U.S. Imposes New Sanctions on Iran Over Cyberattack on Albania

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday announced sanctions against Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and its Minister of Intelligence, Esmaeil Khatib, for engaging in cyber-enabled activities against the nation and its allies. "Since at least 2007, the MOIS and its cyber actor proxies have conducted malicious cyber operations targeting a range of government and private-sector

6 Top API Security Risks! Favored Targets for Attackers If Left Unmanaged

Security threats are always a concern when it comes to APIs. API security can be compared to driving a car. You must be cautious and review everything closely before releasing it into the world. By failing to do so, you're putting yourself and others at risk. API attacks are more dangerous than other breaches. Facebook had a 50M user account affected by an API breach, and an API data breach on

New Vulnerabilities Reported in Baxter's Internet-Connected Infusion Pumps

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Baxter's internet-connected infusion pumps used by healthcare professionals in clinical environments to dispense medication to patients. "Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could result in access to sensitive data and alteration of system configuration," the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in

Chinese Hackers Target Government Officials in Europe, South America, and Middle East

A Chinese hacking group has been attributed to a new campaign aimed at infecting government officials in Europe, the Middle East, and South America with a modular malware known as PlugX. Cybersecurity firm Secureworks said it identified the intrusions in June and July 2022, once again demonstrating the adversary's continued focus on espionage against governments around the world. "PlugX is

Shopify Fails to Prevent Known Breached Passwords

A recent report revealed that ecommerce provider, Shopify uses particularly weak password policies on the customer-facing portion of its Website. According to the report, Shopify's requires its customers to use a password that is at least five characters in length and that does not begin or end with a space.  According to the report, Specops researchers analyzed a list of a billion passwords

4 Key Takeaways from "XDR is the Perfect Solution for SMEs" webinar

Cyberattacks on large organizations dominate news headlines. So, you may be surprised to learn that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are actually more frequent targets of cyberattacks. Many SMEs understand this risk firsthand.  In a recent survey, 58% of CISOs of SMEs said that their risk of attack was higher compared to enterprises. Yet, they don't have the same resources as enterprises –

Worok Hackers Target High-Profile Asian Companies and Governments

High-profile companies and local governments located primarily in Asia are the subjects of targeted attacks by a previously undocumented espionage group dubbed Worok that has been active since late 2020. "Worok's toolset includes a C++ loader CLRLoad, a PowerShell backdoor PowHeartBeat, and a C# loader PNGLoad that uses steganography to extract hidden malicious payloads from PNG files," ESET

TA505 Hackers Using TeslaGun Panel to Manage ServHelper Backdoor Attacks

Cybersecurity researchers have offered fresh insight into a previously undocumented software control panel used by a financially motivated threat group known as TA505. "The group frequently changes its malware attack strategies in response to global cybercrime trends," Swiss cybersecurity firm PRODAFT said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "It opportunistically adopts new technologies in

Integrating Live Patching in SecDevOps Workflows

SecDevOps is, just like DevOps, a transformational change that organizations undergo at some point during their lifetime. Just like many other big changes, SecDevOps is commonly adopted after a reality check of some kind: a big damaging cybersecurity incident, for example. A major security breach or, say, consistent problems in achieving development goals signals to organizations that the

What Is Your Security Team Profile? Prevention, Detection, or Risk Management

Not all security teams are born equal. Each organization has a different objective. In cybersecurity, adopting a proactive approach is not just a buzzword. It actually is what makes the difference between staying behind attackers and getting ahead of them. And the solutions to do that do exist! Most attacks succeed by taking advantage of common failures in their target's systems. Whether new or

Fake Antivirus and Cleaner Apps Caught Installing SharkBot Android Banking Trojan

The notorious Android banking trojan known as SharkBot has once again made an appearance on the Google Play Store by masquerading as antivirus and cleaner apps. "This new dropper doesn't rely on Accessibility permissions to automatically perform the installation of the dropper Sharkbot malware," NCC Group's Fox-IT said in a report. "Instead, this new version asks the victim to install the

Google Releases Urgent Chrome Update to Patch New Zero-Day Vulnerability

Google on Friday shipped emergency fixes to address a security vulnerability in the Chrome web browser that it said is being actively exploited in the wild. The issue, assigned the identifier CVE-2022-3075, concerns a case of insufficient data validation in Mojo, which refers to a collection of runtime libraries that provide a platform-agnostic mechanism for inter-process communication (IPC). An

