Microsoft Releases Updated MS13-036 Patch

Microsoft has released a new version of the MS13-036 patch that was causing some customers’ machines to crash. The company had recommended in the days after the original fix was first released that customers uninstall the MS13-036 patch while Microsoft investigated the cause of the problems. The...

Microsoft Patches Critical IE Vulnerabilities

Internet Explorer continues to dominate Microsoft’s 2013 security updates. Among the 12 bulletins and 57 vulnerabilities patched in today’s release was a cumulative update for the maligned browser and another fix for a bug being exploited in the wild. Last month, an out-of-band fix for IE 6-8...

Microsoft Fixing 11 Vulnerabilities for December Patch Tuesday

Microsoft announced today that it plans on shipping seven bulletins, five critical, two important, for the December edition of its monthly patch Tuesday security bulletin release cycle. The year’s last scheduled batch of patches will address 11 vulnerabilities in all currently supported operating...

Security Experts Recommend Long, Hard Look at Disabling Java Browser Plug-In

Is the Java browser plug-in the IT equivalent of the human appendix? Would you miss it if it were gone? Probably not, experts say, especially now that attackers are beating the Java sandbox with a rash of zero-day exploits. “It’s simply safer to have the Java plug-in disabled in the browser knowi...

New PDF Attack Targets Aviation Defense Industry

FireEye reported today it had detected a new critical PDF attack targeting the aviation defense industry. Malware Page exploits a stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. An attacker would be able to execute code remotely via a crafted argument to the getIcon...

Newest Java 7 Update Still Exploitable, Researcher Says

UPDATE–Oracle last week patched the two zero-day vulnerabilities in Java that attackers had been exploiting in targeted attacks, but it didn’t take long for researchers to poke more holes in the software. A new bug that allows a complete Java sandbox escape has been identified already, the latest...

The Rise of Cross-Platform Malware

For most of the recorded history of malware, viruses, Trojans and other malicious software have been specialists. Each piece of malware typically targeted one platform, be it Windows, OS X or now, one of the mobile platforms. But the last few months have seen the rise of cross-platform malware th...

Months After A Patch, Targeted Attacks Still Using Adobe Flash Bug

More than three months after it was patched, attackers are still using a vulnerability in Adobe’s Flash product in targeted, ‘APT-style’ attacks. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2012-0754 was patched in February and linked to targeted attacks weeks later. But new attacks targeting unpatched...

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...

Adobe Issues Emergency Fix For Flash Player Vulnerabilities

Adobe on Monday issued two emergency fixes for critical security vulnerabilities in its Flash Player product. The vulnerabilities, if left unpatched, could allow an attacker to take control of a system running a vulnerable version of Flash Player. Adobe on Monday issued two emergency fixes for...

APEC Host Committee Spear-Phished by China

An Analysis published earlier this month by Kahu Security raises the possibility that the hack of systems used by the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation host committee was the result of a spear phishing attack with links back to the Chinese mainland. As Threatpost reported yesterday, computers...

U.S. Says Cybercrime a Major National Security Threat

A new report from the National Security Council warns that international cybercrime has reached the upper echelon of threats of to the security of the United States and is responsible for as much as $1 billion in losses in just one year in the U.S. The report, which focuses on a number of broad...

Yonggang "Gary" Min (DuPont)

Min worked at Delaware based chemicals giant DuPont for over a decade before he surreptitiously took a job at DuPont competitor, Victrex. Over a four month period after accepting that offer, and before informing DuPont of his decision, Min systematically copied thousands of pages of confidential...

New Adobe Flash Bug Being Exploited

On the same day that it plans to release a patch for a critical flaw in Shockwave, Adobe confirmed on Thursday morning that there is a newly discovered bug in Flash that is being actively exploited already in attacks against Reader. The vulnerability affects Flash on all of the relevant platforms...

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...

Apple Plugs 48 Security Holes in Safari Browser

Apple has shipped new versions of its Safari browser with patches for at least 48 security vulnerabilities. The Safari 4.1 and 5.0 updates, considered “highly critical,” is available for both Windows and Mac OS X. Exploitation of some of these vulnerabilities could lead to drive-by download remot...

The Root of the Botnet Epidemic

Over the course of a few days in February 2000, a lone hacker was able to bring some of the Web’s larger sites to their knees, using just a few dozen machines and some relatively primitive software to cripple Yahoo, eBay, Etrade, Amazon, ZDnet and others for hours at a time. No one knew it at the...

Latest Cyberattack Against Iran Part of Ongoing Campaign

Malware used in a crippling cyberattacks against an Iranian steel plants last week is connected to an attack that shut down the country’s rail system last year. In both cases, on malware strain was used to impact physical and critical infrastructure, according to a report from Check Point Researc...

