ThreatList: Most Retail Hardware Bug Bounty Flaws Are Critical

Almost all of hardware vulnerabilities – 90 percent – that were submitted to retail bug bounty programs so far this year were categorized as critical, showing that Point of Sale systems and other retail hardware assets remain a serious security issue. That’s due to the fact that retail hardware...

Rules-Based Policy Approaches Need to Go

Enterprises are making tremendous investments in their digital transformations, and no wonder: Increasingly, those who can more rapidly part from old, manual and antiquated ways of managing technology and shift to new ways of thinking will come out on top. That’s especially true when it comes to...

ThreatList: Bad Bots Account for a Fifth of All Web Traffic, FinServ Hit the Worst

About a fifth of all web traffic 20.4 percent comes from bad bots, which continue to attack daily in automated offensives on websites, mobile apps and APIs. That’s worse for some verticals, like the banking and finance sector, which was hit the hardest last year. That’s according to the Distil...

Mozilla Firefox 65 Ups the Ante on Privacy with Anti-Tracking Efforts

Mozilla has unveiled new anti-tracking policies and redesigned privacy controls in tandem with the release of Firefox 65 on Tuesday. The company announced a new set of redesigned controls for the Content Blocking section, where users can choose their desired level of privacy protection. These are...

Cisco Patches Critical Bug in License Management Tool

Cisco Systems is warning of a critical bug in two of its license management tools that could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to execute arbitrary queries. A successful attack could allow for an attacker to modify and delete random data in Cisco product lifecycle management applications...

In County Crippled by Hurricane, Water Utility Targeted in Ransomware Attack

A “critical water utility” has been targeted in a recent ransomware attack, significantly impeding its ability to provide 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 ransomwa...

ThreatList: Credential Theft Spikes by Triple Digits in U.S.

Credential theft was substantially up in the United States during the third quarter – even as declines were charted in Europe and Asia. What credentials go for on the Dark Web. Periodic analysis from Blueliv shows a whopping 141 percent increase in compromised credentials from North American...

Four Critical Flaws Patched in Adobe Digital Edition

Adobe on Tuesday issued patches for 16 vulnerabilities spanning several of its products. The most serious of those flaws, four critical glitches in Adobe Digital Edition, could enable arbitrary code-execution. Adobe Digital Editions is an reader software program used for acquiring, managing and...

Connected Car Apps Open Privacy Hole For Used Car Owners

When we think about hacking connected cars, most of the research has been around difficult-to-exploit vulnerabilities that would allow someone besides the owner to do things such as control the infotainment system, unlock the car remotely or even take control of the steering mechanism. But it tur...

FBI’s BEC Crackdown Leads To 74 Arrests Globally

The FBI announced Monday the results of a major crackdown on scammers behind business email compromise BEC campaigns that resulted in 74 arrests and the retrieval of millions of dollars. Several U.S. federal authorities and police from other countries were involved in Operation WireWire, a...

Researchers Hacked Amazon’s Alexa to Spy On Users, Again

A malicious proof-of-concept Amazon Echo Skill shows how attackers can abuse the Alexa virtual assistant to eavesdrop on consumers with smart devices – and automatically transcribe every word said. Checkmarx researchers told Threatpost that they created a proof-of-concept Alexa Skill that abuses...

IoT Security Concerns Peaking – With No End In Sight

SAN FRANCISCO – With the massive influx of connected devices into our digital lives, it’s no surprise that IoT security was on the forefront of the 2018 RSA Conference this year. But despite numerous talks about IoT vulnerabilities this week, a clear resolution seems nowhere in sight. “A lot of t...

Banking Apps Found Vulnerable to MITM Attacks

Leading US and UK-based banks have patched a flaw found in their Android and iOS mobile apps that allowed adversaries to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks to steal customer credentials and view and manipulate network traffic. According to researchers at the School of Computer Science at the...

Apple Announces Emergency Patch to Fix High Sierra Login Bug

Apple said on Wednesday that it will rush an emergency patch to users that fixes an embarrassing login bug in its High Sierra operating system. The patch is expected to be pushed out by Apple sometime Wednesday, according to a company spokesperson. The serious High Sierra login bug surfaced...

Microsoft Patches Critical Windows DNS Client Vulnerabilities

Three critical Windows DNS client vulnerabilities were patched today by Microsoft, closing off an avenue where an attacker could relatively simply respond to DNS queries with malicious code and gain arbitrary code execution on Windows clients or Windows Server installations. The flaws were...

Microsoft Programming Error is Behind Dangerous Kernel Bug, Researchers Claim

Researchers claim a programming error in the Microsoft Windows kernel cracks the door open for malicious executables to bypass security software. The flaw, according to security firm EnSilo, has been present on previous versions of Windows dating back to Windows 2000 and can be found on Windows 1...

Windows Search Bug Worth Watching, and Squashing

Between Conficker and WannaCry, there was a nearly a decade when network worms went dark. WannaCry changed that, riding into enterprises globally on the coattails of a leaked nation-state exploit. In the months since the May 12 ransomware attack, vendors, researchers and network admins have been ...

