Google Delays Blocking 3rd-Party Cookies in Chrome Browser Until 2024

Google on Wednesday said it's once again delaying its plans to turn off third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser from late 2023 to the second half of 2024. "The most consistent feedback we've received is the need for more time to evaluate and test the new Privacy Sandbox technologies before deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome," Anthony Chavez, vice president of Privacy Sandbox, said.

Hackers Opting New Attack Methods After Microsoft Blocked Macros by Default

With Microsoft taking steps to block Excel 4.0 (XLM or XL4) and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros by default across Office apps, malicious actors are responding by refining their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). "The use of VBA and XL4 Macros decreased approximately 66% from October 2021 through June 2022," Proofpoint said in a report shared with The Hacker News, calling it "

Microsoft Uncovers Austrian Company Exploiting Windows and Adobe Zero-Day Exploits

A cyber mercenary that "ostensibly sells general security and information analysis services to commercial customers" used several Windows and Adobe zero-day exploits in limited and highly-targeted attacks against European and Central American entities. The company, which Microsoft describes as a private-sector offensive actor (PSOA), is an Austria-based outfit called DSIRF that's linked to the

Top MSSP CEOs Share 7 Must-Do Tips for Higher MSSP Revenue and Margin

MSSPs must find ways to balance the need to please existing customers, add new ones, and deliver high-margin services against their internal budget constraints and the need to maintain high employee morale.In an environment where there are thousands of potential alerts each day and cyberattacks are growing rapidly in frequency and sophistication, this isn’t an easy balance to maintain. Customers

LibreOffice Releases Software Update to Patch 3 New Vulnerabilities

The team behind LibreOffice has released security updates to fix three security flaws in the productivity software, one of which could be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution on affected systems. Tracked as CVE-2022-26305, the issue has been described as a case of improper certificate validation when checking whether a macro is signed by a trusted author, leading to the execution of

U.S. Offers $10 Million Reward for Information on North Korean Hackers

The U.S. State Department has announced rewards of up to $10 million for any information that could help disrupt North Korea's cryptocurrency theft, cyber-espionage, and other illicit state-backed activities. "If you have information on any individuals associated with the North Korean government-linked malicious cyber groups (such as Andariel, APT38, Bluenoroff, Guardians of Peace, Kimsuky, or

These 28+ Android Apps with 10 Million Downloads from the Play Store Contain Malware

As many as 30 malicious Android apps with cumulative downloads of nearly 10 million have been found on the Google Play Store distributing adware. "All of them were built into various programs, including image-editing software, virtual keyboards, system tools and utilities, calling apps, wallpaper collection apps, and others," Dr.Web said in a Tuesday write-up. While masquerading as innocuous

New Ducktail Infostealer Malware Targeting Facebook Business and Ad Accounts

Facebook business and advertising accounts are at the receiving end of an ongoing campaign dubbed Ducktail designed to seize control as part of a financially driven cybercriminal operation.  "The threat actor targets individuals and employees that may have access to a Facebook Business account with an information-stealer malware," Finnish cybersecurity company WithSecure (formerly F-Secure

Taking the Risk-Based Approach to Vulnerability Patching

Software vulnerabilities are a major threat to organizations today. The cost of these threats is significant, both financially and in terms of reputation.Vulnerability management and patching can easily get out of hand when the number of vulnerabilities in your organization is in the hundreds of thousands of vulnerabilities and tracked in inefficient ways, such as using Excel spreadsheets or

Malicious IIS Extensions Gaining Popularity Among Cyber Criminals for Persistent Access

Threat actors are increasingly abusing Internet Information Services (IIS) extensions to backdoor servers as a means of establishing a "durable persistence mechanism." That's according to a new warning from the Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team, which said that "IIS backdoors are also harder to detect since they mostly reside in the same directories as legitimate modules used by target

Experts Find Similarities Between New LockBit 3.0 and BlackMatter Ransomware

Cybersecurity researchers have reiterated similarities between the latest iteration of the LockBit ransomware and BlackMatter, a rebranded variant of the DarkSide ransomware strain that closed shop in November 2021. The new version of LockBit, called LockBit 3.0 aka LockBit Black, was released in June 2022, launching a brand new leak site and what's the very first ransomware bug bounty program,

