Security

by Paul Ducklin One of the first low-level network tools that any computer user learns about is the venerable ping utility. Named after the eponymous sound effect from any and every old-school war movie scene involving submarines, the command is a metaphorical echo (see what we did there?) of the underwater version of RADAR known

Attackers have been increasingly encrypting malware in archives before releasing it in the wild.  According to HP Wolf Security’s latest Threat Insights Report Q3 2022, 44% of malware was delivered via archive files in the third quarter of 2022, an 11% increase from the previous quarter and substantially more than the 32% delivered through Office files. The

by Paul Ducklin It’s just under two weeks since Google rushed out a Chrome patch for the then-current version 107 to seal off a bug that was already being used in real-life attacks. The company said nothing more about that bug than to describe it as a “heap buffer overflow in GPU” [sic], and to

Threat actors have been spotted using criminal proxy networks to obfuscate their illegal activities by hiding behind hijacked IP addresses and using the same to create an appearance of legitimacy. The findings come from security researchers at DomainTools, who have said that while these networks were initially used as part of botnets, their lucrative nature

by Paul Ducklin Forget Sergeant Pepper and his Lonely Hearts Club Band, who taught the band to play a mere 20 years ago today. December 2022 sees the 35th anniversary of the first major self-spreading computer virus – the infamous CHRISTMA EXEC worm that temporarily crushed the major mainframe networks of the day… … not

The annual number of memory safety vulnerabilities in Android dropped from 223 in 2019 to 85 in 2022 as Google gradually transitioned towards memory-safe languages. The tech giant made the announcement in a blog post on Thursday, where it wrote that for over a decade, 65% of all vulnerabilities across products and the industry were

by Paul Ducklin It’s just under a month since iOS 16.1.1 came out for Apple iPhone users, fixing a pair of bugs that were listed with the worrying words “a remote user may be able to cause unexpected app termination or arbitrary code execution”. Both macOS 13 Ventura and iPadOS got updated at the same

Colombian healthcare provider Keralty reported a ransomware attack on Sunday, which affected its systems as well as two of its subsidiaries: EPS Sanitas and Colsanitas. The attack has been reported on by Colombian news outlet El Tiempo, and would have disrupted the companies’ IT operations, websites and scheduling of medical appointments. Keralty said on Monday

by Paul Ducklin Back in August 2022, popular password manager company LastPass admitted to a data breach. The company, which is owned by sofware-as-a-service business GoTo, which used to be LogMeIn, published a very brief but nevertheless useful report about that incident about a month later: Briefly put, LastPass concluded that the attackers managed to

Nearly nine in 10 (87%) of US defense contractors are failing to meet basic cybersecurity regulation requirements, according to research commissioned by CyberSheath. The survey of 300 US-based Department of Defense (DoD) contractors found that just 13% of respondents have a Supplier Risk Performance System (SPRS) score of 70 or above. Under the Defense Federal

by Paul Ducklin In a fascinating legal deliberation handed down by the French data protection regulator CNIL (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés), the energy company Électricité de France, or EDF for short, has been fined EUR 600,000 (about $600,000). The legal declaration is, in the manner of such things, rather long and (to

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added a critical flaw affecting Oracle Fusion Middleware systems to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog on Monday. The bug, which CISA confirmed has been exploited in the wild, allows unauthenticated attackers with network access via HTTP to compromise Oracle Access Manager. Successful attacks targeting this vulnerability

by Paul Ducklin Researchers at secure coding company Checkmarx have warned of porn-themed malware that’s been attracting and attacking sleazy internet users in droves. Unfortunately, the side-effects of this malware, dubbed Unfilter or Space Unfilter, apparently involve plundering data from the victim’s computer, including Discord passwords, thus indirectly exposing the victim’s contacts – such as

A phishing campaign discovered in July that saw threat actors impersonating the Ministry of Human Resources of the UAE government may be more significant in scale than previously believed. The findings come from security researchers at CloudSEK, who published a new advisory about the threat earlier today. The technical write-up says the company has discovered an

by Paul Ducklin Google has just patched Chrome’s eigth zero-day hole of the year so far. Zero-days are bugs for which there were zero days you could have updated proactively… …because cybercriminals not only found the bug first, but also figured out how to exploit it for nefarious purposes before a patch was prepared and