JuiceLedger Hackers Behind the Recent Phishing Attacks Against PyPI Users

More details have emerged about the operators behind the first-known phishing campaign specifically aimed at the Python Package Index (PyPI), the official third-party software repository for the programming language. Connecting it to a threat actor tracked as JuiceLedger, cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, along with Checkmarx, described the group as a relatively new entity that surfaced in early

The Ultimate Security Blind Spot You Don't Know You Have

How much time do developers spend actually writing code? According to recent studies, developers spend more time maintaining, testing and securing existing code than they do writing or improving code. Security vulnerabilities have a bad habit of popping up during the software development process, only to surface after an application has been deployed. The disappointing part is that many of these

Google Chrome Bug Lets Sites Silently Overwrite System Clipboard Content

A "major" security issue in the Google Chrome web browser, as well as Chromium-based alternatives, could allow malicious web pages to automatically overwrite clipboard content without requiring any user consent or interaction by simply visiting them. The clipboard poisoning attack is said to have been accidentally introduced in Chrome version 104, according to developer Jeff Johnson. While the

Stop Worrying About Passwords Forever

So far 2022 confirms that passwords are not dead yet. Neither will they be anytime soon. Even though Microsoft and Apple are championing passwordless authentication methods, most applications and websites will not remove this option for a very long time. Think about it, internal apps that you do not want to integrate with third-party identity providers, government services, legacy applications,

Over 1,800 Android and iOS Apps Found Leaking Hard-Coded AWS Credentials

Researchers have identified 1,859 apps across Android and iOS containing hard-coded Amazon Web Services (AWS) credentials, posing a major security risk. "Over three-quarters (77%) of the apps contained valid AWS access tokens allowing access to private AWS cloud services," Symantec's Threat Hunter team, a part of Broadcom Software, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Interestingly, a

Infra Used in Cisco Hack Also Targeted Workforce Management Solution

The attack infrastructure used to target Cisco in the May 2022 incident was also employed against an attempted compromise of an unnamed workforce management solutions holding company a month earlier in April 2022. Cybersecurity firm eSentire, which disclosed the findings, raised the possibility that the intrusions could be the work of a criminal actor known as mx1r, who is said to be a member of

Experts Find Malicious Cookie Stuffing Chrome Extensions Used by 1.4 Million Users

Five imposter extensions for the Google Chrome web browser masquerading as Netflix viewers and others have been found to track users' browsing activity and profit off retail affiliate programs. "The extensions offer various functions such as enabling users to watch Netflix shows together, website coupons, and taking screenshots of a website," McAfee researchers Oliver Devane and Vallabh Chole 

Hackers Hide Malware in Stunning Images Taken by James Webb Space Telescope

A persistent Golang-based malware campaign dubbed GO#WEBBFUSCATOR has leveraged the deep field image taken from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as a lure to deploy malicious payloads on infected systems. The development, revealed by Securonix, points to the growing adoption of Go among threat actors, given the programming language's cross-platform support, effectively allowing the

Interested in Reducing Your Risk Profile? Jamf Has a Solution for That

The threat landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade. While cybercriminals continue to look for new ways to gain access to networks and steal sensitive information, the mobile attack surface is also expanding. Mobile devices are not only becoming more powerful but also more vulnerable to cyberattacks, making mobile security an increasingly important concern for enterprises. This

Chinese Hackers Used ScanBox Framework in Recent Cyber Espionage Attacks

A months-long cyber espionage campaign undertaken by a Chinese nation-state group targeted several entities with reconnaissance malware so as to glean information about its victims and meet its strategic goals. "The targets of this recent campaign spanned Australia, Malaysia, and Europe, as well as entities that operate in the South China Sea," enterprise security firm Proofpoint said in a

Hands-on Review: Stellar Cyber Security Operations Platform for MSSPs

As threat complexity increases and the boundaries of an organization have all but disappeared, security teams are more challenged than ever to deliver consistent security outcomes. One company aiming to help security teams meet this challenge is Stellar Cyber.  Stellar Cyber claims to address the needs of MSSPs by providing capabilities typically found in NG-SIEM, NDR, and SOAR products in their

A CISO's Ultimate Security Validation Checklist

If you're heading out of the office on a well-deserved vacation, are you certain the security controls you have in place will let you rest easy while you're away? More importantly – do you have the right action plan in place for a seamless return? Whether you're on the way out of – or back to – the office, our Security Validation Checklist can help make sure your security posture is in good

CISA Adds 10 New Known Actively Exploited Vulnerabilities to its Catalog

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added 10 new actively exploited vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, including a high-severity security flaw affecting industrial automation software from Delta Electronics. The issue, tracked as CVE-2021-38406 (CVSS score: 7.8), impacts DOPSoft 2 versions 2.00.07 and prior. A successful

Hackers Breach LastPass Developer System to Steal Source Code

Password management service LastPass confirmed a security incident that resulted in the theft of certain source code and technical information. The security breach is said to have occurred two weeks ago, targeting its development environment. No customer data or encrypted passwords were accessed, although the company provided no further details regarding the hack and what source code was stolen.

