Threatpost Poll: Are Published PoC Exploits a Good or Bad Idea?

The practice of disclosing proof-of-concept PoC exploits has long caused a debate in the security community. As the name suggests, these outline steps used to exploit a vulnerability in a system to show how it can be done — and are used to test networks and pinpoint vulnerable aspects of a system...

Managing the Human Security Factor in the Age of Ransomware

Security analysts have determined that cybercrime cost the global economy $1.5 trillion in 2018. Ransomware, in particular, is estimated to grow by as much as 350 percent over the next year. And while the ransom for a generic ransomware attack has now risen to nearly $13,000, with recent targeted...

Pipka Card Skimmer Removes Itself After Infecting eCommerce Sites

A new JavaScript payment card skimmer, dubbed Pipka, has been identified on at least seventeen merchant websites attempting to target site visitors’ payment data. Unlike other skimmers, Pipka removes itself from the HTML code of compromised websites after exfiltrating payment card data – a...

Cash App Twitter Giveaway a Haven for Stealing Money

Scammers looking to piggyback on the CashAppFriday trending topic on Twitter are stealing between $10 to $1,000 from each victim that falls for their efforts. According to researchers at Tenable, the scams include phishing with some links garnering up to 500 clicks each, a hoax called...

Magecart 5 Linked to Carbanak Gang

Researchers have linked Magecart Group 5, the credit-card skimming cybercriminals behind the Ticketmaster breach, to Dridex phishing campaigns and the infamous Carbanak group. Magecart – which is an umbrella group encompassing several different affiliates all using the same modus operandi – injec...

Apple Shares Some Browsing History with Chinese Company

Apple is sending some browsing history of iOS 13 Safari users to Tencent Holdings Limited, a Chinese multinational conglomerate. The data shared is tied to the Safari Safe Browsing technology. Revelations of the relationship have drawn criticism from security and privacy experts. Apple’s Safari...

RSAC 2019: The Dark Side of Machine Learning

SAN FRANCISCO – The same machine-learning algorithms that made self-driving cars and voice assistants possible can be hacked to turn a cat into guacamole or Bach symphonies into audio-based attacks against a smartphone. These are examples of “adversarial attacks” against machine learning systems...

Microsoft Launches Azure DevOps Bug Bounty Program

Microsoft lifted the curtain on a new Azure DevOps bug bounty program, designed to sniff out flaws in its Azure DevOps online services and servers. Azure DevOps is a cloud service launched in 2018 that enables collaboration on code development across the breadth of a development lifecycle...

Cisco Warns of Critical Flaw in Teleconferencing Gear

Cisco Systems is warning customers of a critical vulnerability affecting three of its TelePresence MCU platform models. The flaw could give attackers the ability to remotely execute code on impacted systems or create conditions favorable to a denial-of-service DoS attack. According to an advisory...

Android Ransomware Attacks Using Towelroot, Hacking Team Exploits

A menacing wave of ransomware that locks up Android devices and demands victims pay $200 in Apple iTunes gift card codes is raising concern among security researchers. The ransomware attacks, they say, open a new chapter for Android vulnerabilities similar to Microsoft’s obsolete, unpatched and...

Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Flaw Patched

A patch for a critical Linux kernel flaw, present in the code since 2012, is expected to be pushed out today. The vulnerability affects versions 3.8 and higher, said researchers at startup Perception Point who discovered the vulnerability. The flaw also extends to two-thirds of Android devices, t...

Citadel Variant Targets Password Managers

The Citadel Trojan has once again branched out beyond its roots as banking malware and is now targeting the master passwords guarding major password management products. Researchers from IBM Trusteer today said they’ve notified makers of the nexus Personal Security Client, Password Safe and KeePa...

Sandworm APT Team Found Using Windows Zero Day Vulnerability

UPDATE–A cyberespionage team, possibly based in Russia, has been using a Windows zero day vulnerability to target a variety of organizations in several countries, including the United States, Poland, Ukraine and western Europe. The vulnerability, which will be patched today by Microsoft, is...

