Coronavirus Poll Results: Cyberattacks Ramp Up, WFH Prep Uneven

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to sweep the globe and Americans are told to isolate from others, many organizations are sending employees home to work. While most respondents in a Threatpost poll this week said they feel prepared from a security standpoint for this transition, a fifth of them...

Spear-Phishing Attack Lures Victims With 'HIV Results'

Recently discovered spear-phishing emails are using a unique “scare-factor” lure to convince victims to open attached malicious Microsoft Excel documents: Their HIV test results. Researchers are warning of a recent campaign involving emails claiming to come from Vanderbilt University Medical...

Poll: Are You Creeped Out By Facial Recognition?

Several news incidents this week regarding facial recognition and biometrics have sparked discussions in the security space over privacy concerns and issues around consent. First, a JetBlue passenger made headlines in a now-viral Twitter exchange with the airline, about the facial-recognition...

Poll: Facebook Harvests Email Contacts for 1.5M Users – Is Enough, Enough?

Another day, another Facebook issue. Earlier on Thursday, news broke that Facebook confirmed that it has harvested the email contact lists for 1.5 million people, in an ongoing effort since May 2016. The social network said the situation was “unintentional” – and that somehow, it just happened. A...

Nine NAS Bugs Open LenovoEMC, Iomega Devices to Attack

Lenovo is warning of nine vulnerabilities rated “high” and impacting 20 separate network attached storage NAS devices sold by the company, including its LenovoEMC, Iomega and its Lenovo-branded NAS devices. By exploiting one of several command-injection vulnerabilities in the devices’ operating...

Tricky DoS Attack Crashes Mozilla Firefox

A newly released proof-of-concept attack using malicious JavaScript can crash or freeze Mozilla Firefox when an unsuspecting victim visits a specially crafted webpage on the browser. Researcher Sabri Haddouche, a security researcher with Wire, on Sunday released the source code for the attack,...

Cisco Issues New Warning for 6-Month-Old Critical Bug in IOS XE

UPDATE Cisco Systems has issued a second warning for a critical static credential bug in its IOS XE software, which allows an unauthenticated attacker to gain access to targeted systems. The security bulletin comes more than six months after the company initially reported the bug and provided a...

Microsoft Flaw Allows Full Multi-Factor Authentication Bypass

A vulnerability in Microsoft’s Active Directory Federation Services ADFS has been uncovered that would allow malicious actors to bypass multi-factor authentication MFA safeguards. Many organizations rely on ADFS to manage identities and resources across their entire enterprise, and ADFS functions...

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...

Bugs in Samsung IoT Hub Leave Smart Home Open To Attack

Researchers found 20 vulnerabilities in Samsung’s SmartThings Hub, allowing attackers to control smart locks, remotely monitor the home via connected cameras and perform other alarming functions. Cisco Talos researchers, who published a technical breakdown of the vulnerabilities on Thursday, said...

Fresh Spectre Variants Come to Light

Two new speculative execution bugs have earned researchers a $100,000 bug bounty from Intel. MIT’s Vladimir Kiriansky and independent researcher Carl Waldspurger uncovered what they call Spectre1.1 and a subset, Spectre1.2, collectively referred to as Variant 4 of Spectre by Intel and ARM. Like t...

Bug In Git Opens Developer Systems Up to Attack

UPDATE Git repository hosting services GitHub, GitLab and Microsoft VSTS each patched a serious vulnerability on Tuesday that could lead to arbitrary code execution when a developer uses a malicious repository. Developers behind the open-source development Git tool pushed out Git 2.17.1, addressi...

Ransomware Attack Hits Ukrainian Energy Ministry, Exploiting Drupalgeddon2

The Ukrainian Energy Ministry has been hit by a ransomware attack – and for once it looks like this is the work of amateurs, not nation-state attackers bent on making a geopolitical point. However, the bad actors appear to have made use of the recently patched Drupal vulnerability, pointing out y...

Satori Author Linked to New Mirai Variant Masuta

Researchers at NewSky Security say the hacker behind a Mirai malware variant called Satori, also known as Mirai Okiru, is the same hacker behind two new Mirai variants called Masuta and PureMasuta. Based on source code for Masuta malware recently found on the dark web, researchers at NewSky...

19-Year-Old TLS Vulnerability Weakens Website Crypto

A vulnerability called ROBOT, first identified in 1998, has resurfaced. Impacted are leading websites ranging from Facebook to Paypal, which are vulnerable to attackers that could decrypt encrypted data and sign communications using the sites’ own private encryption key. The vulnerability is foun...

Google Patches Critical Encryption Bug Impacting Pixel, Nexus Phones

Google patched a critical encryption bug found on its Pixel, Pixel 2 and Nexus phones this week along with delivering 49 other fixes, part of its December Pixel / Nexus Security Bulletin. Five of the patches relate to vulnerabilities rated high. One of the patches CVE-2017-13167 is for an elevati...

Intel Patches CPU Bugs Impacting Millions of Devices

Intel released patches on Monday to protect millions of PCs and servers from vulnerabilities found in its Management Engine, Trusted Execution Engine and Server Platform Services that could allow local attackers elevate privileges, run arbitrary code, crash systems and eavesdrop on communications...