A Guide to Surviving a Ransomware Attack

Surviving ransomware is possible with a combination of preparation and intentionality. Often, there is a misguided characterization of ransomware attacks that implies defenders either completely thwart an attack or that attackers establish complete control of their targets’ IT infrastructure. But...

Elusive ToddyCat APT Targets Microsoft Exchange Servers

An advanced persistent threat APT group, dubbed ToddyCat, is believed behind a series of attacks targeting Microsoft Exchange servers of high-profile government and military installations in Asia and Europe. The campaigns, according to researchers, began in December 2020, and have been largely...

Old Hacks Die Hard: Ransomware, Social Engineering Top Verizon DBIR Threats – Again

Ransomware and social engineering continue to dominate challenges facing cybersecurity professionals, according to Verizon’s 15th annual Data Breach Investigations Report DBIR. In general, the results of DBIR merely confirm well-established trends, such as the growing threats of ransomware – up 1...

ChromeLoader Browser Hijacker Provides Gateway to Bigger Threats

ChromeLoader may seem on the surface like a run-of-the-mill browser hijacker that merely redirects victims to advertisement websites. However, its use of PowerShell could pose a greater risk by leading to further and advanced malicious activity, such as the propagation of ransomware or spyware or...

Unpatched DNS Bug Puts Millions of Routers, IoT Devices at Risk

An unpatched Domain Name System DNS bug in a popular standard C library can allow attackers to mount DNS poisoning attacks against millions of IoT devices and routers to potentially take control of them, researchers have found. Researchers at Nozomi Networks Labs discovered the flaw affecting the...

North Korean APTs Stole ~$400M in Crypto in 2021

Vast amounts of cash sloshing around in cryptocurrency markets are proving irresistible for cybercriminals and scammers of all kinds. From basic financial pump-and-dump schemes to straight-up nation-state cybertheft, nascent crypto markets, and their investors – often with dubious understanding o...

That Toy You Got for Christmas Could Be Spying on You

Many adults found it charming when Mattel upgraded its classic Fisher-Price Chatter telephone for its 60th anniversary in October with actual Bluetooth capabilities, so grownups, too, can use it — and for actual mobile phone calls. But flaws in the way the toy pairs with Bluetooth means that othe...

Java Code Repository Riddled with Hidden Log4j Bugs; Here’s Where to Look

There’s an enormous amount of software vulnerable to the Log4j bug through Java software supply chains — and administrators and security pros likely don’t even know where to look for it. About 17,000 Java packages in the Maven Central repository, the most significant collection of Java packages...

3 Top Tools for Defending Against Phishing Attacks

Even with the most sophisticated email scanning and phishing detection system available, phishing emails are still a very common intrusion vector for cybercriminals to use to introduce malware, including ransomware, to a business’ network. That’s because 1 increasingly, legitimate systems are use...

Top 10 Cybersecurity Best Practices to Combat Ransomware

If you’re like most IT professionals, the threat of a ransomware attack might keep you up at night. And you have a valid reason to worry — ransomware doesn’t discriminate. Organizations across every industry, public or private, are potential victims, if they haven’t been victims already. In fact,...

Designing a Proactive Ransomware Playbook for Today’s Threat Landscape

By Paul Baird, Chief Technology Security Office, Qualys Ransomware attacks are among the most significant cyber-threats facing organizations today. According to research by Gartner, ransomware is the highest priority 78 percent and most important emerging risk to track. Yet, organizations are sti...

Cyber-Mercenary Group Void Balaur Attacks High-Profile Targets for Cash

Russian-language group Void Balaur, also tracked under the name Rockethack, has been identified as a prolific cyber-mercenary group, available for hire to break into the email and social-media accounts of high-profile, high-stakes targets around the world. After monitoring Void Balaur for more th...

Magecart Credit Card Skimmer Avoids VMs to Fly Under the Radar

A new Magecart threat actor is stealing people’s payment card info from their browsers using a digital skimmer that uses a unique form of evasion to bypass virtual machines VM so it targets only actual victims and not security researchers. The Malwarebytes team discovered the new campaign, which...

TA551 Shifts Tactics to Install Sliver Red-Teaming Tool

The criminal threat group known as TA551 has added the Sliver red-teaming tool to its bag of tracks – a move that may signal ramped up ransomware attacks ahead, researchers said. According to Proofpoint researchers, TA551 aka Shathak has been mounting cyberattacks that start with email thread...

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...

Payment API Bungling Exposes Millions of Users’ Payment Data

App developers have once again been accused of having butterfingers when it comes to API keys, leaving millions of mobile app users at risk of exposing their personal and payment data. CloudSEK, maker of artificial intelligence- AI- enabled digital threat protection, reported last week that the...

