Microsoft on Wednesday detailed a previously undiscovered technique put to use by the TrickBot malware that involves using compromised Internet of Things (IoT) devices as a go-between for establishing communications with the command-and-control (C2) servers. “By using MikroTik routers as proxy servers for its C2 servers and redirecting the traffic through non-standard ports, TrickBot adds
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Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky on Tuesday responded to an advisory released by Germany’s Federal Office of Information Security (BSI) against using the company’s security solutions in the country over “doubts about the reliability of the manufacturer.” Calling that the decision was made on “political grounds,” the company said it will “continue to assure our partners
Two weeks after details emerged about a second data wiper strain delivered in attacks against Ukraine, yet another destructive malware has been detected amid Russia’s continuing military invasion of the country. Slovak cybersecurity company ESET dubbed the third wiper “CaddyWiper,” which it said it first observed on March 14 around 9:38 a.m. UTC. Metadata associated
A newly disclosed security flaw in the Linux kernel could be leveraged by a local adversary to gain elevated privileges on vulnerable systems to execute arbitrary code, escape containers, or induce a kernel panic. Tracked as CVE-2022-25636 (CVSS score: 7.8), the vulnerability impacts Linux kernel versions 5.4 through 5.6.10 and is a result of a
Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp and Cloudflare have banded together for a new initiative called Code Verify to validate the authenticity of the messaging service’s web app on desktop computers. Available in the form of a Chrome and Edge browser extension, the open-source add-on is designed to “automatically verif[y] the authenticity of the WhatsApp Web code being
Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in popular package managers that, if potentially exploited, could be abused to run arbitrary code and access sensitive information, including source code and access tokens, from compromised machines. It’s, however, worth noting that the flaws require the targeted developers to handle a malicious package in conjunction with one of
The Russian government has established its own TLS certificate authority (CA) to address issues with accessing websites that have arisen in the wake of sanctions imposed by the west following the country’s unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine. According to a message posted on the Gosuslugi public services portal, the Ministry of Digital Development is expected
A broad range of threat actors, including Fancy Bear, Ghostwriter, and Mustang Panda, have launched phishing campaigns against Ukraine, Poland, and other European entities amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said it took down two Blogspot domains that were used by the nation-state group FancyBear (aka APT28) – which is attributed
Threat actors have been observed abusing a high-impact reflection/amplification method to stage sustained distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks for up to 14 hours with a record-breaking amplification ratio of 4,294,967,296 to 1. The attack vector – dubbed TP240PhoneHome (CVE-2022-26143) – has been weaponized to launch significant DDoS attacks targeting broadband access ISPs, financial institutions, logistics companies,
Three high-impact security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in APC Smart-UPS devices that could be abused by remote adversaries as a physical weapon to access and control them in an unauthorized manner. Collectively dubbed TLStorm, the flaws “allow for complete remote takeover of Smart-UPS devices and the ability to carry out extreme cyber-physical attacks,” Ben Seri
The unfortunate truth is that while companies are investing more in cyber defenses and taking cybersecurity more seriously than ever, successful breaches and ransomware attacks are on the rise. While a successful breach is not inevitable, it is becoming more likely despite best efforts to prevent it from happening. Just as it wasn’t raining when
APT41, the state-sponsored threat actor affiliated with China, breached at least six U.S. state government networks between May 2021 and February 2022 by retooling its attack vectors to take advantage of vulnerable internet-facing web applications. The exploited vulnerabilities included “a zero-day vulnerability in the USAHERDS application (CVE-2021-44207) as well as the now infamous zero-day in
Researchers have disclosed three security vulnerabilities affecting Pascom Cloud Phone System (CPS) that could be combined to achieve a full pre-authenticated remote code execution of affected systems. Kerbit security researcher Daniel Eshetu said the shortcomings, when chained together, can lead to “an unauthenticated attacker gaining root on these devices.” Pascom Cloud Phone System is an
Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday update for the month of March has been made officially available with 71 fixes spanning across its software products such as Windows, Office, Exchange, and Defender, among others. Of the total 71 patches, three are rated Critical and 68 are rated Important in severity. While none of the vulnerabilities are listed as
Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed 16 new high-severity vulnerabilities in various implementations of Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware impacting multiple HP enterprise devices. The shortcomings, which have CVSS scores ranging from 7.5 to 8.8, have been uncovered in HP’s UEFI firmware. The variety of devices affected includes HP’s laptops, desktops, point-of-sale (PoS) systems, and
