December 2013 Microsoft Patch Tuesday Security Updates

One zero-day down, one to go. As expected, Microsoft did today patch a zero-day in its GDI+ graphics component MS13-096 reported more than a month ago after exploits were spotted in the wild. The fix was one of 11 security bulletins—five critical—released as part of the December 2013 Patch Tuesda...

Aumlib, Ixeshe Malware Updated in Targeted China Attacks

After a quiet period, the state-sponsored hacker group blamed for attacks on the New York Times late last year has begun a number of new campaigns that feature updated versions of malware used in attacks going back to 2009. Researchers at FireEye said the group, identified as APT 12 by forensics...

Ryan Naraine on Microsoft's New Bug Bounty Program

Dennis Fisher talks with Ryan Naraine about the new Microsoft bug bounty program, how it may affect prices for vulnerabilities on the private market and why it took the company so long to start the reward program. Download: digitalunderground116...

BlackBerry Z10 Privilege Escalation Security Vulnerability

BlackBerry has released a security update resolving an escalation of privilege vulnerability that existed in “BlackBerry Protect” enabled devices running version 10.0.10.261 and earlier operating systems. The company says that version 10.0.9.2743 is not affected and that they have found no eviden...

Bots, Zeus, Web Exploits: the Most Potent Threats of 2012

Every year it seems that security-related news advances further from its roots in national security circles, IT departments, and the antivirus industry into the mainstream consciousness. From July to the end of year was no exception. However, despite a handful of flashy security stories, F-Secure...

DHS Chief Uses 'Sandy' to Underscore Cybersecurity Threats

While the eastern United States recovers from this week’s devastasting storm, the nation’s Homeland Security chief used “Superstorm Sandy” to promote the importance of national cybersecurity protection. “One of the possible areas of attack, of course, is attacks on our nation’s control systems —...

Report: Strategic Web Compromises Behind Recent Hack of Amnesty, Others

A recent string of Web site hacks at Amnesty International and other NGOs are evidence of a campaign of cyber espionage directed against human rights orgnaizations, according to a report from The Shadowserver Foundation. In a report on Tuesday, the Foundation said that its members had witnessed a...

Mobile, Android Threats Continued Sharp Growth in 2011

The occurrence of mobile malware increased by 155 percent across all platforms in 2011, and, according to Juniper Network’s 2011 Mobile Threat Report, malware specifically targeting the Android operating system saw its own increase of more than 3,000 percent. Juniper Networks attributes Android’s...

Adobe Warns of Critical Zero-Day Flaw in Reader and Acrobat

Adobe is warning users about a critical vulnerability in its Reader and Acrobat applications that could lead to remote code execution. There are reports that attackers already are using the Reader bug in targeted attacks, and Adobe said it plans to have a patch ready by next week. Adobe security...

Media, Human Rights Sites Suffer With Rise In DDoS Attacks

The recent wave of online actions by supporters and opponents of information leaking site Wikileaks has focused attention on the phenomenon of distributed denial of service DDoS attacks. But a study published by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society this week concludes that...

IE8 security stops memory bypass attacks

When Mark Dowd and Alex Sotirov demonstrated a technique for bypassing Vista’s memory protections at Black Hat last year, the security community was stunned. Microsoft officials said at the time they were working on ways to defeat the pair’s attack and now that protection has arrived, in the form...

2FA Bypassed in $34.6M Crypto.com Heist

Early Thursday morning, Crypto.com acknowledged that it had lost $34.65 million worth of cash, Bitcoin and Ethereum after getting ransacked in an attack that slipped fat transactions past two-factor authentication 2FA. Users had complained over the weekend that their accounts had been drained:...

SEGA’s Sloppy Security Confession: Exposed AWS S3 Bucket Offers Up Steam API Access & More

Gaming giant SEGA Europe recently discovered that its sensitive data was being stored in an unsecured Amazon Web Services AWS S3 bucket during a cloud-security audit, and it’s sharing the story to inspire other organizations to double-check their own systems. Researcher Aaron Phillips with VPN...

