Biden’s Cybersecurity EO: The Wrong Issues

It’s no secret that foreign adversaries are making a concerted effort to target U.S. government agencies and companies. As technology advances and foreign superpowers gain influence, the game is shifting beneath our feet here in the U.S. Motivated in part by the extent and consequences of the...

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...

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...

Security Researcher Hides ZIP, MP3 Files Inside PNG Files on Twitter

A security researcher has discovered a novel steganography technique for hiding data inside a Portable Network Graphics .PNG image file posted on Twitter, a tactic that could be exploited by threat actors to hide malicious activity. Researcher David Buchanan heralded his discovery on Twitter...

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...

Kia Motors Hit With $20M Ransomware Attack – Report

So far, Kia Motors America has publicly acknowledged an “extended system outage,” but ransomware gang DoppelPaymer claimed it has locked down the company’s files in a cyberattack that includes a $20 million ransom demand. That $20 million will gain Kia a decryptor and a guarantee to not to publis...

Ninja Forms WordPress Plugin Opens Websites to Hacks

Click to Register Ninja Forms, a WordPress plugin used by more than 1 million sites, contains four critical security vulnerabilities that together make it possible for a remote attacker to take over a WordPress site and create various kinds of problems. Ninja Forms offers WordPress site designers...

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...

Cyberpunk 2077 Publisher Hit with Hack, Ransomware

UPDATE CD Projekt Red, the videogame-development company behind Cyberpunk 2077 and the wildly popular Witcher series, has suffered a ransomware attack that could soon result in troves of company data being dumped online – including game source code. The Warsaw-based company tweeted out a notice o...

New Malware Hijacks Kubernetes Clusters to Mine Monero

Researchers have discovered never-before-seen malware, dubbed Hildegard, that is being used by the TeamTNT threat group to target Kubernetes clusters. While Hildegard, initially detected in January 2021, is initially being used to launch cryptojacking operations, researchers believe that the...

Taking a Neighborhood Watch Approach to Retail Cybersecurity

Every year retailers face a heightened level of risk during the online holiday shopping season. COVID-19 drastically shifted consumer buying behaviors, forcing retailers to accelerate digital transformation efforts to support an exponentially higher number of online transactions. Projected U.S...

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...

Post-Cyberattack, UVM Health Network Still Picking Up Pieces

More than a month after a cyberattack hit the University of Vermont UVM health network, the organization is still working to recover its systems. The UVM health network is a six-hospital, home-health and hospice system, which encompasses more than 1,000 physicians, 2,000 nurses and other clinicia...

Firing of CISA Chief Christopher Krebs Widely Condemned

Government officials and cybersecurity experts alike condemned President Trump’s firing of Christopher Krebs by tweet Tuesday, as the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA became the latest victim of the president’s housecleaning efforts after his failed bid at a...

Firestarter Android Malware Abuses Google Firebase Cloud Messaging

An APT group is starting fires with a new Android malware loader, which uses a legitimate Google messaging service to bypass detection. The malware, dubbed “Firestarter,” is used by an APT threat group called “DoNot.” DoNot uses Firebase Cloud Messaging FCM, which is a cross-platform cloud soluti...

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...

Black Hat 2020: Influence Campaigns Are a Cybersecurity Problem

Social media used as a cudgel for nation-states to sway opinion is a cybersecurity threat CISOs can’t ignore — and need to understand better and mitigate against. That’s the message from Renée DiResta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, who said she is seeing a steady growth a...

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...

Phishing Attack Hits German Coronavirus Task Force

Researchers are warning of an ongoing phishing attack that’s targeting the credentials of more than 100 high-profile executives at a German multinational corporation that’s tasked with procuring coronavirus medical gear for Germany. The company, left unnamed by researchers, is part of a task forc...

Tycoon Ransomware Banks on Unusual Image File Tactic

A new ransomware strain called Tycoon is seeking to wheel and deal its way into the Windows and Linux worlds, using a little-known Java image format as part of its kill chain. The ransomware is housed in a trojanized version of the Java Runtime Environment JRE, according to researchers at...