U.S. Government Spending Billions on Cybersecurity

In recent months, the House of Representatives has been hard at work drafting various spending bills for the 2023 fiscal year. While these bills provide funding for a vast array of government programs and agencies, there was one thing that really stands out. Collectively, the bills that are making their way through the house allocate a staggering $15.6 billion to cybersecurity spending. As you

Crypto Miners Using Tox P2P Messenger as Command and Control Server

Threat actors have begun to use the Tox peer-to-peer instant messaging service as a command-and-control method, marking a shift from its earlier role as a contact method for ransomware negotiations. The findings from Uptycs, which analyzed an Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) artifact ("72client") that functions as a bot and can run scripts on the compromised host using the Tox protocol. Tox

Guide: How Service Providers can Deliver vCISO Services at Scale

From ransomware to breaches, from noncompliance penalties to reputational damage – cyberthreats pose an existential risk to any business. But for SMEs and SMBs, the danger is compounded. These companies realize they need an in-house Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) – someone who can assess risks and vulnerabilities, create and execute a comprehensive cybersecurity plan, ensure

Google Uncovers Tool Used by Iranian Hackers to Steal Data from Email Accounts

The Iranian government-backed actor known as Charming Kitten has added a new tool to its malware arsenal that allows it to retrieve user data from Gmail, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Outlook accounts. Dubbed HYPERSCRAPE by Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG), the actively in-development malicious software is said to have been used against less than two dozen accounts in Iran, with the oldest known

XCSSET Malware Updates with Python 3 to Target macOS Monterey Users

The operators of the XCSSET macOS malware have upped the stakes by making iterative improvements that add support for macOS Monterey by upgrading its source code components to Python 3. "The malware authors have changed from hiding the primary executable in a fake Xcode.app in the initial versions in 2020 to a fake Mail.app in 2021 and now to a fake Notes.app in 2022," SentinelOne researchers

Suspected Iranian Hackers Targeted Several Israeli Organizations for Espionage

A suspected Iranian threat activity cluster has been linked to attacks aimed at Israeli shipping, government, energy, and healthcare organizations as part of an espionage-focused campaign that commenced in late 2020. Cybersecurity firm Mandiant is tracking the group under its uncategorized moniker UNC3890, which is believed to conduct operations that align with Iranian interests. "The collected

RTLS Systems Found Vulnerable to MiTM Attacks and Location Tampering

Researchers have disclosed multiple vulnerabilities impacting Ultra-wideband (UWB) Real-time Locating Systems (RTLS), enabling threat actors to launch adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) attacks and tamper with location data. "The zero-days found specifically pose a security risk for workers in industrial environments," cybersecurity firm Nozomi Networks disclosed in a technical write-up last week. "

Penetration Testing or Vulnerability Scanning? What's the Difference?

Pentesting and vulnerability scanning are often confused for the same service. The problem is, business owners often use one when they really need the other. Let's dive in and explain the differences. People frequently confuse penetration testing and vulnerability scanning, and it's easy to see why. Both look for weaknesses in your IT infrastructure by exploring your systems in the same way an

Cybercriminals Developing BugDrop Malware to Bypass Android Security Features

In a sign that malicious actors continue to find ways to work around Google Play Store security protections, researchers have spotted a previously undocumented Android dropper trojan that's currently in development. "This new malware tries to abuse devices using a novel technique, not seen before in Android malware, to spread the extremely dangerous Xenomorph banking trojan, allowing criminals

New Google Chrome Zero-Day Vulnerability Being Exploited in the Wild

Google on Tuesday rolled out patches for Chrome browser for desktops to contain an actively exploited high-severity zero-day flaw in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2022-2856, the issue has been described as a case of insufficient validation of untrusted input in Intents. Security researchers Ashley Shen and Christian Resell of Google Threat Analysis Group have been credited with reporting the flaw on