Attackers Impersonate DoT in Two-Day Phishing Scam

Threat actors impersonated the U.S. Department of Transportation USDOT in a two-day phishing campaign that used a combination of tactics – including creating new domains that mimic federal sites so as to appear to be legitimate – to evade security detections. Between Aug. 16-18, researchers at...

AdLoad Malware 2021 Samples Evade Apple XProtect

A swelling wave of AdLoad malware infections in macOS devices is cresting its way past Apple’s on-device malware scanner, researchers said. The campaign is using around 150 unique samples, some of which are signed by Apple’s notarization service. AdLoad is a well-known Apple threat that’s been...

Ransomware Volumes Hit Record Highs as 2021 Wears On

Ransomware has seen a significant uptick so far in 2021, with global attack volume increasing by 151 percent for the first six months of the year as compared with the year-ago half. Meanwhile, the FBI has warned that there are now 100 different strains circulating around the world. From a...

Apps Built Better: DevSecOps, a Security Silver Bullet

Security should never be an afterthought when developing software and applications. However, as technological advances continue to take hold, the security tools many rely on are changing in real-time, and combatting potential breaches or hacks of your wares before they arise now requires new...

Malicious PDFs Flood the Web, Lead to Password-Snarfing

The pushers behind the SolarMarker backdoor malware are flooding the web with PDFs stuffed with keywords and links that redirect to the password-stealing, credential-snarfing malware. Microsoft Security Intelligence said in a Tweet on Friday that the SolarMarker also known as Jupyter makers are...

Apple’s ‘Find My’ Network Exploited via Bluetooth

Apple’s “Find My device” function for helping people track their iOS and macOS devices can be exploited to transfer data to and from random passing devices without using the internet, a security researcher has demonstrated. Security researcher Fabian Bräunlein with Positive Security developed a...

GitHub Prepares to Move Beyond Passwords

GitHub, the ubiquitous host for software development and version control and unfortunate target of a steady pitter-patter of attacks targeting the same, is now supporting security keys when using Git over SSH. In a post on Monday, GitHub security engineer Kevin Jones said that this is the next st...

Hacker Tries to Poison Water Supply of Florida Town

A threat actor hacked into the computer system of the water treatment facility in Oldsmar, Fla., and tried to poison the town’s water supply by raising the levels of sodium hydroxide, or lye, in the water supply. The attack happened just two days before NFL’s Super Bowl LV was held nearby in Tamp...

Researcher Builds Parler Archive Amid Amazon Suspension

A security researcher said she has scraped and is archiving 99 percent of Parler’s public posts, as the social-media network goes offline following suspensions from Amazon, Apple and Google. Archived content includes public posts from the social-media site. These posts reportedly included Parler...

Biden to Appoint Cybersecurity Advisor to NSC – Report

President-elect Joe Biden has reportedly tapped the National Security Agency’s cybersecurity director to serve in a brand-new cyber-role on his National Security Council. Anne Neuberger, a more than 10-year veteran of the NSA and its cyber-chief since 2019, will become the country’s deputy nation...

T-Mobile Faces Yet Another Data Breach

T-Mobile USA has reported a data breach – its fourth in three years. The wireless carrier disclosed the breach last week via its website, saying that it detected and shut down “malicious, unauthorized access to some information” related to T-Mobile accounts. Specifically, that data consisted of...

Ticketmaster Coughs Up $10 Million Fine After Hacking Rival Business

Ticketmaster must pay a hefty $10 million fine after several employees utilized unlawfully obtained passwords to hack a rival company’s computer systems – in attempts to “choke off” its business. The American ticket sales and distribution giant, which is owned by Live Nation, in 2013 hired an...

Tech Giants Lend WhatsApp Support in Spyware Case Against NSO Group

Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp has received new high-caliber support in its case against Israeli intelligence company NSO Group. The court case aims to hold NSO Group accountable for distributing its Pegasus spyware on the popular WhatsApp messaging service with the intent of planting its spyware o...

Defending Against State and State-Sponsored Threat Actors

Security threats from states and state-sponsored actors have been around since before the field of cybersecurity was defined. They have now evolved to cyberspace, and present unique challenges for defenders. While there are fundamental differences between activist and criminal activity, and those...

Dark Web Pricing Skyrockets for Microsoft RDP Servers, Payment-Card Data

Cybercriminals are vying for Remote Desktop Protocol RDP access, stolen payment cards and DDoS-for-Hire services, based on a recent analysis of underground marketplace pricing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, cybercriminals have profited with “increasingly advantageous positions to benefit from the...

Cryptologists Crack Zodiac Killer's 340 Cipher

A remote team of three hobbyist cryptologists have solved one of the Zodiac Killer’s cipher after a half century. And while the name of the elusive serial killer remains hidden, the breakthrough represents a triumph for cryptology and the basic building blocks of cybersecurity — access control an...