Minneapolis Police Department Hack Likely Fake, Says Researcher

As protests continue to proliferate across the globe in the wake of George Floyd’s death, the Minneapolis Police Department is making news for something else: A supposed hack, perpetrated at the hands of the Anonymous hacktivist group. According to Troy Hunt at Have I Been Pwned HIBP, the group o...

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...

Cloud Misconfig Mistakes Show Need For DevSecOps

Developers have become accustomed to deploying apps in data centers with what could be described as a “crunchy hard outer layer,” to keep their data center secure. But when it comes to the public cloud, “it just doesn’t exist that way,” said Ryan Olson, vice president of threat intelligence with...

Authorities Eye Using Mobile Phone Tracking COVID-19's Spread

Authorities in the United States and Israel are eyeing ways to use mobile-phone and other location-based data to help control the spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19, raising serious privacy concerns about the practice of using and sharing people’s personal data during the time of a global...

Download Guide: Advanced Threat Protection Beyond the AV

At a certain point, almost every organization reaches the conclusion that there is a need to move past just the standard AV and firewall stack in order to soundly protect their environment. The common practice in recent years is to gain extra protection through implementing either EDR\EPP solutio...

Equifax Settles Class-Action Breach Lawsuit for $380.5M

A Georgia court granted final approval for an Equifax settlement in a class-action lawsuit, after the credit-reporting agency was hit by its massive 2017 data breach. Equifax will pay $380.5 million to settle lawsuits regarding the 2017 data breach, the Atlanta federal judge reportedly ruled this...

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...

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...

WhatsApp Spyware Attack: Uncovering NSO Group Activity

On the heels of Facebook filing a lawsuit against Israeli company NSO Group — alleging that it was behind the massive WhatsApp hack earlier this year — privacy experts say that the move is “popping the unaccountable bubble” that commercial spyware companies have carved out for themselves. After...

Podcast: Vendors, Suppliers, Partners – Oh My! Who Will Increase Your Risk of Account Takeover?

Your users’ login credentials are available for sale on the criminal underground — and criminals know it. For the third year running, the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Report calls out the use of weak and stolen credentials as the most common hacking tactic. This podcast is sponsored by SpyCloud The...

Millions of Medical Documents for Addiction and Recovery Patients Leaked

As if wrestling with addiction and recovery weren’t difficult enough, tens of thousands of patients of a rehab clinic in Pennsylvania may find their personal information hijacked and manipulated by identity thieves or extortionists. An ElasticSearch database that was left open to the internet...

Ring Doorbell Flaw Opens Door to Spying

UPDATE A serious flaw in the popular Ring smart doorbell could allow an attacker on a shared WiFi network to spy on families’ video and audio footage, according to researchers. Ring Doorbell is a popular home security device acquired by Amazon. Researchers with BullGuard discovered a way to launc...

2019 and Beyond: The (Expanded) RSAC Advisory Board Weighs in on What’s Next: Pt. 2

Our first 2019 predictions post from the RSA Conference Advisory Board was not all sunshine and roses — cautious optimism was tabled by the acknowledged distance we must still travel as an industry — and our second set of predictions does not belie that theme. This trepidation does not mean we’re...

Podcast: A Utility Ransomware Attack, Post-Hurricane

A “critical water utility” was hit by a recent ransomware attack, significantly impeding the service in the week after Hurricane Florence hit the East Coast of the U.S. The Onslow Water and Sewer Authority ONWASA said in a Monday release that a “sophisticated ransomware attack… has left the utili...

Foxit PDF Reader Fixes High-Severity Remote Code Execution Flaws

Foxit Software has patched over 100 vulnerabilities in its popular Foxit PDF Reader. Many of the bugs tackled by the company include a wide array of high severity remote code execution vulnerabilities. Foxit on Friday released fixes for Foxit Reader 9.3 and Foxit PhantomPDF 9.3, which addressed a...