Researchers Link Multi-Year Mass Credential Theft Campaign to Chinese Hackers

A Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group named RedAlpha has been attributed to a multi-year mass credential theft campaign aimed at global humanitarian, think tank, and government organizations. "In this activity, RedAlpha very likely sought to gain access to email accounts and other online communications of targeted individuals and organizations," Recorded Future disclosed in a new

Lean Security 101: 3 Tips for Building Your Framework

Cobalt, Lazarus, MageCart, Evil, Revil — cybercrime syndicates spring up so fast it's hard to keep track. Until…they infiltrate your system. But you know what's even more overwhelming than rampant cybercrime? Building your organization's security framework.  CIS, NIST, PCI DSS, HIPAA, HITrust, and the list goes on. Even if you had the resources to implement every relevant industry standard and

Malicious Browser Extensions Targeted Over a Million Users So Far This Year

More than 1.31 million users attempted to install malicious or unwanted web browser extensions at least once, new findings from cybersecurity firm Kaspersky show. "From January 2020 to June 2022, more than 4.3 million unique users were attacked by adware hiding in browser extensions, which is approximately 70% of all users affected by malicious and unwanted add-ons," the company said. As many as

North Korea Hackers Spotted Targeting Job Seekers with macOS Malware

The North Korea-backed Lazarus Group has been observed targeting job seekers with malware capable of executing on Apple Macs with Intel and M1 chipsets. Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET linked it to a campaign dubbed "Operation In(ter)ception" that was first disclosed in June 2020 and involved using social engineering tactics to trick employees working in the aerospace and military sectors into

New Evil PLC Attack Weaponizes PLCs to Breach OT and Enterprise Networks

Cybersecurity researchers have elaborated a novel attack technique that weaponizes programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to gain an initial foothold in engineering workstations and subsequently invade the operational technology (OT) networks. Dubbed "Evil PLC" attack by industrial security firm Claroty, the issue impacts engineering workstation software from Rockwell Automation, Schneider

Unified Threat Management: The All-in-One Cybersecurity Solution

UTM (Unified threat management) is thought to be an all-in-one solution for cybersecurity. In general, it is a versatile software or hardware firewall solution integrated with IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) and other security services. A universal gateway allows the user to manage network security with one comprehensive solution, which makes the task much easier. In addition, compared to a

Nearly 1,900 Signal Messenger Accounts Potentially Compromised in Twilio Hack

Popular end-to-end encrypted messaging service Signal on Monday disclosed the cyberattack aimed at Twilio earlier this month may have exposed the phone numbers of roughly 1,900 users. "For about 1,900 users, an attacker could have attempted to re-register their number to another device or learned that their number was registered to Signal," the company said. "All users can rest assured that

Credential Theft Is (Still) A Top Attack Method

Credential theft is clearly still a problem. Even after years of warnings, changing password requirements, and multiple forms of authentication, password stealing remains a top attack method used by cyber criminals. The latest report from the Ponemon Institute shares that 54% of security incidents were caused by credential theft, followed by ransomware and DDoS attacks. 59% of organizations

Chinese Hackers Backdoored MiMi Chat App to Target Windows, Linux, macOS Users

A pair of reports from cybersecurity firms SEKOIA and Trend Micro sheds light on a new campaign undertaken by a Chinese threat actor named Lucky Mouse that involves leveraging a trojanized version of a cross-platform messaging app to backdoor systems. Infection chains leverage a chat application called MiMi, with its installer files compromised to download and install HyperBro samples for the

Researchers Uncover UEFI Secure Boot Bypass in 3 Microsoft Signed Boot Loaders

A security feature bypass vulnerability has been uncovered in three signed third-party Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) boot loaders that allow bypass of the UEFI Secure Boot feature. "These vulnerabilities can be exploited by mounting the EFI System Partition and replacing the existing bootloader with the vulnerable one, or modifying a UEFI variable to load the vulnerable loader

Xiaomi Phones with MediaTek Chips Found Vulnerable to Forged Payments

Security flaws have been identified in Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T and Redmi Note 11 models, which could be exploited to disable the mobile payment mechanism and even forge transactions via a rogue Android app installed on the devices. Check Point said it found the flaws in devices powered by MediaTek chipsets during a security analysis of the Chinese handset maker's Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)

Facebook Testing Default End-to-End Encryption and Encrypted Backups in Messenger