October Patch Tuesday Fixes Critical IE Bugs, 28 Vulnerabilities

As expected, Microsoft began shipping its latest batch of Patch Tuesday patches earlier this afternoon. However, while it was heavily presumed the update would fix at least one Internet Explorer zero day, the update actually fixes two critical vulnerabilities in the browser. Eight bulletins — fou...

Call for Ban on Vulnerable PHP SuperGlobal Variables

The ease with which PHP applications can be subverted should be pretty apparent by now given the number of botnets supported by compromised sites hosting PHP code. The biggest culprit in the PHP universe may be a set of nine variables called SuperGlobals that provide programmers with development...

In Possible Targeted Attack, Amnesty International Web Site Found Serving Malware

Amnesty International’s United Kingdom website was compromised late last week and was being used to exploit a known Java runtime environment hole on machines belonging to unwitting visitors to the site, according to Barracuda Labs researcher, Paul Royal. Citing historical data, Royal claims that...

Adam Shostack on Methods of Compromise, the New School and Learning

Dennis Fisher talks with Adam Shostack of Microsoft about the taxonomy he helped develop for classifying how PCs are compromised, what he would and wouldn’t change in The New School of Information Security and who he’s learned the most from. Podcast audio courtesy of sykboy65 Subscribe to the...

Apple Patches 12 Serious Mac OS X Flaws

Apple’s first Mac OS X security update for 2010 is out, providing cover for at least 12 serious vulnerabilities. The update, rated critical, plugs security holes that could lead to code execution vulnerabilities if a Mac user is tricked into opening audio files or surfing to a rigged Web site. Wi...

Five Critical Bulletins Coming on MS Patch Tuesday

Microsoft’s September batch of security updates will include fixes for a multiple “critical” vulnerabilities affecting the Windows operating system. In all, the software maker will release five bulletins with patches for a range of flaws that could expose users to remote code execution attacks. T...

Large-Scale Phishing Campaign Bypasses MFA

Microsoft researchers have uncovered a massive phishing campaign that can steal credentials even if a user has multi-factor authentication MFA enabled and has so far attempted to compromise more than 10,000 organizations. The campaign, which has been active since September 2021, depends upon the...

Patchable and Preventable Security Issues Lead Causes of Q1 Attacks

Eighty-two percent of attacks on organizations in Q1 2022 were caused by the external exposure of a known vulnerabilities in the victim’s external-facing perimeter or attack surface. Those unpatched bugs overshadowed breach-related financial losses tied to human error, which accounted for 18...

Phishing Scam Aims to Hijack TikTok ‘Influencer’ Accounts

A recently discovered phishing scam tried to takeover more than 125 high-profile user accounts on TikTok. Researchers said the campaign marks one of the first major attacks on “influencers” found on the TikTok social-media platform. Researchers at cloud email security provider Abnormal Security...

How Fake Accounts and Sneaker-Bots Took Over the Internet

Recently, one of my friends from my submarine days sent me a friend request on Facebook. The weird thing is, I was already connected with this friend. Looking further at the profile, I noticed a few of the same pictures but only 11 friends. So I knew this was some scammer and, being me, I message...

Tulsa’s Police-Citation Data Leaked by Conti Gang

The city of Tulsa, OK is asking some of its residents to keep a close eye on their personal and financial accounts after the Conti ransomware group leaked some 18,000 city files, mostly police citations, on the dark web. The leak stemmed from a May 6 ransomware attack that caused the city to shut...

Exchange Servers Targeted by ‘Epsilon Red’ Malware

Threat actors have deployed new ransomware on the back of a set of PowerShell scripts developed for making encryption, exploiting flaws in unpatched Exchange Servers to attack the corporate network, according to recent research. Researchers from security firm Sophos detected the new ransomware,...

