Trump Slams Apple for Refusing to Unlock Suspected Shooter’s iPhones

President Donald Trump has weighed in on Apple’s decision not to help the FBI unlock iPhones of the suspect in a shooting in Florida, slamming the company in a Tweet that demands Apple “step up to the plate and help our great Country.” The president on Tuesday suggested that Apple has benefited...

Download The Ultimate ‘Security for Management’ Presentation Template

There is a person in every organization that is the direct owner of breach protection. His or her task is to oversee and govern the process of design, build, maintain and continuously enhance the security level of the organization. Title-wise, this person is most often either the CIO, CISO or...

Oski Data-Stealing Malware Emerges to Target North America, China

An emergent and effective data-harvesting tool dubbed Oski is proliferating in North America and China, stealing online account credentials, credit-card numbers, cryptowallet accounts and more. Oski, likely a Finnish or Nordic variant of the word Oska, meaning “Viking warrior or god” in Samoan,...

Oracle Ties Previous All-Time Patch High with January Updates

Oracle has patched 334 vulnerabilities across all of its product families in its January 2020 quarterly Critical Patch Update CPU. Out of these, 43 are critical/severe flaws carrying CVSS scores of 9.1 and above. The CPU ties for Oracle’s previous all-time high for number of patches issued, in Ju...

Intel Fixes High-Severity Flaw in Performance Analysis Tool

Intel is warning of a high-severity vulnerability in its performance analysis tool called Intel VTune Profiler. If exploited the flaw allows an adversary to perform a privilege escalation attack, giving them elevated and unauthorized system access to a targeted system. The VTune Profiler, formerl...

Card Skimmer Hits Australian Bushfire Donation Site

Concerned global citizens making donations to help fight the massive Australia bushfires have been caught up in a Magecart attack, after one of the groups implanted a payment-card skimmer on the check-out page of a legitimate online donation site. Researchers ran across the Magecart script, named...

Microsoft Patches ‘Major’ Crypto Spoofing Bug

A major crypto-spoofing bug impacting Windows 10 users has been fixed as part of Microsoft’s January Patch Tuesday security bulletin. The vulnerability could allow an attacker to spoof a code-signing certificate, vital to validating executable programs in Windows, and make it appear as if an...

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...

Public Bug Bounty Takes Aim at Kubernetes Container Project

A public bug-bounty program for the Kubernetes container technology framework has just launched, backed by Google, HackerOne and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation CNCF. The Kubernetes container-orchestration system was originally built by Google for automating application deployment, scaling...

Adobe Patches Five Critical Illustrator CC Flaws

Adobe has released patches for five critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Illustrator CC, its popular vector graphics editor tool, which if exploited could enable arbitrary code execution. Overall Adobe patched nine vulnerabilities as part of its regularly-scheduled updates on Tuesday, including five...

Apple Denies FBI Request to Unlock Shooter’s iPhone—Again

Apple once again is drawing the line at breaking into a password-protected iPhone for a criminal investigation, refusing a request by the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI to help unlock the iPhones of a shooter responsible for an attack in Florida. The company late Monday said it won’t help th...

Scammers Dupe Texas School District Out of $2.3M

A Texas school district, based outside of Austin, Tex., has lost $2.3 million after falling victim to an email scam. The Manor Independent School District encompasses 8,000 students from elementary to high school. Police told local news outlets that the incident started in early November and...

Joker Android Malware Snowballs on Google Play

Google has removed 17,000 Android apps to date from the Play store that have been conduits for the Joker malware a.k.a. Bread – and in an analysis of the code, said that Joker’s operators have “at some point used just about every cloaking and obfuscation technique under the sun in an attempt to g...

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...

'Cable Haunt' Bug Plagues Millions of Home Modems

UPDATED Multiple cable modems used by ISPs to provide broadband into homes have a critical vulnerability in their underlying reference architecture that would allow an attacker full remote control of the device. The footprint for the affected devices numbers in the hundreds of millions worldwide...

Unpatched Citrix Flaw Now Has PoC Exploits

Proof-of-concept PoC exploit code has been released for an unpatched remote-code-execution vulnerability in the Citrix Application Delivery Controller ADC and Citrix Gateway products. The vulnerability CVE-2019-19781, which Threatpost reported on in December, already packs a double-punch in terms...

Cisco Webex Bug Allows Remote Code Execution

Cisco Systems has fixed two high-severity vulnerabilities in its products, including one in its popular Webex video conferencing platform that could enable a remote attacker to execute commands. The high-severity Webex flaw exists in the web-based management interface of Cisco Webex Video Mesh, a...

Lifeline Assistance Phone Users Targeted with 'Uninstallable' Adware

Government-funded, low-cost cell phones are shipping with pre-installed malware aimed at bombing users with unwanted ads, according to researchers. The UMX U686CL Android-based phone, which is made available to low-income citizens in the U.S. via the Lifeline Assistance Program for $35, uses a...