Social media company Meta said it will begin testing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) on its Messenger platform this week for select users as the default option, as the company continues to slowly add security layers to its various chat services. "If you're in the test group, some of your most frequent chats may be automatically end-to-end encrypted, which means you won't have to opt in to the

Cisco Patches High-Severity Vulnerability Affecting ASA and Firepower Solutions

Cisco on Wednesday released patches to contain multiple flaws in its software that could be abused to leak sensitive information on susceptible appliances. The issue, assigned the identifier CVE-2022-20866 (CVSS score: 7.4), has been described as a "logic error" when handling RSA keys on devices running Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD)

Fast and Secure VPN on a Budget? Private Internet Access VPN Has You Covered

Back when the internet consisted of a handful of computers networked together across a few research institutions, nobody could have imagined that it would one day form the backbone of a new digital way of life. And that probably explains why none of the researchers who thought up its core technologies — things like packet switching and TCP/IP — gave much consideration to the need to secure the

What the Zola Hack Can Teach Us About Password Security

Password security is only as strong as the password itself. Unfortunately, we are often reminded of the danger of weak, reused, and compromised passwords with major cybersecurity breaches that start with stolen credentials. For example, in May 2022, the popular wedding planning site, Zola, was the victim of a significant cybersecurity breach where hackers used an attack known as credential

Critical Flaws Disclosed in Device42 IT Asset Management Software

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed multiple severe security vulnerabilities asset management platform Device42 that, if successfully exploited, could enable a malicious actor to seize control of affected systems. "By exploiting these issues, an attacker could impersonate other users, obtain admin-level access in the application (by leaking session with an LFI) or obtain full access to the

The Business of Hackers-for-Hire Threat Actors

Today's web has made hackers' tasks remarkably easy. For the most part, hackers don't even have to hide in the dark recesses of the web to take advantage of people any longer; they can be found right in plain sight on social media sites or forums, professionally advertised with their websites, and may even approach you anonymously through such channels as Twitter. Cybercrime has entered a new

Hackers Behind Twilio Breach Also Targeted Cloudflare Employees

Web infrastructure company Cloudflare on Tuesday disclosed at least 76 employees and their family members received text messages on their personal and work phones bearing similar characteristics as that of the sophisticated phishing attack against Twilio. The attack, which transpired around the same time Twilio was targeted, came from four phone numbers associated with T-Mobile-issued SIM cards

The Truth About False Positives in Security

TL;DR: As weird as it might sound, seeing a few false positives reported by a security scanner is probably a good sign and certainly better than seeing none. Let's explain why. Introduction False positives have made a somewhat unexpected appearance in our lives in recent years. I am, of course, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic, which required massive testing campaigns in order to control the

Chinese Hackers Targeted Dozens of Industrial Enterprises and Public Institutions

Over a dozen military-industrial complex enterprises and public institutions in Afghanistan and Europe have come under a wave of targeted attacks since January 2022 to steal confidential data by simultaneously making use of six different backdoors. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky attributed the attacks "with a high degree of confidence" to a China-linked threat actor tracked by Proofpoint 

The Benefits of Building a Mature and Diverse Blue Team

A few days ago, a friend and I were having a rather engaging conversation that sparked my excitement. We were discussing my prospects of becoming a red teamer as a natural career progression. The reason I got stirred up is not that I want to change either my job or my position, as I am a happy camper being part of Cymulate's blue team. What upset me was that my friend could not grasp the idea

Slack Resets Passwords After a Bug Exposed Hashed Passwords for Some Users

Slack said it took the step of resetting passwords for about 0.5% of its users after a flaw exposed salted password hashes when creating or revoking shared invitation links for workspaces. "When a user performed either of these actions, Slack transmitted a hashed version of their password to other workspace members," the enterprise communication and collaboration platform said in an alert on 4th

Resolving Availability vs. Security, a Constant Conflict in IT

Conflicting business requirements is a common problem – and you find it in every corner of an organization, including in information technology. Resolving these conflicts is a must, but it isn’t always easy – though sometimes there is a novel solution that helps. In IT management there is a constant struggle between security and operations teams. Yes, both teams ultimately want to have secure

Who Has Control: The SaaS App Admin Paradox

Imagine this: a company-wide lockout to the company CRM, like Salesforce, because the organization's external admin attempts to disable MFA for themselves. They don't think to consult with the security team and don't consider the security implications, only the ease which they need for their team to use their login.  This CRM, however, defines MFA as a top-tier security setting; for example,