Microsoft, Google Clouds Hijacked for Gobs of Phish

Threat actors are cashing in on the rapid shift to cloud-based business services during the pandemic, by hiding behind ubiquitous, trusted services from Microsoft and Google to make their email phishing scams look legit. And it’s working. In fact, in the first three months of 2021 alone,...

CISA Warns of Security Flaws in GE Power Management Devices

The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency CISA is warning of critical-severity security flaws in GE’s Universal Relay UR family of power management devices. GE’s UR devices are the “basis of simplified power management for the protection of critical assets,” according to the company...

PYSA Ransomware Pillages Education Sector, Feds Warn

The FBI has issued a warning about an uptick in cyberattacks on the education sector that are delivering the PYSA ransomware. In a “Flash” alert to the cybersecurity community issued on Tuesday, the Feds said that PYSA has been seen in attacks on schools in 12 U.S. states and in the United Kingdo...

Cybersecurity Bug-Hunting Sparks Enterprise Confidence

Nearly three-quarters of IT security professionals 73 percent surveyed say they prefer to buy technology and services from vendors who are proactive about security, including leveraging ethical hacking and having transparent communications about vulnerabilities. But less than half of vendors...

WordPress Injection Anchors Widespread Malware Campaign

The downloader malware known as Gootloader is poisoning websites globally as part of an extensive drive-by and watering-hole cybercampaign that abuses WordPress sites by injecting them with hundreds of pages of fake content. The adversaries have so far delivered the Cobalt Strike intrusion tool,...

'Free' Cyberpunk 2077 Downloads Lead to Data Harvesting

The hotly anticipated videogame title Cyberpunk 2077 comes out on Dec. 10, inspiring breathless countdowns from gaming publications and enthusiasts across the globe. As with all things zeitgeisty, cybercriminals are looking to cash in on the excitement, with scams that offer “free copies” while...

TrickBot Returns with a Vengeance, Sporting Rare Bootkit Functions

The TrickBot malware has morphed once again, this time implementing functionality designed to inspect the UEFI/BIOS firmware of targeted systems. It marks a serious resurgence following an October takedown of the malware’s infrastructure by Microsoft and others. The Windows Unified Extensible...

305 CVEs and Counting: Bug-Hunting Stories From a Security Engineer

Larry Cashdollar, senior security response engineer at Akamai, has been finding CVEs since the 1990s, around when MITRE was first being established. Since then, he’s found 305 CVEs – as well as various security findings, such an IoT bricking malware called Silex, and cybercriminals targeting poor...

8 U.S. City Websites Targeted in Magecart Attacks

Researchers are warning that the websites of eight U.S. cities – across three states – have been compromised with payment card-stealing Magecart skimmers. The websites all utilize Click2Gov municipality payment software, which was previously involved in data breaches. Unlike other skimmers, which...

Google Location Tracking Lambasted in Arizona Lawsuit

Google has been hit by a lawsuit alleging that it violates user privacy by collecting location data via various means – and claiming that Google makes it nearly “impossible” for users to opt out of such data tracking. The lawsuit, filed by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, alleges that Goog...

Fake Coronavirus ‘Vaccine’ Website Busted in DoJ Takedown

The Department of Justice has raised its first federal court action against online fraud relating to the coronavirus pandemic, on Sunday taking steps to shutter a fraudulent website that claimed to give away free coronavirus vaccines. The website, “coronavirusmedicalkit.com,” was purporting to gi...

Adobe Discloses Dozens of Critical Photoshop, Acrobat Reader Flaws

Adobe has released out-of-band updates addressing critical vulnerabilities in its Photoshop and Acrobat Reader products, which if exploited could allow arbitrary code-execution. Overall, Adobe on Wednesday patched flaws tied to 41 CVEs across its products, 29 of which were critical in severity. T...