Federal Agencies Face an Uphill Battle in Cyber-Preparedness

In the wake of the elimination of the federal cybersecurity czar position, the latest federal cybersecurity preparedness report from the Office of Management and Budget OMB and the Department of Homeland Security DHS shows that U.S. government is nowhere near ready for prime time when it comes to...

Phishing Spy Campaign Targets Top Mideast Officials

Researchers have discovered a phishing campaign that infected Android devices with custom surveillance-ware bent on extracting data from top officials, primarily in the Middle East. Researchers at Lookout Security told Threatpost that the tool, dubbed Stealth Mango, has been used to collect over ...

1M Downloads Later, Google Pulls Phony WhatsApp From Google Play

Google has removed a phony WhatsApp download from Google Play and suspended the developer’s account, but not before the ad-spewing app was downloaded more than one million times. The unwanted app, called Update WhatsApp Messenger, was disclosed by a handful of Redditors over the weekend who said...

No Fix Planned For LabVIEW Bug, Says National Instruments

Automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software behemoth National Instruments said it will not patch software that security researchers at Cisco Talos said is flawed and could result in code execution by third-party attackers. The affected software is LabVIEW, a leading program...

Bugs in Arris Modems Distributed by AT&T Vulnerable to Trivial Attacks

Trivially exploitable vulnerabilities have been discovered in several Arris home modems, routers and gateways distributed to consumers and small businesses through AT&T’s U-verse service. It’s unknown yet whether the firmware vulnerabilities were introduced by the OEM or the ISP since AT&T seems ...

Revamped Nukebot Malware Changes Targets, Adds Functions

A revamped version of the Nukebot banking trojan dubbed Jimmy Nukebot has shifted focus from stealing bankcard data and now acts as a conduit for quietly downloading malicious payloads for web-injects, cryptocurrency mining, and taking screenshots of targeted systems. The code is a modification o...

CopyCat Malware Infected 14M Android Devices, Rooted 8M, in 2016

A family of Android malware was so successful that at its peak, over the course of two months last year, it infected 14 million devices and rooted more than half of them, roughly eight million devices. Researchers said early Tuesday the strain of malware, dubbed CopyCat, helped its authors earn...

Subtitle Hack Leaves 200 Million Vulnerable to Remote Code Execution

A proof of concept attack using malicious video subtitle files reveals how adversaries can execute remote code on PCs, Smart TVs and mobile devices using popular video players and services such as VLC Media Player, Kodi, Stremio and Popcorn Time. “This is a brand new attack vector. We haven’t see...

Apple Patches Pwn2Own Vulnerabilities in Safari, macOS, iOS

Apple fixed 66 vulnerabilities across seven product lines, including Safari, iTunes, macOS, and iOS, on Monday. Many of the fixes – especially in macOS and Safari – resolve vulnerabilities uncovered at Pwn2Own, the hacking contest held at CanSecWest each year. Contestants collectively earned...

Chrome Browser Hack Opens Door to Credential Theft

A vulnerability in Google’s Chrome browser allows hackers to automatically download a malicious file onto a victim’s PC that could be used to steal credentials and launch SMB relay attacks. Bosko Stankovic, information security engineer at DefenseCode, found the flaw in the default configuration ...

Cisco Patches IOS XE Vulnerability Leaked in Vault 7 Dump

Cisco released an update this week that addresses a vulnerability in software running in more than 300 of its switches. The flaw was disclosed among the WikiLeaks Vault 7 dump of alleged CIA offensive hacking tools, and proof-of-concept exploit code exists that targets the vulnerability. Cisco sa...

Flash Player Bug An Eavesdropper's Delight

Adobe yesterday patched a not-so-sweet 16 Flash Player vulnerabilities, including a zero day under attack. While not much is known about the targeted attacks using the Flash Player bug, or its victims, details have surfaced on another patched flaw that is a potential privacy nightmare...