The UK and its Five Eyes partners (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US) officially support Ukraine’s attribution of Infamous Chisel, a new piece of malware infecting Ukraine’s military personnel’s mobile phones, to the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU). In a joint report published on
Month: August 2023
Aug 31, 2023THNCyber Attack / Hacking A hacking outfit nicknamed Earth Estries has been attributed to a new, ongoing cyber espionage campaign targeting government and technology industries based in the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Africa, Germany, and the U.S. “The threat actors behind Earth Estries are working with high-level resources and functioning with sophisticated skills
The creators of ChatGPT, OpenAI, have launched ChatGPT Enterprise which it claims to be the “most powerful version of ChatGPT yet”. The company also claims that with the new version of its generative AI chatbot, users will get “enterprise-grade security and privacy”. Other features include unlimited higher-speed GPT-4 access, longer context windows for processing longer
by Paul Ducklin US food delivery compeny PurFoods, which trades as Mom’s Meals, has just admitted to a cyberintrusion that took place from 2023-01-16 to 2023-02-22. The company stated officially that: [The] cyberattack […] included the encryption of certain files in our network. Because the investigation identified the presence of tools that could be used
Aug 30, 2023THNVulnerability / Network Security VMware has released software updates to correct two security vulnerabilities in Aria Operations for Networks that could be potentially exploited to bypass authentication and gain remote code execution. The most severe of the flaws is CVE-2023-34039 (CVSS score: 9.8), which relates to a case of authentication bypass arising as
Microsoft has observed a proliferation of adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) techniques deployed through phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platforms, the company explained in a series of tweets posted on August 28, 2023. On the one hand, there has been an increasing number of new AiTM-capable PhaaS platforms throughout 2023; on the other, established phishing services, such as PerSwaysion, have also
Aug 29, 2023The Hacker NewsVulnerability / Network Security Unpatched Citrix NetScaler systems exposed to the internet are being targeted by unknown threat actors in what’s suspected to be a ransomware attack. Cybersecurity company Sophos is tracking the activity cluster under the moniker STAC4663. Attack chains involve the exploitation of CVE-2023-3519, a critical code injection vulnerability
The North Korean state-sponsored actor Lazarus Group recently started a new campaign targeting internet backbone infrastructure and healthcare entities in Europe and the US, security researchers from Cisco Talos have found. The researchers said that the attackers began exploiting a ManageEngine ServiceDesk vulnerability (CVE-2022-47966) in January 2023, only five days after it was disclosed. This
Aug 28, 2023THNInternet of Things / Malware An updated version of a botnet malware called KmsdBot is now targeting Internet of Things (IoT) devices, simultaneously branching out its capabilities and the attack surface. “The binary now includes support for Telnet scanning and support for more CPU architectures,” Akamai security researcher Larry W. Cashdollar said in
The FBI has urged users of affected Barracuda appliances to replace them immediately, after warning that they’re still being targeted by a Chinese APT group. A Flash update issued by the agency this week revealed that zero-day vulnerability CVE-2023-2868 continues to be exploited by the group, dubbed UNC4841 by Mandiant, in cyber-espionage attacks. “Barracuda customers
The leak of the LockBit 3.0 ransomware builder last year has led to threat actors abusing the tool to spawn new variants. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said it detected a ransomware intrusion that deployed a version of LockBit but with a markedly different ransom demand procedure. “The attacker behind this incident decided to use a
Security researchers are urging Azure Active Directory (AD) users to monitor for abandoned reply URLs after revealing a critical vulnerability in the Microsoft Power Platform. Secureworks said it discovered the reply URL takeover bug earlier in April and it was fixed by Microsoft within 24 hours. More specifically, the researchers had found an abandoned reply
Aug 26, 2023THNData Breach / SIM Swapping Risk and financial advisory solutions provider Kroll on Friday disclosed that one of its employees fell victim to a “highly sophisticated” SIM swapping attack. The incident, which took place on August 19, 2023, targeted the employee’s T-Mobile account, the company said. “Specifically, T-Mobile, without any authority from or
The UK’s data protection watchdog is urging victims of so-called “text pests” to come forward after revealing that nearly a third (29%) of 18–34-year-olds have had their personal information misused. Text pest cases occur when an individual gives their personal details, including phone number or email, to a business for legitimate reasons. However, someone working
by Paul Ducklin HOW MANY CRYPTOGRAPHERS? No audio player below? Listen directly on Soundcloud. With Doug Aamoth and Paul Ducklin. Intro and outro music by Edith Mudge. You can listen to us on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere that good podcasts are found. Or just drop the URL of our RSS feed