Akamai Talks Massive Uptick in Credential-Stuffing Attacks Against Bank APIs

Cybercriminals continue to firehose financial services companies with new and innovative cyberattacks. Research from Akamai recently found that up to 75 percent of all credential abuse attacks against the financial services industry in 2019 targeted APIs directly rather than user-facing login...

Let's Encrypt to Revoke Millions of TLS Certs

UPDATE Popular free certificate authority Let’s Encrypt said it will revoke 3 million Transport Layer Security TLS certificates Wednesday, because of a Certificate Authority Authorization CAA bug. The move could mean that millions of websites and machine identities that rely on those certificates...

Honda Leaks Data of 26K North American Customers

An exposed database was discovered leaking the personal information of 26,000 North American Honda owners and their vehicles. The Elasticsearch database in question is owned by the American Honda Motor Co., a North American subsidiary of the Honda Motor Co. The cloud misconfiguration exposed the...

GE, Dunkin', Forever 21 Caught Up in Broad Internal Document Leak

A marketing firm exposed hashed passwords and sensitive public relations documents of thousands of customers via a leaky Amazon S3 database – including big-name brands like GE, Dunkin’ Donuts, Forever 21 and more. Researchers with UpGuard in October discovered a misconfigured Amazon S3 storage...

ThreatList: 90% SMBs Believe Nation-State Actors Are Targeting Them

While APT activity is generally considered to be aimed at large enterprises housing valuable intellectual property, military-industrial entities, dissidents and civil society, and organizations of strategic importance to governments, the vast majority of small- and medium-sized businesses SMBs ar...

Apache Solr Bug Gets Bumped Up to High Severity

A bug impacting the Linux enterprise-search platform called Apache Solr has been revised from low to high-severity after researchers discovered a new remote code execution exploit. The warning comes from Tenable, which is reporting that the newly-identified default configuration vulnerability cou...

Trump Campaign Website Left Open to Email Server Hijack

A mistake made by website developers left an official re-election website for President Donald Trump open to attack. The error, impacting hundreds of other websites as well, is tied to a website development tool called Laravel, used to test sites before they go live. The tool, accidentally left...

IRS Emails Promise a Refund But Deliver Botnet Recruitment

U.S. taxpayers are being offered fake refunds in the latest wave of phishing emails, which ultimately deliver an payload that adds the target machine to the multifunctional Amadey botnet. Amadey is a relatively new botnet, first noted late in Q1 of 2019, according to Milo Salvia, security...

Feds Indict 281 People for Involvement in Massive Email Fraud Scheme

Federal authorities have arrested 281 people and seized nearly $3.7 million in a coordinated effort between multiple agencies to disrupt a massive email-fraud scheme. Perpetrators of a global business email compromise BEC scheme were the target of a four-month investigation that began in May call...

ThreatList: Half of All Social Media Logins Are Fraud

More than half of logins 53 percent on social-media sites are fraudulent; and 25 percent of all new account applications on social media are fake, according to a recent analysis. Those numbers far outstrip the overall rate of 10 percent of interactions being fraudulent. The Arkose Labs Q3 Fraud a...

Google Launches Open-Source Browser Extension for Ad Transparency

Google is launching an experimental, open-source browser extension aimed at increasing transparency around online advertising by displaying information about the ads that are shown to users. The browser extension is an integral part of a new Google initiative announced Thursday to develop a set o...

Cynet Provides Security Responders with Free IR Tool to Validate and Respond to Active Threats

Organizations that suspect an active threat or breach have two options: calling an external incident response provider to manage the investigation and response or trying to handle it internally with their own resources. Cynet is now introducing a free IR offering that caters to both scenarios – a...

Dell Security Support Tool Harbors High-Severity Flaws

Two high-severity flaws in Dell’s client support tool, SupportAssist Client, could enable remote code-execution RCE and cross-site request forgery CSRF attacks. SupportAssist helps users remove viruses or detect security issues on their PCs, and comes preinstalled on most new Dell devices. “Dell...