GoDaddy Breach Widens to Include Reseller Subsidiaries

The GoDaddy breach affecting 1.2 million customers has widened – it turns out that various subsidiaries that resell GoDaddy Managed WordPress were also affected. The additional affected companies are 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet, Host Europe, Media Temple and tsoHost. The world’s larges...

REvil Affiliates Confirm Getting Screwed Out of Payments

A day after news broke about REvil having screwed their own affiliates out of ransomware payments – by using double chats and a backdoor that let REvil operators hijack ransom payments – those affiliates took to the top Russian-language hacking forum to renew their demands for REvil to fork over...

Amazon Driver-Surveillance Cameras Roll Out, Sparking Debate

Drivers working for Amazon Delivery Service Partners DSPs are increasingly under constant surveillance for safe driving, monitored by artificial intelligence which awards them a score and generates voice reminders for safe driving. That score is used to award bonuses, promotions and more. Drivers...

1M Stolen Credit Cards Hit Dark Web for Free

Threat actors have leaked 1 million stolen credit cards for free online as a way to promote a fairly new and increasingly popular cybercriminal site dedicated to…selling payment-card credentials. Researchers from threat intelligence firm Cyble noticed the leak of the payment-card data during a...

What a Year It’s Been: RSA 2021 Embraces ‘Resilience’

Clearly, the months since the world shut down in March of 2020 fomented a radical shift in how people work and live, and it’s brought a range of crises and challenges to bear across the spectrum of our lives. These profound changes and experiences were also felt in cybersecurity, bringing...

Major U.S. Pipeline Crippled in Ransomware Attack

A ransomware attack has halted pipeline activities for the Colonial Pipeline Co., which supplies the East Coast with roughly 45 percent of its liquid fuels. In a statement released on Saturday, Colonial Pipeline said it has temporarily halted pipeline operations in response to a cyberattack...

LinkedIn Spear-Phishing Campaign Targets Job Hunters

A threat group called Golden Chickens is delivering the fileless backdoor moreeggs through a spear-phishing campaign targeting professionals on LinkedIn with fake job offers, according to researchers at eSentire. The phishing emails try to trick a victim into clicking on a malicious .ZIP file by...

ElectroRAT Drains Cryptocurrency Wallet Funds of Thousands

A new remote access tool RAT has been discovered being used in an extensive campaign. The attack has targeted cryptocurrency users in an attempt to collect their private keys and ultimately to drain their wallets. The never-before-seen RAT at the center of the campaign, which researchers dub...

Ex-Cisco Employee Convicted for Deleting 16K Webex Accounts

A man has been sentenced to two years in jail after being convicted of hacking Cisco’s Webex collaboration platform in an insider-threat case brought to the U.S. District Court in California. Sudhish Kasaba Ramesh, 31, admitted that he broke into Cisco’s cloud infrastructure in 2018, hosted on...

Microsoft Exchange Attack Exposes New xHunt Backdoors

Two never-before-seen Powershell backdoors have been uncovered, after researchers recently discovered an attack on Microsoft Exchange servers at an organization in Kuwait . The activity is tied back to the known xHunt threat group, which was first discovered in 2018 and has previously launched an...

MontysThree APT Takes Unusual Aim at Industrial Targets

SAS@Home 2020 – A series of highly targeted attacks by an APT group called MontysThree against industrial targets has been uncovered, with evidence that the campaign dates back to 2018. That’s according to researchers from Kaspersky, who noted that the group uses a variety of techniques to evade...

Agent Tesla Spyware Adds Fresh Tricks to Its Arsenal

Since COVID-19 cast its pall in March, the Agent Tesla remote-access trojan RAT has exploited the pandemic and added a raft of functionality that has helped it dominate the enterprise threat scene. Though Agent Tesla first made a splash six years ago, it hasn’t lost any momentum – in fact, it is...