Siemens Patches Critical Intel AMT Flaw in Industrial Products

Siemens patched two critical vulnerabilities that affected its industrial products this week. One, tied to a recently disclosed flaw in Active Management Technology – a function of certain Intel processors – could have allowed an attacker to gain system privileges. Another vulnerability could hav...

Microsoft Extends Edge Bug Bounty Program Indefinitely

Microsoft said Wednesday it would no longer impose a time limit for its Edge bug bounty program. The Redmond, Wash. based company announced the Edge on Windows Insider Preview WIP program in August 2016 as a means to incentivize researchers to find and report vulnerabilities in the browser...

SAP Vulnerability Puts Business Data at Risk for Thousands of Companies

SAP’s patch update for this month included a fix for a critical remote code execution vulnerability in the SAP GUI client that provides remote access to a central SAP server in a corporate network. Researchers at ERPScan, a Dutch company specializing in business application security, disclosed so...

Firefox 51 Begins Warning Users of Insecure HTTP Connections

Mozilla Foundation took steps with the release of Firefox 51 on Tuesday to communicate more clearly to users when they land on a HTTP website collecting personal information such as passwords that the site may not be secure. Going forward, Firefox will display a gray lock icon with a red...

Google Reveals Windows Kernel Zero Day Under Attack

A Windows zero-day vulnerability is being used in an unknown number of attacks, Google disclosed today, 10 days after it privately reported the issue to Microsoft. Google’s disclosure follows its internal policy, which states that companies should fix or publicly report flaws that are under attac...

St. Jude Faces New Claim Heart Devices are Hackable

St. Jude Medical is facing fresh allegations its heart implant devices are vulnerable to cyberattacks. The claims were introduced by the defense as part of St. Jude’s defamation lawsuit against short seller Muddy Waters and security firm MedSec. In a legal filing submitted Monday, experts hired b...

Google Play Hit With Rash of Auto-Rooting Malware

Researchers have identified a recent wave of malware targeting the Google Play app marketplace that entices users to download utilities and games that when installed surreptitiously root devices. The exploit, which mobile security firm Lookout calls autorooting malware, gives attackers complete...

Google Chrome Security Update 50.0.2662.75

Google on Wednesday pushed its third Chrome update since the beginning of March, patching a pair of high-severity vulnerabilities in the browser. Yesterday’s update brings Chrome to version 50.0.2662.75 and patched 20 vulnerabilities, according to the Google Chrome Releases blog. Eight of the bug...

German Government Audits TrueCrypt

TrueCrypt continues to fascinate even though it hasn’t been updated in more than a year and has been cleared of backdoors in more than one extensive audit. The German government’s Federal Office for Information Security BSI is the latest to inspect and analyze the security of the abandoned open...

Ubuntu Patches Privilege-Escalation Bug

There is a privilege-escalation vulnerability in several versions of Ubuntu that results from the fact that the operating system fails to check permissions when users are creating files in some specific circumstances. Security researcher Philip Pettersson discovered the vulnerability and reported...

Exploit Kit Delivers Pharming Attacks Against SOHO Routers

Attacks targeting small office and home router DNS settings, long a target for network intruders seeking to redirect web traffic to malicious sites, have for the first time been included in an exploit kit—one that specializes in cross-site request forgery attacks. An exploit kit has been spotted ...

Google Fixes Sandbox Escape in Chrome

Google has patched a high-risk vulnerability in its Chrome browser that allows an attacker to escape the Chrome sandbox. That vulnerability is one of 37 bugs fixed in version 43 of Chrome. Six of those flaws are rated as high risks and Google paid out more than $38,000 in rewards to researchers w...

Microsoft Brings Perfect Forward Secrecy to Windows

Microsoft yesterday added four cryptographic cipher suites to its default priority ordering list in Windows, a move that brings Perfect Forward Secrecy to the operating system. Update 3042058 is available for now only on the Microsoft Download Center, affording users the opportunity to test the...

PHP 5.6.5 Released With Several Security Fixes

Several new versions of PHP have been released, fixing a number of security vulnerabilities and other bugs in the popular scripting language. PHP 5.6.5 is the newest version of the language, and it has patches for a handful of vulnerabilities, including a use-after-free flaw that could lead to...

Bugzilla Vulnerability Exposes Bug Collections

Hundreds of open source software projects that make use of Bugzilla, Mozilla’s bug-tracking software, anxiously await a patch for a vulnerability that exposes private bugs collected by the system. Mozilla is today expected to make available a patch for the vulnerability in its account creation...

July 2014 Microsoft Patch Tuesday Security Bulletins Updates

Tomorrow’s regularly scheduled patch update from Microsoft includes – go figure – another cumulative rollup for Internet Explorer and a critical fix for a Windows remote code execution bug. More of the same for sure, but there’s another bug being patched that may merit moving up a rung on your li...