Aug 25, 2023THNEmail Security / Vulnerability The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning that Barracuda Networks Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances patched against a recently disclosed critical flaw continue to be at risk of potential compromise from suspected Chinese hacking groups. It also deemed the fixes as “ineffective” and that it “continues to
Security researchers have detected a 178% increase in sextortion emails between the first half of 2022 and the same period this year, marking the category out as a top email threat. ESET said that sextortion emails ranked third among all email threats in H1 2023. They typically arrive unsolicited and claim to have compromising images
by Paul Ducklin The venerable RAR program, short for Roshal’s Archiver after its original creator, has been popular in file sharing and software distribution circles for decades, not least because of its built-in error recovery and file reconstruction features. Early internet users will remember, with little fondness, the days when large file transfers were shipped
Aug 24, 2023THNCyber Attack / Vulnerability Thousands of Openfire XMPP servers are unpatched against a recently disclosed high-severity flaw and are susceptible to a new exploit, according to a new report from VulnCheck. Tracked as CVE-2023-32315 (CVSS score: 7.5), the vulnerability relates to a path traversal vulnerability in Openfire’s administrative console that could permit an
Experian Consumer Services has agreed to a permanent injunction and to pay a civil penalty of $650,000 to settle allegations relating to the CAN-SPAM Act. The firm, whose parent company is credit agency giant Experian, provides online credit reports, scores and monitoring products to customers. A case filed in the US District Court for the
by Paul Ducklin A trio of researchers split between Italy and the UK have recently published a paper about cryptographic insecurities they found in a widely-known smart light bulb. The researchers seem to have chosen their target device, the TP-Link Tapo L530E, on the basis that it is “currently [the] best seller on Amazon Italy,”
Aug 23, 2023THNSoftware Security / Malware More than a dozen malicious packages have been discovered on the npm package repository since the start of August 2023 with capabilities to deploy an open-source information stealer called Luna Token Grabber on systems belonging to Roblox developers. The ongoing campaign, first detected on August 1 by ReversingLabs, employs
A cyber-attack on Australian utility company, Energy One Limited (EOL), could have international impact with the firm’s corporate systems in the UK also affected. The company, a global supplier of software and services to the wholesale energy market, confirmed that it had taken steps to limit the impact of the incident and had alerted both
by Paul Ducklin Researchers at Apple device management company Jamf recently published an intriguing paper entitled Fake Airplane Mode: A mobile tampering technique to maintain connectivity. We’ll start with the good news: the tricks that Jamf discovered can’t magically be triggered remotely, for example merely by enticing you to a booby-trapped website. Attackers need to
Aug 22, 2023THNMalware / Endpoint Security A new variant of an Apple macOS malware called XLoader has surfaced in the wild, masquerading its malicious features under the guise of an office productivity app called “OfficeNote.” “The new version of XLoader is bundled inside a standard Apple disk image with the name OfficeNote.dmg,” SentinelOne security researchers
The government is urging more schools to enrol their students in a government scheme designed to boost cyber skills, claiming that tens of thousands have already signed up since its launch in February last year. Around 2000 schools across the UK are participating in Cyber Explorers – a free learning platform for 11–14-year-olds designed to
Aug 21, 2023THNCyber Threat / Malware The threat actors behind the HiatusRAT malware have returned from their hiatus with a new wave of reconnaissance and targeting activity aimed at Taiwan-based organizations and a U.S. military procurement system. Besides recompiling malware samples for different architectures, the artifacts are said to have been hosted on new virtual
A recent cybersecurity study has brought to light a concerning vulnerability crisis affecting web applications. CyCognito’s semi-annual State of External Exposure Management report unveiled a distressing landscape of digital threats across public cloud, mobile and web platforms. The comprehensive analysis of 3.5 million assets, encompassing Fortune 500 entities, highlights the precarious state of data security. The
Aug 19, 2023THNMalvertising / Website Security Cybersecurity researchers have detailed an updated version of an advanced fingerprinting and redirection toolkit called WoofLocker that’s engineered to conduct tech support scams. The sophisticated traffic redirection scheme was first documented by Malwarebytes in January 2020, leveraging JavaScript embedded in compromised websites to perform anti-bot and web traffic filtering
A significant phishing campaign employing QR codes has recently come to light, with a major US-based energy company as one of the primary targets. The campaign, which began in May 2023, has witnessed a 2400% surge in volume since then, underscoring the urgency of addressing this emerging threat. Cybersecurity company Cofense has been closely monitoring