A series of exploits have been found in the wild targeting Windows Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Protocol Extensions. According to a new advisory recently shared by security company Cyfirma with Infosecurity, the discovered vulnerabilities could have been exploited to target almost 1000 systems. The attacks observed by the company would be part of a campaign

Google released new software patches on Thursday to address a new zero-day vulnerability in its Chrome web browser. Writing in a security bulletin, the tech giant described the high-severity vulnerability (tracked CVE-2022-4135) as a heap buffer overflow in the graphics processing unit (GPU) component. Google attributed the discovery of the vulnerability to Clement Lecigne from its

Remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform ConnectWise has patched a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that could lead to remote code execution (RCE). Security researchers at Guardio Labs wrote about the flaw earlier this week, saying threat actors could exploit it to take complete control of the ConnectWise platform. “After testing and validating several attack vectors,

by Naked Security writer These days, most of us have telephones that display the number that’s calling before we answer. This “feature” actually goes right back to the 1960s, and it’s known in North American English as Caller ID, although it doesn’t actually identify the caller, just the caller’s number. Elsewhere in the English-speaking world,

The Bahamut APT group has been targeting Android users through a fake SecureVPN website since at least January 2022. According to a new advisory from Eset, the app used as part of this malicious campaign was a trojanized version of either of two legitimate VPN apps, SoftVPN or OpenVPN. In both instances, the apps were

by Paul Ducklin SPOTLIGHT ON CYBERTHREATS Security specialist John Shier tells you the “news you can really use” – how to boost your cybersecurity based on real-world advice from the 2023 Sophos Threat Report. Click-and-drag on the soundwaves below to skip to any point. You can also listen directly on Soundcloud. With Paul Ducklin and

The European Union Parliament adopted the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) on November 10, 2022. Set to be enshrined into law at the end of 2022, DORA will introduce a comprehensive set of rules for financial organizations to strengthen their digital operational resilience and prevent and mitigate cyber threats. With this new regulation in mind,

by Paul Ducklin Over the past year, we’ve had the unfortunate need to warn our readers not once, but twice, about a scam we’ve dubbed CryptoRom, a portmanteau word formed from the terms “Cryptocurrency” and “Romance scam”. Simply put, these scammers use a variety of techniques, notably including prowling on dating sites, to meet people

A Vietnam-based hacking operation dubbed “Ducktail” is targeting individuals and companies operating on Facebook’s Ads and Business platform. Security researchers at WithSecure discovered the campaign earlier this year and described new developments in an advisory published earlier today. “We don’t see any signs of Ducktail slowing down soon, but rather see them evolve rapidly in

by Paul Ducklin Just under two months ago, some worrying bug news broke: a pair of zero-day vulnerabilities were announced in Microsoft Exchange. As we advised at the time, these vulnerabilities, officially designated CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082: [were] two zero-days that [could] be chained together, with the first bug used remotely to open enough of a

Google has announced a legal victory against two Russian nationals connected with the Glupteba botnet. In a blog post last Friday, the tech giant said the court’s ruling against the botnet operators set a crucial legal precedent and sends a warning to cyber-criminals and their accomplices. “Last December, Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) shared the

by Paul Ducklin Phishing scams that try to trick you into putting your real password into a fake site have been around for decades. As regular Naked Security readers will know, precautions such as using a password manager and turning on two-factor authentication (2FA) can help to protect you against phishing mishaps, because: Password managers

A credential phishing attack reportedly targeted 22,000 students at national educational institutions with a campaign impersonating Instagram. The information comes from security experts at Armorblox, who highlighted the new threat in an advisory on November 17, 2022.  “The subject of this email encouraged victims to open the message,” reads the technical write-up. The goal of this

On Thursday, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published the final part of its three-section series on securing the software supply chain. The publication, which follows the August 2022 release of guidance for developers and the October 2022 release of guidance for suppliers, provides recommended practices for customers to ensure the integrity and

Shoppers should stay alert on Black Friday as hackers launch new scams in the lead-up to the event. Check Point Research (CPR) said the team has already observed a sharp increase in shopping-related phishing scams, with threat actors imitating well-known brands. “While consumers are getting ready to bag the best deal, cybercriminals are taking advantage