News

Jan 09, 2023Ravie LakshmananKubernetes / Cryptojacking The threat actors behind the Kinsing cryptojacking operation have been spotted exploiting misconfigured and exposed PostgreSQL servers to obtain initial access to Kubernetes environments. A second initial access vector technique entails the use of vulnerable images, Sunders Bruskin, security researcher at Microsoft Defender for Cloud, said in a report

Jan 09, 2023Ravie LakshmananSupply Chain / CodeSec A new attack vector targeting the Visual Studio Code extensions marketplace could be leveraged to upload rogue extensions masquerading as their legitimate counterparts with the goal of mounting supply chain attacks. The technique “could act as an entry point for an attack on many organizations,” Aqua security researcher

Jan 08, 2023Ravie LakshmananCyberespionage / Threat Analysis The Russian cyberespionage group known as Turla has been observed piggybacking on attack infrastructure used by a decade-old malware to deliver its own reconnaissance and backdoor tools to targets in Ukraine. Google-owned Mandiant, which is tracking the operation under the uncategorized cluster moniker UNC4210, said the hijacked servers

Jan 06, 2023Ravie LakshmananCryptocurrency / GitHub A South Africa-based threat actor known as Automated Libra has been observed employing CAPTCHA bypass techniques to create GitHub accounts in a programmatic fashion as part of a freejacking campaign dubbed PURPLEURCHIN. The group “primarily targets cloud platforms offering limited-time trials of cloud resources in order to perform their

Jan 05, 2023Ravie LakshmananCyber Attack / Malware A financially motivated threat actor tracked as Blind Eagle has resurfaced with a refined toolset and an elaborate infection chain as part of its attacks targeting organizations in Colombia and Ecuador. Check Point’s latest research offers new insights into the Spanish-speaking group’s tactics and techniques, including the use

Jan 05, 2023Ravie LakshmananPrivacy / Data Protection The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined Meta Platforms €390 million (roughly $414 million) over its handling of user data for serving personalized ads in what could be a major blow to its ad-fueled business model. To that end, the privacy regulator has ordered Meta Ireland to

Jan 04, 2023Ravie LakshmananVPN / Server Security Synology has released security updates to address a critical flaw impacting VPN Plus Server that could be exploited to take over affected systems. Tracked as CVE-2022-43931, the vulnerability carries a maximum severity rating of 10 on the CVSS scale and has been described as an out-of-bounds write bug

Jan 02, 2023Ravie LakshmananOnline Scam / Cybersecurity Chinese international students in the U.K. have been targeted by persistent Chinese-speaking scammers for over a year as part of an activity dubbed RedZei (aka RedThief). “The RedZei fraudsters have chosen their targets carefully, researched them and realized it was a rich victim group that is ripe for

Jan 02, 2023Ravie LakshmananPrivacy / Location Tracking Google has agreed to pay a total of $29.5 million to settle two different lawsuits brought by Indiana and Washington, D.C., over its “deceptive” location tracking practices. The search and advertising giant is required to pay $9.5 million to D.C. and $20 million to Indiana after the states

Dec 29, 2022Ravie LakshmananServer Security / Citrix Thousands of Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Gateway endpoints remain vulnerable to two critical security flaws disclosed by the company over the last few months. The issues in question are CVE-2022-27510 and CVE-2022-27518 (CVSS scores: 9.8), which were addressed by the virtualization services provider on November 8

Dec 30, 2022Ravie LakshmananBug Bounty / Privacy A security researcher was awarded a bug bounty of $107,500 for identifying security issues in Google Home smart speakers that could be exploited to install backdoors and turn them into wiretapping devices. The flaws “allowed an attacker within wireless proximity to install a ‘backdoor’ account on the device,

Dec 30, 2022Ravie LakshmananPatch Management The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added two-years-old security flaws impacting TIBCO Software’s JasperReports product to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The flaws, tracked as CVE-2018-5430 (CVSS score: 7.7) and CVE-2018-18809 (CVSS score: 9.9), were addressed by TIBCO in April 2018

Dec 28, 2022Ravie LakshmananBlockchain / Android Malware Decentralized multi-chain crypto wallet BitKeep on Wednesday confirmed a cyberattack that allowed threat actors to distribute fraudulent versions of its Android app with the goal of stealing users’ digital currencies. “With maliciously implanted code, the altered APK led to the leak of user’s private keys and enabled the

Dec 27, 2022Ravie LakshmananCyber Attack / Windows Security BlueNoroff, a subcluster of the notorious Lazarus Group, has been observed adopting new techniques into its playbook that enable it to bypass Windows Mark of the Web (MotW) protections. This includes the use of optical disk image (.ISO extension) and virtual hard disk (.VHD extension) file formats

Dec 26, 2022Ravie LakshmananReverse Engineering Cybersecurity researchers have exposed a wide variety of techniques adopted by an advanced malware downloader called GuLoader to evade security software. “New shellcode anti-analysis technique attempts to thwart researchers and hostile environments by scanning entire process memory for any virtual machine (VM)-related strings,” CrowdStrike researchers Sarang Sonawane and Donato Onofri