Oil-and-Gas APT Pivots to U.S. Power Plants.

A known APT group with ties to the Iran-linked APT33, dubbed Magnallium, has expanded its targeting from the global oil-and-gas industry to specifically include electric companies in North America. That’s according to a report from Dragos, released Thursday, which noted that the discovery is part...

Exploit Fully Breaks SHA-1, Lowers the Attack Bar

A proof-of-concept attack has been pioneered that “fully and practically” breaks the Secure Hash Algorithm 1 SHA-1 code-signing encryption, used by legacy computers to sign the certificates that authenticate software downloads and prevent man-in-the-middle tampering. The exploit was developed by...

4 Ring Employees Fired For Spying on Customers

Smart doorbell company Ring said that it has fired four employees over the past four years for inappropriately accessing customer video footage. The disclosure comes in a recent letter to senators in response to a November inquiry into the company’s data policies from Amazon-owned Ring as it...

California's Tough New Privacy Law and Its Biggest Challenges

The California Consumer Privacy Act is being touted as one of the strongest privacy regulations in the U.S. enacted so far. However, though the CCPA was adopted on January 1, 2020, the act still has several loose ends and privacy loopholes that need to be fleshed out. At a high level ,the CCPA...

TrickBot Adds Custom, Stealthy Backdoor to its Arsenal

The Russian-speaking cybercriminals behind the TrickBot malware have developed a stealthy backdoor dubbed “PowerTrick,” in order to infiltrate high-value targets. According to research from SentinelLabs, released on Thursday, PowerTrick is designed to execute commands and return the results in...

Drake Lyrics Used as Calling Card in Malware Attack

A hacker with the handle “Master X” leverages a PowerShell script that contains a reference to singer-songwriter Drake lyric’s “Kiki Do You Love Me” and ultimately delivers a malicious payload to its victims. The campaign is email based; with missives containing a malicious PowerPoint attachment...

Man Sentenced in ATM Skimming Conspiracy

A New York state man has been sentenced to five years for an elaborate ATM skimming conspiracy that allowed him to steal at least $390,141 from victims. Bogdan Rusu, 39, of Queens, NY pleaded guilty to participating in the scheme, which used secret card-reading devices and pinhole cameras on...

Google Ditches Patch-Time Bug Disclosure in Favor of 90-Day Policy

Google’s Project Zero bug-hunting team is making a big change to its vulnerability disclosure policies. Full details on any vulnerability will be made public 90 days after discovery, regardless of when the bug is fixed. That means that whether it’s patched on Day 20 or Day 120, bug details will g...

Liverpool Voyeur Used IM-RAT to Video Women at Home

Scott Crowley. A 27-year-old Liverpool, England man has been convicted on charges of computer misuse after admitting to installing the remote-access trojan RAT known as Imminent Monitor on three unsuspecting women’s devices. The defendant, Scott Crowley, said in a court hearing that he used...

Mozilla Updates Firefox Browser: Zero-Day Bug Patched, Fingerprinting Nixed

UPDATE Mozilla patched a critical vulnerability actively being exploited in the wild with its latest update to the Firefox browser. Mozilla said in a security bulletin Wednesday that it was “aware of targeted attacks in the wild that were abusing the flaw. A successful attack “could make it...

TikTok Riddled With Security Flaws

Researchers say they have discovered several major vulnerabilities in the short form video app TikTok. The reported vulnerabilities come as scrutiny around the Chinese-owned platform increases. Researchers say the most serious vulnerability in the platform could allow attackers to remotely take...

Get Ready for the Microsoft Windows 7 EOL on January 14th

January 14, 2020, is a day cybersecurity stakeholders should pay attention to, as it marks the end of Microsoft support in Windows 7. From a security perspective, both the routine monthly security patches as well as hot fixes for attacks in the wild will not be available, effectively making any...

Google Fixes Critical Android RCE Flaw

Google kicked off its first Android Security Bulletin of 2020 patching a critical flaw in its Android operating system, which if exploited could allow a remote attacker to execute code. Compared to last year’s monthly tally, the number of CVEs patched this month were relatively few. The...

Sodinokibi Ransomware Behind Travelex Fiasco: Report

The Sodinokibi ransomware strain is apparently behind the New Year’s Eve attack on foreign currency-exchange giant Travelex, which has left its customers and banking partners stranded without its services. The criminals behind the attack are demanding a six-figure sum in return for the decryption...

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 ...

Facebook Cracks Down on Deepfake Videos

Facebook is banning deepfake videos, which stem from a technique of human-image synthesis based on artificial intelligence AI to create fake content. Over the past year, security experts and lawmakers have voiced concerns about malicious deepfake applications, particularly as a vessel for...

