: Microsoft Zero-Day Allows Exploits to Sneak Past Sandboxes

SAN FRANCISCO – A previously unknown bug in Microsoft Office has been spotted being actively exploited in the wild; it can be used to bypass security solutions and sandboxes, according to findings released at the RSA Conference 2019. The bug exists in the OLE file format and the way it’s handled ...

Microsoft, Kaspersky Shed Light on Sefnit Tor Botnet

Alarm bells went off last August when spikes in Tor client downloads were traced to a large click-fraud and Bitcoin-mining botnet called Sefnit. The malware was using the popular anonymity network to communicate with hackers in order to transmit stolen data and receive additional commands. In...

Zoho ManageEngine Password Manager Zero-Day Gets Fix

A critical security vulnerability in the Zoho ManageEngine ADSelfService Plus platform could allow remote attackers to bypass authentication and have free rein across users’ Active Directory AD and cloud accounts. The issue CVE-2021-40539 has been actively exploited in the wild as a zero-day,...

F5, CISA Warn of Critical BIG-IP and BIG-IQ RCE Bugs

F5 Networks is warning users to patch four critical remote command execution RCE flaws in its BIG-IP and BIG-IQ enterprise networking infrastructure. If exploited, the flaws could allow attackers to take full control over a vulnerable system. The company released an advisory, Wednesday, on seven...

Apple iMessage Flaw Allows Remote Attackers to Read iPhone Messages

Five bugs in Apple’s iMessage service for the iPhone have been uncovered that require no user interaction to exploit, including one that would allow remote attackers to access content stored on iOS devices. First discovered by Google Project Zero security researcher Natalie Silvanovich, Apple has...

Adobe Patches Critical ColdFusion Vulnerability With Active Exploit

Adobe has issued an emergency patch for a critical vulnerability in its ColdFusion service that is being exploited in the wild. The vulnerability, CVE-2019-7816, exists in Adobe’s commercial rapid web application development platform, ColdFusion. The ColdFusion vulnerability is a file upload...

PoC Code Surfaces to Exploit Apache Struts 2 Vulnerability

Proof-of-concept code found on the GitHub repository could allow attackers to easily take advantage of a recently identified vulnerability in the Apache Struts 2 framework. The vulnerability CVE-2018-11776, identified earlier this week, could allow an adversary to execute remote code on targeted...

CISA Emergency Directive Orders Immediate Fix of Windows DNS Server Bug

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA is ordering all federal executive branch offices to apply a patch for a wormable Windows Server bug within 24 hours, warning of a “high potential for compromise of agency information systems.” In an Emergency Directive, the Department...

RCE Bugs in Hugely Popular VoIP Apps: Patch Now!

Some of the world’s most popular communication apps are using an open-source library riddled with newfound security holes. One thing this open-source, flawed library shares with the Apache Log4J logging library fiasco that started in December: It’s ubiquitous. The library, PJSIP – an open-source...

Hoaxcalls Botnet Exploits Symantec Secure Web Gateways

Cyberattackers are targeting a post-authentication remote code-execution vulnerability in Symantec Secure Web Gateways as part of new Mirai and Hoaxcalls botnet attacks. Hoaxcalls first emerged in late March, as a variant of the Gafgyt/Bashlite family; it’s named after the domain used to host its...

Compromised Zoom Credentials Swapped in Underground Forums

Researchers have uncovered a database shared on an underground forum containing more than 2,300 compromised Zoom credentials. The database contained usernames and passwords for Zoom accounts – including corporate accounts belonging to banks, consultancy companies, educational facilities, healthca...

Google Boosts Encryption For Low-End Android Devices

Google introduced a new storage encryption solution that it hopes will expand security efforts across its full spectrum of Android-powered devices – including low-end devices that typically can’t support encryption. The new encryption offering, Adiantum, aims to solve a big issue that has plagued...

Samsung Confirms Lapsus$ Ransomware Hit, Source Code Leak

Just days after leaking data it claims to have exfiltrated from chipmaker NVIDIA, ransomware group Lapsus$ is claiming another international company among its victims — this time releasing data purportedly stolen from Samsung Electronics. The consumer electronics giant confirmed in a media...

Google Releases Spectre PoC Exploit For Chrome

Google has released proof-of-concept PoC exploit code, which leverages the Spectre attack against the Chrome browser to leak data from websites. Three years after the Spectre attack was first disclosed, researchers with Google have now released a demonstration website that leverages the attack,...

Adobe: Zero-Day Magento 2 RCE Bug Under Active Attack

A zero-day remote code-execution RCE bug in the Magento 2 and Adobe Commerce platforms has been actively exploited in the wild, Adobe said – prompting an emergency patch to roll out over the weekend. The security vulnerability bug CVE-2022-24086 is a critical affair, allowing pre-authentication R...

Severe Cisco DoS Flaw Can Cripple Nexus Switches

Cisco has patched a high-severity flaw in its NX-OS software, the network operating system used by Cisco’s Nexus-series Ethernet switches. If exploited, the vulnerability could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass the input access control lists ACLs configured on affected Nexus...

Critical Intel Flaw Afflicts Several Motherboards, Server Systems, Compute Modules

Intel is warning of a rare critical-severity vulnerability affecting several of its motherboards, server systems and compute modules. The flaw could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to achieve escalated privileges. The recently patched flaw CVE-2020-8708 ranks 9.6 out of 10 on the CVSS...

BlueKeep 'Mega-Worm' Looms as Fresh PoC Shows Full System Takeover

A researcher has created a proof-of-concept Metasploit module for the critical BlueKeep vulnerability, which successfully demonstrates how to achieve complete takeover of a target Windows machine. Reverse engineer Zǝɹosum0x0 tweeted about his success on Tuesday, noting that he plans to keep the...

Cobalt Group Pushes Revamped ThreadKit Malware

Despite the high profile arrest earlier this year of the Cobalt Group ringleader, the threat actors behind the hacking collective are slowly ramping up their malicious behavior. In a new analysis of the threat group, known for its widespread attacks against banks in Eastern Europe over the past...

Critical Flaws in Amcrest HDSeries Camera Allow Complete Takeover

Two critical severity bugs have been publicly disclosed that impact Amcrest HDSeries model IPM-721S cameras. Both vulnerabilities open the consumer-grade $50 Wi-Fi cameras to complete takeover by remote, unauthenticated attackers. Mandar Satam, senior security researcher at Synopsys, found the si...