Rethinking Vulnerability Management in a Heightened Threat Landscape

Mariano Nunez, CEO, Onapsis Repeated warnings from CISA and the Biden Administration on the Russian cyber threat over the last several months have heightened the state of alertness for U.S. agencies and businesses across industries, which are expecting ‘tit-for-tat’ cyberattacks from Russia in...

Automaker Cybersecurity Lagging Behind Tech Adoption, Experts Warn

A pair of recent vulnerabilities found in the automaker ecosystem might not seem like a real danger taken separately. But experts warn a lack of attention on cybersecurity could plague “smart” car and electric vehicle systems — and users — in years to come, as the use of automotive technology...

‘Dark Herring’ Billing Malware Swims onto 105M Android Devices

Nearly 500 malicious apps lurking on the Google Play Store have successfully installed Dark Herring malware — a cash-stealer intended to add sneaky charges onto mobile carrier bills — on more than 100 million Android devices across the globe. That’s quite a school of fish. Dark Herring malware wa...

Native Tribal Casinos Taking Millions in Ransomware Losses

Ransomware groups have made millions off attacks on native tribal casinos in the U.S., just over the past few months. A notification issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI cybercrime unit, according to a new report from Bleeping Computer, said that ransomware attacks on tribal casinos...

Cisco SD-WAN Security Bug Allows Root Code Execution

Cisco SD-WAN implementations are vulnerable to a high-severity privilege-escalation vulnerability in the IOS IE operating system that could lead to arbitrary code execution. Cisco’s SD-WAN portfolio allows businesses of all sizes to connect disparate office locations via the cloud using various...

Keep Attackers Out of VPNs: NSA, CISA Offer Guidance

Unsecured VPNs can be a hot mess: Just ask Colonial Pipeline which got pwned by the REvil ransomware crooks with an old VPN password or the 87,000 at least Fortinet customers whose credentials for unpatched SSL-VPNs were posted online earlier this month. Vulnerabilities in VPN servers are like...

EU: Russia Behind ‘Ghostwriter’ Campaign Against Germany

In the wake of cyberattacks targeting the recently held German elections, the European Union has blamed Russia for an ongoing disinformation campaign called “Ghostwriter.” Germany is the latest target in an effort that for years has tried to discredit NATO, and which has both smeared and...

ZLoader’s Back, Abusing Google AdWords, Disabling Windows Defender

A targeted campaign delivering the ZLoader banking trojan is spreading via Google AdWords, and is using a mechanism to disable all Windows Defender modules on victim machines, researchers have found. That’s according to SentinelLabs, which said that to lower the rates of detection, the infection...

MyRepublic Data Breach Raises Data-Protection Questions

Almost 79,400 MyRepublic mobile subscribers have been caught up in a data breach that exposed a range of personal information, the company has confirmed. The Singapore-based ISP and mobile provider said that an “unauthorized data access incident” took place on August 29. The intrusion in question...

The State of Incident Response: Measuring Risk and Evaluating Your Preparedness

The coronavirus pandemic presented the perfect opportunity for security teams to evaluate the state of their incident-response process. In fact, it highlighted the dire need to implement a more structured, detailed and well-practiced plan to sufficiently support organizations when suffering a...

Bogus Cryptomining Apps Infest Google Play

Google has removed eight deceptive mobile apps from the Play Store that masquerade as cryptocurrency cloud-mining applications but which really exist to lure users into expensive subscription services and other fraudulent activity. They may have been removed, but researchers at Trend Micro noted...

Ongoing Spearphishing Campaign Targets Afghan Gov’t

Chinese-speaking cyberespionage actors have targeted the Afghan government, using Dropbox for command-and-control C2 communications and going so far as to impersonate the Office of the President to infiltrate the Afghan National Security Council NSC, researchers have found. According to a report...

Peloton Bike+ Bug Gives Hackers Complete Control

The popular Peloton Bike+ and Peloton Tread exercise equipment contain a security vulnerability that could expose gym users to a wide variety of cyberattacks, from credential theft to surreptitious video recordings. According to research from McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research ATR team, the bug no...

Baby Clothes Giant Carter’s Leaks 410K Customer Records

Baby clothes retailer Carter’s inadvertently exposed the personal data of hundreds of thousands of its customers, dating back years, according to a new disclosure. The issue started with Linc, which is a vendor the company used to automate purchases online, according to analysts with vpnMentor wh...

How Mobile Ad Fraud has Evolved in the Year of the Pandemic

The past 18 months have arguably been the most turbulent on record for the mobile industry. The majority of the world spent significant portions of 2020 under some kind of lockdown, with pressure mounting on mobile operators to keep us connected to the outside world, and with each other. This...

Reservation System Fixes Easy-to-Exploit XSS Bug

An easy-to-exploit bug impacting the WordPress plugin ReDi Restaurant Reservation allows unauthenticated attackers to pilfer reservation data and customer personal identifiable information by simply submitting a malicious snippet of JavaScript code into the reservation comment field. The bug...