OkCupid Security Flaw Threatens Intimate Dater Details

Researchers have discovered a slew of issues in the popular OkCupid dating app, which could have allowed attackers to collect users’ sensitive dating information, manipulate their profile data or even send messages from their profile. OkCupid is one of the most popular dating platforms worldwide,...

Emerging Ransomware Targets Photos, Videos on Android Devices

A new strain of ransomware has arisen in Canada, targeting Android users and locking up personal photos and videos. Called CryCryptor, it has initially been spotted pretending to be the official COVID-19 tracing app provided by Health Canada. It’s propagating via two different bogus websites that...

Hosting Provider's Database of Crooked Customers Leaked

A hacker has leaked online the database of the largest free hosting service popular with cybercriminals, the result of a breach that took down the service earlier this year, according to a published report. A hacker going by the online name of “KingNull” uploaded on a file-hosting site a database...

Nintendo Confirms Breach of 160,000 Accounts

Nintendo said over 160,000 accounts have been hacked, due to attackers abusing a legacy login system. Over the past few weeks, Nintendo gamers have been reporting suspicious activities on their accounts. According to the complaints, aired out on Twitter and Reddit, unauthorized actors were loggin...

Skype Phishing Attack Targets Remote Workers' Passwords

Remote workers are being warned of a new phishing campaign targeting their Skype passwords. The phishing emails look “eerily similar” to a legitimate Skype notification alert, according to a report released by Cofense on Thursday. Emails indicate users have 13 pending Skype notifications that can...

COVID-19 CISO Checklist for Securing a Remote Workforce

The Coronavirus crisis introduces a heavy burden on the CISO with the joint impact of a mass transition to working remotely coupled with a surge of cyberattacks that strive to monetize the general chaos. Security vendors, unintendedly, contribute to this burden by a relentless generation of noise...

As Zoom Booms, Incidents of ‘ZoomBombing’ Become a Growing Nuisance

Officials at Zoom have released tips for users of their video-conferencing platform to help avoid getting “Zoom-bombed” by trolls and even more serious threat actors during online meetings. The developers of the online video-conferencing service cautioned users to avoid sharing Zoom meeting links...

Domain Name Security: Important Measures You Need to Know

Whether you are an individual, a large commercial business, or a small non-profit organization, the creation and protection of your online presence are essential. While many individuals and businesses use social media platforms to connect with followers, customers, or organization members, a doma...

Unpatched Security Flaws Open Connected Vacuum to Takeover

SAN FRANCISCO – Researchers have discovered several high-severity vulnerabilities in a connected vacuum cleaner. The security holes could give remote attackers the capability to launch an array of attacks — from a denial of service DoS attack that renders the vacuum unusable, to viewing private...

RSAC 2020: Blockchain is 'Garbage In', Voting Needs Paper Ballots

SAN FRANCISCO – Cryptography is at the heart of security, especially here at this week’s RSAC 2020. And during the event’s annual Cryptographer’s Panel, industry leaders broke down their top crypto-concerns, including privacy regulations, election security and blockchain. Privacy is clearly a top...

RSAC 2020 Keynote: Changing the World's False Perception of Cybersecurity

SAN FRANCISCO – Today, cybersecurity is portrayed in the media and by businesses as an ongoing complex conflict between defenders and cybercriminals, with heightened noise around hyper-technical proof-of-concept attacks, or nation state threats. But, the reality is starkly different, said Rohit...

Trump Slams Apple for Refusing to Unlock Suspected Shooter’s iPhones

President Donald Trump has weighed in on Apple’s decision not to help the FBI unlock iPhones of the suspect in a shooting in Florida, slamming the company in a Tweet that demands Apple “step up to the plate and help our great Country.” The president on Tuesday suggested that Apple has benefited...

Adobe Fixes 17 Critical Acrobat, Photoshop and Brackets Flaws

Adobe Systems is stomping out 17 critical vulnerabilities in Acrobat Reader, Photoshop and Brackets, which could lead to arbitrary code execution if exploited. Overall, Adobe released patches – as part of its regularly-scheduled updates – addressing 25 CVEs across various products, including its...