4 Steps the Financial Industry Can Take to Cope With Their Growing Attack Surface

The financial services industry has always been at the forefront of technology adoption, but the 2020 pandemic accelerated the widespread of mobile banking apps, chat-based customer service, and other digital tools. Adobe's 2022 FIS Trends Report, for instance, found that more than half of the financial services and insurance firms surveyed experienced a notable increase in digital/mobile

Hackers Increasingly Using WebAssembly Coded Cryptominers to Evade Detection

As many as 207 websites have been infected with malicious code designed to launch a cryptocurrency miner by leveraging WebAssembly (Wasm) on the browser. Web security company Sucuri, which published details of the campaign, said it launched an investigation after one of its clients had their computer slowed down significantly every time upon navigating to their own WordPress portal. This

Critical FileWave MDM Flaws Open Organization-Managed Devices to Remote Hackers

FileWave's mobile device management (MDM) system has been found vulnerable to two critical security flaws that could be leveraged to carry out remote attacks and seize control of a fleet of devices connected to it. "The vulnerabilities are remotely exploitable and enable an attacker to bypass authentication mechanisms and gain full control over the MDM platform and its managed devices," Claroty

SmokeLoader Infecting Targeted Systems with Amadey Info-Stealing Malware

An information-stealing malware called Amadey is being distributed by means of another backdoor called SmokeLoader. The attacks hinge on tricking users into downloading SmokeLoader that masquerades as software cracks, paving the way for the deployment of Amadey, researchers from the AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC) said in a report published last week. <!--adsense--> Amadey, a

Hackers Exploit PrestaShop Zero-Day to Steal Payment Data from Online Stores

Malicious actors are exploiting a previously unknown security flaw in the open source PrestaShop e-commerce platform to inject malicious skimmer code designed to swipe sensitive information. "Attackers have found a way to use a security vulnerability to carry out arbitrary code execution in servers running PrestaShop websites," the company noted in an advisory published on July 22. PrestaShop is

Microsoft Adds Default Protection Against RDP Brute-Force Attacks in Windows 11

Microsoft is now taking steps to prevent Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) brute-force attacks as part of the latest builds for the Windows 11 operating system in an attempt to raise the security baseline to meet the evolving threat landscape. To that end, the default policy for Windows 11 builds – particularly, Insider Preview builds 22528.1000 and newer – will automatically lock accounts for 10

Experts Uncover New 'CosmicStrand' UEFI Firmware Rootkit Used by Chinese Hackers

An unknown Chinese-speaking threat actor has been attributed to a new kind of sophisticated Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware rootkit called CosmicStrand. "The rootkit is located in the firmware images of Gigabyte or ASUS motherboards, and we noticed that all these images are related to designs using the H81 chipset," Kaspersky researchers said in a new report published today

Magecart Hacks Food Ordering Systems to Steal Payment Data from Over 300 Restaurants

Three restaurant ordering platforms MenuDrive, Harbortouch, and InTouchPOS were the target of two Magecart skimming campaigns that resulted in the compromise of at least 311 restaurants. The trio of breaches has led to the theft of more than 50,000 payment card records from these infected restaurants and posted for sale on the dark web. "The online ordering platforms MenuDrive and Harbortouch

Racoon Stealer is Back — How to Protect Your Organization

The Racoon Stealer malware as a service platform gained notoriety several years ago for its ability to extract data that is stored within a Web browser. This data initially included passwords and cookies, which sometimes allow a recognized device to be authenticated without a password being entered. Racoon Stealer was also designed to steal auto-fill data, which can include a vast trove of

Roaming Mantis Financial Hackers Targeting Android and iPhone Users in France

The mobile threat campaign tracked as Roaming Mantis has been linked to a new wave of compromises directed against French mobile phone users, months after it expanded its targeting to include European countries. No fewer than 70,000 Android devices are said to have been infected as part of the active malware operation, Sekoia said in a report published last week. Attack chains involving Roaming

SonicWall Issues Patch for Critical Bug Affecting its Analytics and GMS Products

Network security company SonicWall on Friday rolled out fixes to mitigate a critical SQL injection (SQLi) vulnerability affecting its Analytics On-Prem and Global Management System (GMS) products. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-22280, is rated 9.4 for severity on the CVSS scoring system and stems from what the company describes is an "improper neutralization of special elements" used in