Cisco Warns of Critical Flaw in Voice OS-based Products

Cisco Systems issued a security advisory warning customers key products tied to its Cisco Voice Operating System software platform were vulnerable to an attack where an unauthenticated, remote hacker could gain unauthorized and elevated access to impacted devices. The Cisco Security Bulletin is...

Chain of 11 Bugs Takes Down Galaxy S8 at Mobile Pwn2Own

The mobile version of the annual Pwn2Own contest wrapped up today in Tokyo with an unprecedented attack chain leveling the Samsung Galaxy S8. Researchers from MWR Labs used 11 vulnerabilities across six different mobile applications to execute code on Samsung’s flagship device and exfiltrate data...

Fuze Patches TPN Handset Vulnerabilties

Fuze, a maker of popular enterprise-grade voice-over-IP handsets, earlier this year patched three vulnerabilities that exposed user account information and enabled unauthorized authentication. The issues were made public today by researchers at Rapid7 who privately disclosed the flaws on April 12...

Cisco Fixes DoS, Authentication Bypass Vulnerabilities, OSPF Bug

Cisco fixed 15 vulnerabilities this week in more than a dozen products, including two high severity vulnerabilities that could have let an attacker trigger a denial of service condition or bypass local authentication. The more severe bugs fixed on Wednesday exist in the company’s Identity Service...

Cisco Warns of Critical Flaw in Teleconferencing Gear

Cisco Systems is warning customers of a critical vulnerability affecting three of its TelePresence MCU platform models. The flaw could give attackers the ability to remotely execute code on impacted systems or create conditions favorable to a denial-of-service DoS attack. According to an advisory...

Obihai Patches Memory Corruption, DoS, CSRF Vulnerabilities

Obihai Technology recently patched vulnerabilities in its ObiPhone IP phones that could have led to memory corruption, buffer overflow, and denial of service conditions, among other outcomes. The California-based company manufactures IP-enabled phones and VOIP telephone adapters it calls OBi...

VeraCrypt Audit Under Way; Email Mystery Cleared Up

Update To say the VeraCrypt audit, which begins today, got off to an inauspicious start would be an understatement. On Sunday, two weeks after the announcement that the open source file and disk encryption software would be formally scrutinized for security vulnerabilities, executives at one of t...

Google Patches 43 Bugs in Chrome

A new version of Google Chrome is available, and it contains patches for 43 security vulnerabilities, many of them in the high-risk category. Two of the more serious vulnerabilities fixed in Chrome 44 are a pair of universal cross-site scripting bugs. One of the flaws is in blink, the Web layout...

HP Releases Details, Exploit Code for Unpatched IE Flaws

Researchers at HP’s Zero Day Initiative have disclosed full details and proof-of-concept exploit code for a series of bugs they discovered that allow attackers to bypass a key exploit mitigation in Internet Explorer. The disclosure is a rarity for ZDI. The company typically does not publish...

Darwin Nuke Vulnerability Details in OS X, iOS Disclosed

Since Apple released a monster batch of patches for OS X and iOS last week, details on a number of the vulnerabilities that were addressed have been made public. The latest concerns a kernel vulnerability in the Darwin operating system, an open-source OS developed and used by Apple in its desktop...

Another Flash Zero Day Emerges

For the third time in the last couple of weeks, Adobe is dealing with a zero day vulnerability in Flash. The company is working on a patch for another Flash bug that is being exploited in drive-by download attacks. Adobe officials released an advisory Monday warning users that attackers are...

Adobe Patches One Zero Day in Flash, Still Investigating Separate Vulnerability

UPDATE–Adobe has released an emergency update for Flash to address a zero-day vulnerability that is being actively exploited. The company also is looking into reports of exploits for a separate Flash bug not fixed in the new release, which is being used in attacks by the Angler exploit kit. The...

VMware Patches Apache Struts Flaws in vCOPS

VMware has patched several serious security vulnerabilities in its vCenter Operations Center Management suite, one of which could lead to remote code execution on vulnerable machines. All of the vulnerabilities that the company patched lie in the Apache Struts Java application framework, and the...

June 2014 Microsoft Patch Tuesday security updates

As expected, Microsoft delivered a patch today for a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8 that was disclosed by HP’s Zero Day Initiative three weeks ago, six months after it was reported to the ZDI. The IE8 patch, MS14-035, is included in a cumulative Internet Explorer rollup that patche...

May 2014 Apple Safari Browser Security Patches

Apple released an update to Safari yesterday patching 22 vulnerabilities in the WebKit browser engine that allow code execution or a browser crash. Safari 7.0.4 is available for OS X Mavericks 10.9 and Safari 6.1.4 for OS X Mountain Lion 10.8. The vulnerabilities could be exploited if the user wa...

Chrome 25 Fixes Nine High-Risk Vulnerabilities

Google has fixed nine high-severity vulnerabilities in its Chrome browser, as well as a dozen other flaws with the release of Chrome 25. This release is one of the few for which the company did not pay out much in the way of bug bounties, only giving out $3,500. In Chrome 25 Google also disabled...