Researchers Flag e-Voting Security Flaws

A group of election security experts said after a deep dive into Australia’s electronic voting systems that they have “serious problems” with the accuracy, integrity and privacy with elections run by the Australian Capital Territory ACT Electoral Commission. The team of four cybersecurity...

SaaS Attacks: Lessons from Real-Life Misconfiguration Exploits

It’s unfortunate but true: SaaS attacks continue to increase. You can’t get around it, COVID-19 accelerated the already exploding SaaS market and caused industries not planning on making a switch to embrace SaaS. With SaaS apps becoming the default system of record for organizations, it has left...

Facebook: Stolen Data Scraped from Platform in 2019

The leak of personal data from more than 533 million Facebook users was scraped from their profiles by malicious actors because of a security flaw in the company’s platform prior to September 2019, the social media giant said Tuesday. Threat actors posted that data to a public hacker forum over t...

Chinese Hackers Selling Intimate Stolen Camera Footage

Stolen videos captured by tens of thousands of security cameras at private properties throughout China are now for sale across social media, marketed as sex tapes. That’s according to the South China Morning Post, which reported that the cost of each “tape” varies, depending on how salacious the...

Child Tweets Gibberish from U.S. Nuke Account

A nonsense tweet sent out from the official account of U.S. Strategic Command is no reason for alarm, according to the department. The social media manager’s kid found an open laptop, pounded on a few random keys and sent the tweet, which read, “;l;;gmlxzssaw” last Sunday. The tweets were met wit...

Health Website Leaks 8 Million COVID-19 Test Results

Yet another human-related error — this time a flaw in a health department website in the state of Bengal, India — has exposed the confidential results of COVID-19 tests as well as personally identifying information PII for an entire geographic region’s population. Test results related to more tha...

TDoS Attacks Take Aim at Emergency Services

Telephony denial-of-service TDoS attacks, which affect the availability and readiness of call centers, are hitting critical first-responder facilities, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI. A TDoS attack is designed to prevent incoming and outgoing calls, by flooding a target with...

Let’s Encrypt to Replace 200M Certificates a Day

Let’s Encrypt just announced an infrastructure makeover which means the open certificate authority CA is able to re-issue up to 200 million certificates in a 24-hour period, something the service said could be necessary in “some of the worst scenarios.” The upgrade comes a year after Let’s Encryp...

Valentine’s Day Malware Attack Mimics Flower Store

With Valentine’s Day approaching this weekend, several people have received “recent order” email confirmations for flowers or lingerie. These emails are actually part of a spear-phishing attack, which ultimately leads recipients to a malicious document that executes the BazaLoader malware. The...

Google Play Boots Barcode Scanner App After Ad Explosion

A barcode scanner app, with over 10 million downloads, was booted from the Google Play marketplace after users began to complain of mobile-ad overload. The makers of the app, called Barcode Scanner, intentionally altered the code of the app via an update turning it from a benign app to adware,...

Spotify Suffers Second Credential-Stuffing Cyberattack

Spotify streaming music aficionados are in the crosshairs of yet another credential-stuffing cyberattack, just three months after the last one. The service has forced password resets for impacted users. Cybercriminals carrying out credential-stuffing take advantage of people who reuse the same...

Microsoft 365 Becomes Haven for BEC Innovation

Two fresh business email compromise BEC tactics have emerged onto the phishing scene, involving the manipulation of Microsoft 365 automated email responses in order to evade email security filters. In one case, scammers are targeting victims by redirecting legitimate out-of-office OOO replies fro...

Misconfigured Docker Servers Under Attack By Xanthe Malware

Researchers have discovered a Monero cryptomining botnet they call Xanthe, which has been exploiting incorrectly configured Docker API installations in order to infect Linux systems. Xanthe was first discovered in a campaign that employed a multi-modular botnet, as well as a payload that is a...

Android Messenger App Still Leaking Photos, Videos

The GO SMS Pro Android app has published two new versions on Google Play since a major security weakness was disclosed in November – but neither fixes the original issue, leaving 100 million users at risk for privacy violations, researchers said. Meanwhile, a raft of exploitation tools have been...

Smart Doorbells on Amazon, eBay, Harbor Serious Security Issues

Researchers have found serious security and privacy issues in 11 different smart doorbells, distributed via online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, which could be exploited by attackers to physically switch off the devices. Smart doorbells, which connect to a smartphone and alert users when...

North Korea-Backed Spy Group Poses as Reporters in Spearphishing Attacks, Feds Warn

The North Korean advanced persistent threat APT group known as Kimsuky is actively attacking commercial-sector businesses, often by posing as South Korean reporters, according to an alert from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA. Kimsuky a.k.a. Hidden Cobra has been...

Mobile Browser Bugs Open Safari, Opera Users to Malware

A set of address-bar spoofing vulnerabilities that affect a number of mobile browsers open the door for malware delivery, phishing and disinformation campaigns. The bugs, reported by Rapid7 and independent researcher Rafay Baloch, affect six browsers, ranging from the common Apple Safari, Opera...