October 2013 Oracle Java Critical Patch Update

On Tuesday, for the first time, Java security updates were included with the quarterly Oracle Critical Patch Update – and just as quickly, Java wasted no time elevating itself as the top concern for Oracle admins and security experts. Of the 51 Java patches released, 50 allow for remote code...

Google Fixes Three High-Risk Flaws in Chrome

There is a trio of high-risk security vulnerabilities in Google Chrome that have been patched in a new version of the browser released on Tuesday. The vulnerabilities all are use-after-free bugs, and Google paid a total of $5,000 in rewards to researchers who discovered and reported them. Google...

Another Java 6 Vulnerability Found in the Wild

Unless you have an Oracle product that requires Java 6 or are paying for support for that version of the platform, you’d seen the last publicly available updates as of February. That doesn’t mean attackers have pushed back from targeting Java 6, and that certainly doesn’t mean that organizations...

Password Cracker Targets Siemens S7 PLCs

Siemens S7 programmable logic controllers, the same PLC family exploited by the Stuxnet malware, are in the crosshairs of a password-cracking tool that is capable of stealing credentials from industrial control systems. PLCs are microprocessors that automate mechanical processes inside factories,...

Exploit Code, Metasploit Module Out for Ruby on Rails Flaws

Just two days after the disclosure of a string of serious vulnerabilities in Ruby on Rails, researchers have released proof-of-concept exploit code for a couple of the flaws and the team at Metasploit have released a module for the penetration testing framework that exploit one of the bugs, as...

Visa, MasterCard Warn Of Breach At Card Processor

UPDATE–MasterCard and Visa have confirmed that they are investigating a potentially huge data breach at one of the companies’ payment processors, which the Wall Street Journal has identified as Global Payments Inc. The credit card giants are alerting banks about a breach at a U.S. based card...

Carberp: It's Not Over Yet

On 20 March, Russian law enforcement agencies announced the arrest of a cybercriminal gang involved in stealing money using the Carberp Trojan. This is very good news, but unfortunately does not mark the end of the Carberp story. Evidently, those arrested were just one of the criminal gangs using...

Google Patches 14 Chrome Bugs Ahead of Pwn2Own, Pays $30k in Special Rewards

Just two days before the annual Pwn2Own contest is set to begin at CanSecWest, Google has patched a huge set of serious vulnerabilities in its Chrome browser. In addition to the 14 high-risk flaws fixed in Chrome, the company also handed out rewards of $10,000 each to three researchers who...

Google Fixes Seven Flaws in New Chrome 14 Release

Google has fixed seven security vulnerabilities in its Chrome browser with a new release on Tuesday. Six of the bugs fixed in Chrome are rated high, with just one listed as critical. The company paid out $10,000 in bounties for the bugs it fixed in this release. In addition to the security fixes,...

Microsoft Releases Huge Patch Tuesday Update For 49 Bugs

Microsoft has released its largest-ever bundle of patches, pushing out 16 updates that fix a total of 49 individual vulnerabilities. The patches include updates for six critical vulnerabilities, most notably a huge fix for some remote code-execution bugs in various versions of Internet Explorer...

Cryptome Outs Identities of Hackers Behind Breach

Less than a week after the Cryptome.org archive was hacked and defaced, the site has posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of two individuals it accuses of being involved in the attack. In an update on Friday, Cryptome founder John Young posted contact information for three individuals he...

Adobe Warns of Flash, PDF Zero Day Attack

Adobe issued an alert late Friday night to warn about zero-day attacks against an unpatched vulnerability in its Reader and Flash Player software products. The vulnerability, described as critical, affects Adobe Flash Player 10.0.45.2 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris...

Apple Patches Pwn2Own Flaw That Hacked Safari

Apple today shipped a patch to fix the drive-by download vulnerability used by Charlie Miller left to hack a fully patched MacBook via the Safari browser. Miller’s hack was part of this year’s CanSecWest Pwn2Own contest where Apple’s flagship browser fell for the third straight year. In the attac...

'High Risk' Flaw Fixed in Google Chrome

Google has pushed out a new version of its Chrome browser to fix a high-severity security hole that could lead to malicious code execution attacks. The vulnerability could be exploited to run arbitrary code within the Google Chrome sandbox, the company said in an advisory. The raw details: The v8...

Adam Shostack on Privacy and the PETS '09 Workshop

Dennis Fisher talks with Microsoft’s Adam Shostack about the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, the definition of privacy in today’s world and the role of technology in helping to enhance and protect that privacy. Show notes: Adam’s blog post on “Understanding Privacy” by Dan Solove...

Experts call for better measurement of security

If there’s one key message coming through all of the noise at the RSA Conference this week it’s the fact that there’s a pressing need for more data. Data on attacks, data on vulnerabilities, data on data breaches, data on software security, data on everything having to do with security. The...

Adobe under fire for poor security response

In the wake of the zero-day attacks against Adobe’s Acrobat and Reader product lines, the company is taking a lot of flack for its poor response to handling the issue — specifically around communicating the risks and providing migitation guidance for end users. Over on the ZDNet Zero Day blog, I...