Computer Virus Blacks Out Qatari Gas Producer

An “unknown virus” has shutdown the entire computer network of the world’s second largest liquefied natural gas LNG producer, RasGas, according to news reports. RasGas is based in Qatar, a peninsular nation located within the larger Arabian Peninsula. The LNG producer has reportedly been offline...

Intel Processor SYSRET Vulnerability Affecting Some 64-Bit Systems

A flaw exists in the way that a specific instruction is handled on some types of Intel 64-bit chips that could open up some operating systems and types of virtualization software to attacks, according to an alert issued last week but revised today by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness...

Google Fixes Three High-Priority Bugs in Chrome

Google has released a new version of its Chrome browser, fixing just a small handful of vulnerabilities in the process. All three of the bugs fixed in Chrome were rated high. The release by Google is a pretty small one by the company’s standards. Often, new versions of Chrome will include fixes f...

New Version of Stoned Bootkit Said to Bypass Windows 8 Secure Boot

A security researcher who has in the past has created low-level rootkits capable of staying resident on an infected machine after reboots, said he has now accomplished the same feat on Windows 8, which hasn’t even hit the shelves yet. Peter Kleissner said he has created a new version of his Stone...

Mac OS X Trojan Goes BitCoin Mining, Steals Files

A new Trojan targeting Mac OS X users is not only after data, but Bitcoins as well. The malware is being detected by Sophos as Miner-D, but is also known as DevilRobber. According to Sophos, the Trojan is hiding inside pirated versions of the Mac OS X image editing application GraphicConverter...

Google Fixes 27 Bugs in Chrome 15

Google has fixed more than two dozen vulnerabilities in its Chrome browser and also implemented a defense against the BEAST SSL attack. The bugs fixed in the new version of Chrome include 11 high-severity flaws. As part of its bug bounty program, Google paid more than $26,000 in rewards to...

Weaknesses in Webkit Becoming Problematic

Attackers interested in getting the most bang for their buck focus on ubiquitous software. Microsoft’s Office, Adobe’s Acrobat and Oracle’s Java have all become popular platforms exploited by cybercriminals intent on compromising end users’ systems. Another platform has quietly made its way onto...

Attackers Exploiting Critical Flash Bug Via Drive-By Download

Attackers have begun actively exploiting the critical Adobe Flash vulnerability that Adobe patched last week, using rigged Web pages and phishing techniques to compromise vulnerable machines. The attack code is being hosted on a number of sites around the Web right now, researchers said. Adobe...

Google Fixes More Than 25 Bugs in Chrome, Pays $16,500 in Bounties

Google has released another new version of Chrome that fixes a total of 27 different bugs on various platforms. The company paid out $16,500 in bounties to researchers for the vulnerabilities they reported, including one $3,000 payment for a high-severity bug. The new version of Chrome, version...

Adobe Flash Bug Being Used in Attacks Via Word Documents

Adobe on Monday warned its customers about a new unpatched vulnerability in its Flash Player application. Officials say that the bug is being used in targeted attacks involving a malicious Flash file embedded in a Microsoft Word document. The Flash vulnerability affects users on Windows, Apple OS...

Survey: Information Theft A Bigger Problem than Physical Theft

Anyone who has received “notification” of funky activity on their credit card, or an urgent e-mail plea from the widow of Mobutu Sese Seko won’t be surprised to learn that information theft is a big problem. But a new survey out from Kroll Consulting finds that its also the biggest problem facing...

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...

Microsoft to unveil patch management metrics project

Microsoft on Wednesday plans to launch a new research effort to determine the total cost of the patch-management cycle, from testing and distributing a fix to user deployment of the patch. The end result of the project, which will be completely open and transparent to outsiders, will be a full...

Phishers Swim Around 2FA in Coinbase Account Heists

Threat actors are making their way around two-factor authentication 2FA and using other clever evasion tactics in a recently observed phishing campaign aimed at taking over Coinbase accounts to defraud users of their crypto balances. Attackers are using emails that spoofed the popular...

Black Basta Ransomware Teams Up with Malware Stalwart Qbot

A newcomer on the ransomware scene has coopted a 14-year-old malware variant to help it maintain persistence on a targeted network in a recent attack, researchers have found. Black Basta, a ransomware group that emerged in April, leveraged Qbot, a.k.a. Quakbot, to move laterally on a compromised...

Pervasive Apple Safari Bug Exposes Web-Browsing Data, Google IDs

A security vulnerability in Apple’s browsers for macOS, iOS and iPadOS can lead to information disclosure, researchers have warned. Apple has just marked the issue as “resolved,” but it will take some time for the fixes to roll out, they said, so users should implement mitigations. According to...

SEC Filing Reveals Fortune 500 Firm Targeted in Ransomware Attack

Fortune 500 integrated services firm R.R.Donnelley & Sons RRD is the latest victim of the hacking collective known as the Conti Group. According to regulatory disclosures RRD was the victim of a network breach that resulted in stolen data in December. RRD, a global firm with 33,000 employees,...