ToTok Returned to Google Play Despite ‘Spy Tool’ Claims

Mobile application ToTok has been reinstated to the Google Play app ecosystem, after it was removed last month due to claims that it was being used for government espionage. ToTok, a social app that was released in 2019 and has been downloaded by millions, gained rapid popularity in the United Ar...

Magecart Hits Parents and Students via Blue Bear Attack

Blue Bear Software, an administration and e-commerce platform for K-12 schools and other educational institutions, is warning its customers that it has suffered a Magecart attack. Blue Bear’s platform enables management of school accounting, student fees and online stores. In a letter to those...

DeathRansom Campaign Linked to Malware Cornucopia

An ongoing DeathRansom malware campaign has been found by researchers to be part of a larger collection of malicious offensives, all carried out by an actor going by the nickname “scat01.” According to Artem Semenchenko and Evgeny Ananin at FortiGuard Labs, evidence found on Russian underground...

Hackers Deface U.S. Gov Website With Pro-Iran Messages

UPDATE A U.S. government website was vandalized late Saturday by hackers who posted images of a bloodied President Donald Trump being punched in the face and pro-Iran messages. The defaced website was the Federal Depository Library Program FDLP website, which makes U.S. federal government...

Ransomware Attack Topples Telemarketing Firm, Leaving Hundreds Jobless

A ransomware attack reportedly caused an Arkansas-based telemarketing company to temporarily suspend its operations, leaving hundreds of employees unsure that they still had jobs days before Christmas. The Heritage Company, a 61-year-old telemarketing firm that works with nonprofit organizations,...

3 Critical Bugs Allow Remote Attacks on Cisco NX-OS and Switches

Cisco Systems has issued patches for three critical vulnerabilities impacting a key tool for managing its network platform and switches. The bugs could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass endpoint authentication and execute arbitrary actions with administrative privileges on...

Cybercriminals Fill Up on Gas Pump Transaction Scams Ahead of Oct. Deadline

Gas stations are gearing up for a major change in credit-card fraud liability in October, when they will find themselves on the hook for card-skimming attacks at the pump. In the meantime though, cybercriminals will be targeting pay-at-the-pump point-of-sale mechanisms with a vengeance, researche...

Travelex Knocked Offline by System-Wide Malware Attack

A “computer virus” has forced foreign currency exchange giant Travelex to shut down its online services and its app – leaving its retail locations to carry out tasks manually and many customers stranded without travel money. Its global banking partners have also been left adrift with no way to bu...

Google Boots Security Camera Maker From Nest Hub After Private Images Go Public

China-based electronics company Xiaomi said it has fixed a “cache update” issue for its Xiaomi Mijia smart camera after a Reddit user claims that attempts to view Xiaomi camera footage on his Google Nest Hub instead showed videos of strangers. The issue was first reported by a user on Reddit who...

Data Breach Affects 63 Landry's Restaurants

Dining giant Landry’s disclosed a data breach, Thursday, warning that malware had infected its order-entry systems to steal customers’ payment card information. Landry’s, which owns over 600 popular American restaurants across 35 states, such as Del Frisco’s Grill, McCormick & Schmick’s, Rainfore...

California Adopts Strictest Privacy Law in U.S.

A landmark privacy rights bill took effect Jan. 1, 2020 in California and will have broad implications for U.S. consumers and businesses. The California Consumer Privacy Act CCPA mandates strict requirements for companies to notify users about how their user data will be used and monetized along...

TikTok Banned By U.S. Army Over China Security Concerns

With backlash swelling around TikTok’s relationship with China, the United States Army this week announced that U.S. soldiers can no longer have the social media app on government-owned phones. TikTok, a social media app used to create and share short form videos, is owned by Beijing-based parent...

7 Tips for Maximizing Your SOC

It takes a special sort of person to be a security analyst. The person must be detail-oriented, curious, intelligent and hard-working, and with a quick reaction time as constant attacks unfold. These analysts have deep expertise that they use during their long shifts to sort through what’s worth...

2020 Cybersecurity Trends to Watch

The wheels of 2020’s biggest cybersecurity threats have already been set motion. Mobile, the cloud and artificial intelligence, to name a few, are trends that will continue to be exploited by criminals. Couple that with the rapid growth of software development and a cybersecurity skills shortage...

IoT Company Wyze Leaks Emails, Device Data of 2.4M

An exposed Elasticsearch database, owned by Internet of Things IoT company Wyze, was discovered leaking connected device information and emails of millions of customers. Wyze makes smart home cameras and connected devices like connected bulbs and plugs, which can be integrated with smart home...

Mean Time to Hardening: The Next-Gen Security Metric

On average, it takes an organization 15 times longer to close a vulnerability than it does for attackers to weaponize and exploit one. Seven days to weaponize and 102 days to patch. Let that sink in. Once a vulnerability is disclosed, it’s you against them in a race to either secure or exploit; a...