Microsoft Resumes Blocking Office VBA Macros by Default After 'Temporary Pause'

Microsoft has officially resumed blocking Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros by default across Office apps, weeks after temporarily announcing plans to roll back the change. "Based on our review of customer feedback, we've made updates to both our end user and our IT admin documentation to make clearer what options you have for different scenarios," the company said in an update on July

Google Bringing the Android App Permissions Section Back to the Play Store

Google on Thursday said it's backtracking on a recent change that removed the app permissions list from the Google Play Store for Android across both the mobile app and the web. "Privacy and transparency are core values in the Android community," the Android Developers team said in a series of tweets. "We heard your feedback that you find the app permissions section in Google Play useful, and

An Easier Way to Keep Old Python Code Healthy and Secure

Python has its pros and cons, but it's nonetheless used extensively. For example, Python is frequently used in data crunching tasks even when there are more appropriate languages to choose from. Why? Well, Python is relatively easy to learn. Someone with a science background can pick up Python much more quickly than, say, C. However, Python's inherent approachability also creates a couple of

Ukrainian Radio Stations Hacked to Broadcast Fake News About Zelenskyy's Health

Ukrainian radio operator TAVR Media on Thursday became the latest victim of a cyberattack, resulting in the broadcast of a fake message that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was seriously ill. "Cybercriminals spread information that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is allegedly in intensive care, and his duties are performed by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk,"

Candiru Spyware Caught Exploiting Google Chrome Zero-Day to Target Journalists

The actively exploited but now-fixed Google Chrome zero-day flaw that came to light at the start of this month was weaponized by an Israeli spyware company and used in attacks targeting journalists in the Middle East. Czech cybersecurity firm Avast linked the exploitation to Candiru (aka Saito Tech), which has a history of leveraging previously unknown flaws to deploy a Windows malware dubbed

New Linux Malware Framework Lets Attackers Install Rootkit on Targeted Systems

A never-before-seen Linux malware has been dubbed a "Swiss Army Knife" for its modular architecture and its capability to install rootkits. This previously undetected Linux threat, called Lightning Framework by Intezer, is equipped with a plethora of features, making it one of the most intricate frameworks developed for targeting Linux systems. "The framework has both passive and active

Hackers Target Ukrainian Software Company Using GoMet Backdoor

A large software development company whose software is used by different state entities in Ukraine was at the receiving end of an "uncommon" piece of malware, new research has found. The malware, first observed on the morning of May 19, 2022, is a custom variant of the open source backdoor known as GoMet and is designed for maintaining persistent access to the network. "This access could be

Hackers Use Evilnum Malware to Target Cryptocurrency and Commodities Platforms

The advanced persistent threat (APT) actor tracked as Evilnum is once again exhibiting signs of renewed activity aimed at European financial and investment entities. "Evilnum is a backdoor that can be used for data theft or to load additional payloads," enterprise security firm Proofpoint said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The malware includes multiple interesting components to evade

The New Weak Link in SaaS Security: Devices

Typically, when threat actors look to infiltrate an organization's SaaS apps, they look to SaaS app misconfigurations as a means of entry. However, employees now use their personal devices, whether their phones or laptops, etc., to get their jobs done. If the device's hygiene is not up to par, it increases the risk for the organization and widens the attack surface for bad actors. And so,

Atlassian Rolls Out Security Patch for Critical Confluence Vulnerability

Atlassian has rolled out fixes to remediate a critical security vulnerability pertaining to the use of hard-coded credentials affecting the Questions For Confluence app for Confluence Server and Confluence Data Center. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2022-26138, arises when the app in question is enabled on either of two services, causing it to create a Confluence user account with the username "

FBI Seizes $500,000 Ransomware Payments and Crypto from North Korean Hackers

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced the seizure of $500,000 worth of Bitcoin from North Korean hackers who extorted digital payments from several organizations by using a new ransomware strain known as Maui. "The seized funds include ransoms paid by healthcare providers in Kansas and Colorado," the DoJ said in a press release issued Tuesday. The recovery of the bitcoin ransoms

Cynomi Automated Virtual CISO (vCISO) Platform for Service Providers

Growing cyber threats, tightening regulatory demands and strict cyber insurance requirements are driving small to medium-sized enterprises demand for strategic cybersecurity and compliance guidance and management. Since most companies this size don't have in-house CISO expertise – the demand for virtual CISO (vCISO) services is also growing. Yet current vCISO services models still rely on manual