Broadvoice Leak Exposes 350M Records, Personal Voicemail Transcripts

UPDATE Broadvoice, a well-known VoIP provider that serves small- and medium-sized businesses, has leaked more than 350 million customer records related to the company’s “b-hive” cloud-based communications suite. The data includes hundreds of thousands of voicemail transcripts, many involving...

SecOps Teams Wrestle with Manual Processes, HR Gaps

Only about half of enterprises are satisfied with their ability to detect cybersecurity threats, according to a survey from Forrester Consulting – with respondents painting a picture of major resource and technology gaps hamstringing their efforts to block cyberattacks. According to the...

APT28 Mounts Rapid, Large-Scale Theft of Office 365 Logins

The Russia-linked threat group known as APT28 has changed up its tactics to include Office 365 password-cracking and credential-harvesting. Microsoft researchers have tied APT28 a.k.a. Strontium, Sofacy or Fancy Bear to this newly uncovered pattern of O365 activity, which began in April and is...

Emotet Returns in Malspam Attacks Dropping TrickBot, QakBot

Emotet has returned after a five-month hiatus. Researchers first spotted the malware in a campaign that has spammed Microsoft Office users with hundreds of thousands of malicious emails since Friday. The malware first emerged in 2014, but has since then evolved into a full fledged botnet that’s...

Twitter Disrupts Wide-Ranging Political Disinformation Campaigns

Twitter has taken down three separate nation-sponsored influence operations, attributed to the People’s Republic of China PRC, Russia and Turkey. Collectively the operations consisted of 32,242 bogus or bot accounts generating the content and various amplifier accounts that retweeted it. “Every...

Helping Remote Workers Overcome Remote Attacks

Cybercriminals are experts at making the most of whatever they’re given. The current pandemic is no different, and they have been quick to profit from their victims’ fears. Adaptability has always been the hallmark of malicious actors, and the proliferation of “remote-everything” attacks is a pri...

Login with Facebook Bug Earns $20K Bounty

Facebook has awarded a security researcher $20,000 for discovering a cross-site scripting XSS vulnerability in the Facebook Login SDK, which is used by developers to add a “Continue with Facebook” button to a page as an authentication method. Exploitation could allow threat actors to hijack...

Maze Ransomware Attack Hits Cognizant

IT services giant Cognizant said that it has been hit by the Maze ransomware group in a cyberattack that has caused service disruptions. Cognizant, a Fortune 500 company that employs close to 300,000 people, said that it is providing customers with indicators of compromise IoCs and other technica...

Zoom Kills iOS App’s Data-Sharing Facebook Feature

Zoom has removed a feature in its iOS web conferencing app that was sharing analytics data with Facebook, after a report revealing the practice sparked outrage. According to the Motherboard report last week that originally disclosed the privacy issue, the transferred information included data on...

Google to Nix Chrome Support for Third-Party Cookies by 2022

Google has set an aggressive two-year deadline for dropping support for third-party tracking cookies in its Chrome web browser. Tracking cookies, which allow advertisers to virtually follow people around the web, are used for ad targeting. The move follows a number of privacy hardening steps by...

CES Surveillance Hype Worries Privacy Advocates

Cutting-edge surveillance tech took center stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada this past week. But just as many tech enthusiast praised the technology as something to marvel, privacy advocates voiced concern. Many security experts are sounding the alarm that the annual tec...

FBI Taps Apple to Unlock Pensacola Shooter's iPhone

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is once again asking Apple to help unlock the iPhone of a potential terrorist. The FBI is looking to crack two iPhones that they believe were owned by Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, the Saudi-born suspect in the shooting attack that killed three people in December ...

Epilepsy Foundation Bombarded with Seizure-Triggering Twitter Posts

The Epilepsy Foundation on Monday filed a criminal complaint against a number of undisclosed Twitter users after they bombarded its Twitter feed in November with a barrage of posts of flashing or strobing lights — exposing its thousands of followers to potential seizure-triggering images. The...

Download: The 2020 Cybersecurity Salary Survey Results

The 2020 Cybersecurity Salary Survey was an online survey published to gain insight into the details related to cybersecurity compensation. It was completed by over 1,500 security professional respondents. Today you can access the aggregated and analyzed 2020 Cybersecurity Salary Survey Results a...

Facebook Alleges Company Infiltrated Thousands for Ad Fraud

Facebook has sued a Chinese company that it alleges used malware to compromise hundreds of thousands of user accounts – and then used them to run “deceptive ads” promoting counterfeit goods. The company in question is Hong Kong-based ILikeAd Media International Company Ltd., which was incorporate...

NYPD Fingerprint Database Taken Offline to Thwart Ransomware

The New York Police Department’s database of fingerprints was knocked offline over the weekend thanks to a ransomware scare, according to reports. The malware was introduced to the network via a contractor who was installing a digital display, according to an article in the New York Post. To do t...

Federal Court: Suspicionless Search of Traveler Devices by Border Agents Is Unconstitutional

In a win for the privacy of international travelers, a federal court in Boston has ruled that searchers of traveler electronic devices by border agents without suspicion is unconstitutional. The ruling from the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts came in a 2017 case, Alasaad v. Nielsen...