The insidious Emotet botnet, which staged a return in November 2021 after a 10-month-long hiatus, is once again exhibiting signs of steady growth, amassing a swarm of over 100,000 infected hosts for perpetrating its malicious activities. “While Emotet has not yet attained the same scale it once had, the botnet is showing a strong resurgence
Yaroslav Vasinskyi, a Ukrainian national, linked to the Russia-based REvil ransomware group has been extradited to the U.S. to face charges for his role in carrying out the file-encrypting malware attacks against several companies, including Kaseya last July. The 22-year-old had been previously arrested in Poland in October 2021, prompting the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ)
Details have emerged about a new cyber espionage campaign directed against the aerospace and telecommunications industries, primarily in the Middle East, with the goal of stealing sensitive information about critical assets, organizations’ infrastructure, and technology while remaining in the dark and successfully evading security solutions. Boston-based cybersecurity company Cybereason dubbed the attacks “Operation Ghostshell,” pointing
A newly discovered data exfiltration mechanism employs Ethernet cables as a “transmitting antenna” to stealthily siphon highly-sensitive data from air-gapped systems, according to the latest research. “It’s interesting that the wires that came to protect the air-gap become the vulnerability of the air gap in this attack,” Dr. Mordechai Guri, the head of R&D in
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed an unpatched flaw in Apple Pay that attackers could abuse to make an unauthorized Visa payment with a locked iPhone by taking advantage of the Express Travel mode set up in the device’s wallet. “An attacker only needs a stolen, powered on iPhone. The transactions could also be relayed from an
A formerly unknown Chinese-speaking threat actor has been linked to a long-standing evasive operation aimed at South East Asian targets as far back as July 2020 to deploy a kernel-mode rootkit on compromised Windows systems. Attacks mounted by the hacking group, dubbed GhostEmperor by Kaspersky, are also said to have used a “sophisticated multi-stage malware
In yet another indicator of how hacking groups are quick to capitalize on world events and improvise their attack campaigns for maximum impact, threat actors have been discovered impersonating Amnesty International to distribute malware that purports to be security software designed to safeguard against NSO Group’s Pegasus surveillanceware. “Adversaries have set up a phony website
Google on Thursday pushed urgent security fixes for its Chrome browser, including a pair of new security weaknesses that the company said are being exploited in the wild, making them the fourth and fifth actively zero-days plugged this month alone. The issues, designated as CVE-2021-37975 and CVE-2021-37976, are part of a total of four patches,
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed an unpatched security vulnerability in the protocol used by Microsoft Azure Active Directory that potential adversaries could abuse to stage undetected brute-force attacks. “This flaw allows threat actors to perform single-factor brute-force attacks against Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) without generating sign-in events in the targeted organization’s tenant,” researchers from Secureworks
Professional developers want to embrace DevSecOps and write secure code, but their organizations need to support this seachange if they want that effort to grow. The cyber threat landscape is becoming more complex by the day. Attackers are constantly scanning networks for vulnerable applications, programs, cloud instances, and the latest flavor of the month is
The IDC cloud security survey 2021 states that as many as 98% of companies were victims of a cloud data breach within the past 18 months. Fostered by the pandemic, small and large organizations from all over the world are migrating their data and infrastructure into a public cloud, while often underestimating novel and cloud-specific
Cybersecurity researchers on Wednesday disclosed a previously undocumented backdoor likely designed and developed by the Nobelium advanced persistent threat (APT) behind last year’s SolarWinds supply chain attack, joining the threat actor’s ever-expanding arsenal of hacking tools. Moscow-headquartered firm Kaspersky codenamed the malware “Tomiris,” calling out its similarities to another second-stage malware used during the campaign,
Russian authorities on Wednesday arrested and detained Ilya Sachkov, the founder of cybersecurity firm Group-IB, for two months in Moscow on charges of state treason following a search of its office on September 28. The Russian company, which is headquartered in Singapore, confirmed the development but noted the “reason for the search was not yet
Facebook on Wednesday announced it’s open-sourcing Mariana Trench, an Android-focused static analysis platform the company uses to detect and prevent security and privacy bugs in applications created for the mobile operating system at scale. “[Mariana Trench] is designed to be able to scan large mobile codebases and flag potential issues on pull requests before they
New details have been revealed about a recently remediated critical vulnerability in Netgear smart switches that could be leveraged by an attacker to potentially execute malicious code and take control of vulnerable devices. The flaw — dubbed “Seventh Inferno” (CVSS score: 9.8) — is part of a trio of security weaknesses, called Demon’s Cries (CVSS