Apple Releases Security Patches for all Devices Fixing Dozens of New Vulnerabilities

Apple on Wednesday rolled out software fixes for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS to address a number of security flaws affecting its platforms. This includes at least 37 flaws spanning different components in iOS and macOS that range from privilege escalation to arbitrary code execution and from information disclosure to denial-of-service (DoS). <!--adsense--> Chief among them is CVE-2022-

Cisco Releases Patches for Critical Flaws Impacting Nexus Dashboard for Data Centers

Cisco on Wednesday released security patches for 45 vulnerabilities affecting a variety of products, some of which could be exploited to execute arbitrary actions with elevated permissions on affected systems. Of the 45 bugs, one security vulnerability is rated Critical, three are rated High, and 41 are rated Medium in severity.  The most severe of the issues are CVE-2022-20857, CVE-2022-20858,

Google Adds Support for DNS-over-HTTP/3 in Android to Keep DNS Queries Private

Google on Tuesday officially announced support for DNS-over-HTTP/3 (DoH3) for Android devices as part of a Google Play system update designed to keep DNS queries private. To that end, Android smartphones running Android 11 and higher are expected to use DoH3 instead of DNS-over-TLS (DoT), which was incorporated into the mobile operating system with Android 9.0. DoH3 is also an alternative to

New Rust-based Ransomware Family Targets Windows, Linux, and ESXi Systems

Kaspersky security researchers have disclosed details of a brand-new ransomware family written in Rust, making it the third strain after BlackCat and Hive to use the programming language. Luna, as it's called, is "fairly simple" and can run on Windows, Linux, and ESXi systems, with the malware banking on a combination of Curve25519 and AES for encryption. <!--adsense--> "Both the Linux and ESXi

This Cloud Botnet Has Hijacked 30,000 Systems to Mine Cryptocurrencies

The 8220 cryptomining group has expanded in size to encompass as many as 30,000 infected hosts, up from 2,000 hosts globally in mid-2021. "8220 Gang is one of the many low-skill crimeware gangs we continually observe infecting cloud hosts and operating a botnet and cryptocurrency miners through known vulnerabilities and remote access brute forcing infection vectors," Tom Hegel of SentinelOne 

Unpatched GPS Tracker Bugs Could Let Attackers Disrupt Vehicles Remotely

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is warning of a handful of unpatched security vulnerabilities in MiCODUS MV720 Global Positioning System (GPS) trackers outfitted in over 1.5 million vehicles that could lead to remote disruption of critical operations. "Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities may allow a remote actor to exploit access and gain control of

Dealing With Alert Overload? There's a Guide For That

The Great Resignation – or the Great Reshuffle as some are calling it – and the growing skills gap have been dominating headlines lately. But these issues aren't new to the cybersecurity industry. While many are just now hearing about employee burnout, security teams have faced reality and serious consequences of burnout for years.  One of the biggest culprits? Alert overload.  The average

Russian Hackers Tricked Ukrainians with Fake "DoS Android Apps to Target Russia"

Russian threat actors capitalized on the ongoing conflict against Ukraine to distribute Android malware camouflaged as an app for pro-Ukrainian hacktivists to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Russian sites. Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) attributed the malware to Turla, an advanced persistent threat also known as Krypton, Venomous Bear, Waterbug, and Uroburos, and

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

Security Experts Warn of Two Primary Client-Side Risks Associated with Data Exfiltration and Loss

Two client-side risks dominate the problems with data loss and data exfiltration: improperly placed trackers on websites and web applications and malicious client-side code pulled from third-party repositories like NPM.  Client-side security researchers are finding that improperly placed trackers, while not intentionally malicious, are a growing problem and have clear and significant privacy

New Air-Gap Attack Uses SATA Cable as an Antenna to Transfer Radio Signals

A new method devised to leak information and jump over air-gaps takes advantage of Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) or Serial ATA cables as a communication medium, adding to a long list of electromagnetic, magnetic, electric, optical, and acoustic methods already demonstrated to plunder data. "Although air-gap computers have no wireless connectivity, we show that attackers can use