Insurance Pays Out a Sliver of Norsk Hydro's Cyberattack Damages

On the heels of a severe cyberattack, aluminum giant Norsk Hydro has received only $3.6 million in cyber-insurance – just a fraction of the total costs in damage. Overall, the Oslo, Norway-based company incurred between $60 million to $71 million in damages from the incident, which forced it to...

Leaky Server Exposes 419M Phone Numbers of Facebook Users

Phone numbers linked to the Facebook accounts of hundreds of millions of users has been found online on an insecure server in the latest privacy gaffe for the social media giant. The server, which lacked password protection, contained more than 419 million records over several databases of Facebo...

Google Targets Data-Abusing Apps with Bug Bounty Launch

Google is looking to squash vulnerabilities on its Google Play app marketplace with a new bug-bounty program aimed at identifying data-abuse issues in Android apps and Chrome extensions. The company on Thursday announced the Developer Data Protection Reward Program, which, depending on the impact...

Google Titan Security Key Recalled After Bluetooth Pairing Bug

Google is recalling Bluetooth versions of its Titan Security Key after finding a vulnerability that allows attackers in close proximity to take control of the device. Google’s Titan Security Key, launched in the U.S. market last August, is a USB dongle that offers an added layer of security...

Ubiquitous Bug Allows HIPAA-Protected Malware to Hide Behind Medical Images

A bug in a 30-year-old standard used for the exchange and storage of medical images has been uncovered; it allows an adversary to embed fully-functioning executable code into the image files captured by medical devices such as CT and MRI machines. This results in hybrid files that allow malware...

Samsung Galaxy S10 Fingerprint Sensor Duped With 3D Print

A Samsung Galaxy S10 user said he was able to successfully bypass the phone’s fingerprint sensors using a 3D print of his own fingerprint. The Samsung user posted on Imgur this weekend under the alias, “darkshark” saying he was able to fool the Galaxy S10’s fingerprint using a simple technique – ...

Unpatched Apple macOS Hole Exposes Safari Browsing History

A design flaw in Apple’s macOS could allow a malicious application to steal victims’ Safari web browsing history. The security hole exists in every version of the Mac’s Mojave operating system, including macOS Mojave 10.14.3 Supplemental Update recently released on Feb. 7. That’s according to Mac...

High-Severity Flaws in Cisco Secure Internet Gateway Service Patched

Two high-severity vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Cisco’s security platform that could allow an attacker to gain administrative privileges – and take full control of the impacted machine. The glitches, disclosed Wednesday, affect two parts of Cisco Umbrella, a secure internet gateway that...

Pinterest Browser Extension Injects Unwanted Code into 5K Websites

A buggy Mozilla Firefox browser extension for sharing links to Pinterest has automatically injected malformed code into at least 5,000 websites. The code injection in this instance was not malicious, but researchers at Sucuri, which discovered and reported the problem on Tuesday, said the inciden...

Bluetooth Bug Allows Man-in-the-Middle Attacks on Phones, Laptops

A slew of vendors that have built Bluetooth pairing into their devices without requiring public key validation are issuing fixes for their products. Researchers at the Israel Institute of Technology have identified a cryptography-related security vulnerability CVE-2018-5383 in the Bluetooth...

Social Media Privacy Dominates Apple iOS 12, macOS Launches

Social media privacy is top of mind for Apple on the heels of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica controversy. On Monday, Apple released the latest versions of its desktop and mobile operating systems at the Worldwide Developers Conference WWDC, which addresses a bevy of security and privacy concern...

Browser Side-Channel Flaw De-Anonymizes Facebook Data

A side-channel vulnerability in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox allows drive-by de-anonymization of Facebook users. An exploit would allow an attacker to pick up the profile picture, username and the “likes” of unsuspecting visitors who find themselves landing on a malicious website – with no...