Russian Hackers Using DropBox and Google Drive to Drop Malicious Payloads

The Russian state-sponsored hacking collective known as APT29 has been attributed to a new phishing campaign that takes advantage of legitimate cloud services like Google Drive and Dropbox to deliver malicious payloads on compromised systems. "These campaigns are believed to have targeted several Western diplomatic missions between May and June 2022," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a Tuesday

Experts Uncover New CloudMensis Spyware Targeting Apple macOS Users

Cybersecurity researchers have taken the wraps off a previously undocumented spyware targeting the Apple macOS operating system. The malware, codenamed CloudMensis by Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET, is said to exclusively use public cloud storage services such as pCloud, Yandex Disk, and Dropbox for receiving attacker commands and exfiltrating files. "Its capabilities clearly show that the

Several New Play Store Apps Spotted Distributing Joker, Facestealer and Coper Malware

Google has taken steps to ax dozens of fraudulent apps from the official Play Store that were spotted propagating Joker, Facestealer, and Coper malware families through the virtual marketplace. While the Android storefront is considered to be a trusted source for discovering and installing apps, bad actors have repeatedly found ways to sneak past security barriers erected by Google in hopes of

Pegasus Spyware Used to Hack Devices of Pro-Democracy Activists in Thailand

Thai activists involved in the country's pro-democracy protests have had their smartphones infected with NSO Group's infamous Pegasus government-sponsored spyware. At least 30 individuals, spanning activists, academics, lawyers, and NGO workers, are believed to have been targeted between October 2020 and November 2021, many of whom have been previously detained, arrested and imprisoned for their

New Netwrix Auditor Bug Could Let Attackers Compromise Active Directory Domain

Researchers have disclosed details about a security vulnerability in the Netwrix Auditor application that, if successfully exploited, could lead to arbitrary code execution on affected devices.  "Since this service is typically executed with extensive privileges in an Active Directory environment, the attacker would likely be able to compromise the Active Directory domain," Bishop Fox said in an

Mantis Botnet Behind the Largest HTTPS DDoS Attack Targeting Cloudflare Customers

The botnet behind the largest HTTPS distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in June 2022 has been linked to a spate of attacks aimed at nearly 1,000 Cloudflare customers. Calling the powerful botnet Mantis, the web performance and security company attributed it to more than 3,000 HTTP DDoS attacks against its users. The most attacked industry verticals include internet and telecom, media,

A Simple Formula for Getting Your IT Security Budget Approved

Although there is a greater awareness of cybersecurity threats than ever before, it is becoming increasingly difficult for IT departments to get their security budgets approved. Security budgets seem to shrink each year and IT pros are constantly being asked to do more with less. Even so, the situation may not be hopeless. There are some things that IT pros can do to improve the chances of

Pakistani Hackers Targeting Indian Students in Latest Malware Campaign

The advanced persistent threat (APT) group known as Transparent Tribe has been attributed to a new ongoing phishing campaign targeting students at various educational institutions in India at least since December 2021. "This new campaign also suggests that the APT is actively expanding its network of victims to include civilian users," Cisco Talos said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

New UEFI Firmware Vulnerabilities Impact Several Lenovo Notebook Models

Consumer electronics maker Lenovo on Tuesday rolled out fixes to contain three security flaws in its UEFI firmware affecting over 70 product models. "The vulnerabilities can be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution in the early phases of the platform boot, possibly allowing the attackers to hijack the OS execution flow and disable some important security features," Slovak cybersecurity

Researchers Uncover New Variants of the ChromeLoader Browser Hijacking Malware

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered new variants of the ChromeLoader information-stealing malware, highlighting its evolving feature set in a short span of time. Primarily used for hijacking victims' browser searches and presenting advertisements, ChromeLoader came to light in January 2022 and has been distributed in the form of ISO or DMG file downloads advertised via QR codes on Twitter

Researchers Uncover New Attempts by Qakbot Malware to Evade Detection

The operators behind the Qakbot malware are transforming their delivery vectors in an attempt to sidestep detection. "Most recently, threat actors have transformed their techniques to evade detection by using ZIP file extensions, enticing file names with common formats, and Excel (XLM) 4.0 to trick victims into downloading malicious attachments that install Qakbot," Zscaler Threatlabz

Microsoft Releases Fix for Zero-Day Flaw in July 2022 Security Patch Rollout

Microsoft released its monthly round of Patch Tuesday updates to address 84 new security flaws spanning multiple product categories, counting a zero-day vulnerability that's under active attack in the wild. Of the 84 shortcomings, four are rated Critical, and 80 are rated Important in severity. Also separately resolved by the tech giant are two other bugs in the Chromium-based Edge browser, one

TikTok Postpones Privacy Policy Update in Europe After Italy Warns of GDPR Breach

Popular video-sharing platform TikTok on Tuesday agreed to pause a controversial privacy policy update that could have allowed it to serve targeted ads based on users' activity on the social video platform without their permission to do so. The reversal, reported by TechCrunch, comes a day after the Italian data protection authority — the Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali — warned the