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

FBI Warns of Fake Cryptocurrency Apps Stealing Millions from Investors

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned of cyber criminals building rogue cryptocurrency-themed apps to defraud investors in the virtual assets space. "The FBI has observed cyber criminals contacting U.S. investors, fraudulently claiming to offer legitimate cryptocurrency investment services, and convincing investors to download fraudulent mobile apps, which the cyber criminals

New Study Finds Most Enterprise Vendors Failing to Mitigate Speculative Execution Attacks

With speculative execution attacks remaining a stubbornly persistent vulnerability ailing modern processors, new research has highlighted an "industry failure" to adopting mitigations released by AMD and Intel, posing a firmware supply chain threat. Dubbed FirmwareBleed by Binarly, the information leaking assaults stem from the continued exposure of microarchitectural attack surfaces on the part

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

Experts Notice Sudden Surge in Exploitation of WordPress Page Builder Plugin Vulnerability

Researchers from Wordfence have sounded the alarm about a "sudden" spike in cyber attacks attempting to exploit an unpatched flaw in a WordPress plugin called Kaswara Modern WPBakery Page Builder Addons. Tracked as CVE-2021-24284, the issue is rated 10.0 on the CVSS vulnerability scoring system and relates to an unauthenticated arbitrary file upload that could be abused to gain code execution,

Mind the Gap – How to Ensure Your Vulnerability Detection Methods are up to Scratch

With global cybercrime costs expected to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, it comes as little surprise that the risk of attack is companies' biggest concern globally. To help businesses uncover and fix the vulnerabilities and misconfigurations affecting their systems, there is an (over)abundance of solutions available.  But beware, they may not give you a full and continuous view of your

Hackers Distributing Password Cracking Tool for PLCs and HMIs to Target Industrial Systems

Industrial engineers and operators are the target of a new campaign that leverages password cracking software to seize control of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and co-opt the machines to a botnet. The software "exploited a vulnerability in the firmware which allowed it to retrieve the password on command," Dragos security researcher Sam Hanson said. "Further, the software was a malware

Juniper Releases Patches for Critical Flaws in Junos OS and Contrail Networking

Juniper Networks has pushed security updates to address several vulnerabilities affecting multiple products, some of which could be exploited to seize control of affected systems. The most critical of the flaws affect Junos Space and Contrail Networking, with the tech company urging customers to release versions 22.1R1 and 21.4.0, respectively. Chief among them is a collection of 31 bugs in the

Google Removes "App Permissions" List from Play Store for New "Data Safety" Section

Following the launch of a new "Data safety" section for the Android app on the Play Store, Google appears to be readying to remove the app permissions list from both the mobile app and the web. The change was highlighted by Esper's Mishaal Rahman earlier this week. The Data safety section, which Google began rolling out in late April 2022, is the company's answer to Apple's Privacy Nutrition

Hackers Targeting VoIP Servers By Exploiting Digium Phone Software

VoIP phones using Digium's software have been targeted to drop a web shell on their servers as part of an attack campaign designed to exfiltrate data by downloading and executing additional payloads. "The malware installs multilayer obfuscated PHP backdoors to the web server's file system, downloads new payloads for execution, and schedules recurring tasks to re-infect the host system," Palo

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

5 Key Things We Learned from CISOs of Smaller Enterprises Survey

New survey reveals lack of staff, skills, and resources driving smaller teams to outsource security. As business begins its return to normalcy (however “normal” may look), CISOs at small and medium-size enterprises (500 – 10,000 employees) were asked to share their cybersecurity challenges and priorities, and their responses were compared the results with those of a similar survey from 2021.

New Cache Side Channel Attack Can De-Anonymize Targeted Online Users

A group of academics from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has warned of a novel technique that could be used to defeat anonymity protections and identify a unique website visitor. "An attacker who has complete or partial control over a website can learn whether a specific target (i.e., a unique individual) is browsing the website," the researchers said. "The attacker knows this

North Korean Hackers Targeting Small and Midsize Businesses with H0lyGh0st Ransomware

An emerging threat cluster originating from North Korea has been linked to developing and using ransomware in cyberattacks targeting small businesses since September 2021. The group, which calls itself H0lyGh0st after the ransomware payload of the same name, is being tracked by the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center under the moniker DEV-0530, a designation assigned for unknown, emerging, or a