Dec 23, 2022Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / Pakistani Hackers A new targeted phishing campaign has zoomed in on a two-factor authentication solution called Kavach that’s used by Indian government officials. Cybersecurity firm Securonix dubbed the activity STEPPY#KAVACH, attributing it to a threat actor known as SideCopy based on tactical overlaps with prior attacks. “.LNK files are

Dec 24, 2022Ravie LakshmananSoftware Security / Supply Chain Threat actors have published yet another round of malicious packages to Python Package Index (PyPI) with the goal of delivering information-stealing malware on compromised developer machines. Interestingly, while the malware goes by a variety of names like ANGEL Stealer, Celestial Stealer, Fade Stealer, Leaf $tealer, PURE Stealer,

Dec 23, 2022Ravie LakshmananEncryption / Privacy / Browser The developers behind the Brave open-source web browser have revealed a new privacy-preserving data querying and retrieval system called FrodoPIR. The idea, the company said, is to use the technology to build out a wide range of use cases such as safe browsing, scanning passwords against breached

Dec 23, 2022Ravie LakshmananPassword Management / Data Breach The August 2022 security breach of LastPass may have been more severe than previously disclosed by the company. The popular password management service on Thursday revealed that malicious actors obtained a trove of personal information belonging to its customers that include their encrypted password vaults using data

Dec 22, 2022Ravie LakshmananSoftware Security / Data Breach Okta, a company that provides identity and access management services, disclosed on Wednesday that some of its source code repositories were accessed in an unauthorized manner earlier this month. “There is no impact to any customers, including any HIPAA, FedRAMP or DoD customers,” the company said in

Dec 20, 2022Ravie LakshmananBanking Malware / Mobile Security The threat actors behind the Windows banking malware known as Casbaneiro has been attributed as behind a novel Android trojan called BrasDex that has been observed targeting Brazilian users as part of an ongoing multi-platform campaign. BrasDex features a “complex keylogging system designed to abuse Accessibility Services

Dec 19, 2022Ravie LakshmananSoftware Security / Supply Chain Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new malicious package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that impersonates a software development kit (SDK) for SentinelOne, a major cybersecurity company, as part of a campaign dubbed SentinelSneak. The package, named SentinelOne and now taken down, is said to have

Dec 17, 2022Ravie LakshmananServer Security / Network Security Samba has released software updates to remediate multiple vulnerabilities that, if successfully exploited, could allow an attacker to take control of affected systems. The high-severity flaws, tracked as CVE-2022-38023, CVE-2022-37966, CVE-2022-37967, and CVE-2022-45141, have been patched in versions 4.17.4, 4.16.8 and 4.15.13 released on December 15, 2022.

Dec 18, 2022Ravie Lakshmanan Google on Friday announced that its client-side encryption for Gmail is in beta to its Workspace and education customers to secure emails sent using the web version of the platform. This development comes at a time when concerns about online privacy and data security are at an all-time high, and it

Government entities in Ukraine have been breached as part of a new campaign that leveraged trojanized versions of Windows 10 installer files to conduct post-exploitation activities. Mandiant, which discovered the supply chain attack around mid-July 2022, said the malicious ISO files were distributed via Ukrainian- and Russian-language Torrent websites. It’s tracking the threat cluster as

Dec 15, 2022Ravie LakshmananAdvanced Persistent Threat A Chinese-speaking advanced persistent threat (APT) actor codenamed MirrorFace has been attributed to a spear-phishing campaign targeting Japanese political establishments. The activity, dubbed Operation LiberalFace by ESET, specifically focused on members of an unnamed political party in the nation with the goal of delivering an implant called LODEINFO and

Dec 14, 2022Ravie LakshmananWebsite Security / Linux A new Go-based botnet has been spotted scanning and brute-forcing self-hosted websites using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to seize control of targeted systems. “This new brute forcer is part of a new campaign we have named GoTrim because it was written in Go and uses ‘:::trim:::’

Dec 13, 2022Ravie LakshmananOpen Source / Vulnerability Database Google on Tuesday announced the open source availability of OSV-Scanner, a scanner that aims to offer easy access to vulnerability information about various projects. The Go-based tool, powered by the Open Source Vulnerabilities (OSV) database, is designed to connect “a project’s list of dependencies with the vulnerabilities

Dec 12, 2022Ravie LakshmananEndpoint Detection / Data Security High-severity security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in different endpoint detection and response (EDR) and antivirus (AV) products that could be exploited to turn them into data wipers. “This wiper runs with the permissions of an unprivileged user yet has the ability to wipe almost any file on

Dec 10, 2022Ravie LakshmananWeb App Firewall / Web Security A new attack method can be used to circumvent web application firewalls (WAFs) of various vendors and infiltrate systems, potentially enabling attackers to gain access to sensitive business and customer information. Web application firewalls are a key line of defense to help filter, monitor, and block