FBI, CISA, and NSA Reveal How Hackers Targeted a Defense Industrial Base Organization

U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence agencies on Tuesday disclosed that multiple nation-state hacking groups potentially targeted a "Defense Industrial Base (DIB) Sector organization's enterprise network" as part of a cyber espionage campaign. "[Advanced persistent threat] actors used an open-source toolkit called Impacket to gain their foothold within the environment and further compromise the

Want More Secure Software? Start Recognizing Security-Skilled Developers

Professional developers want to do the right thing, but in terms of security, they are rarely set up for success. Organizations must support their upskilling with precision training and incentives if they want secure software from the ground up. The cyber threat landscape grows more complex by the day, with our data widely considered highly desirable “digital gold”. Attackers are constantly

Canadian Netwalker Ransomware Affiliate Sentenced to 20 Years in U.S. Prison

A former affiliate of the Netwalker ransomware has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in the U.S., a little over three months after the Canadian national pleaded guilty to his role in the crimes. Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins, 35, has also been ordered to forfeit $21,500,000 that was illicitly obtained from dozens of victims globally, including companies, municipalities, hospitals, law

Mitigation for Exchange Zero-Days Bypassed! Microsoft Issues New Workarounds

Microsoft has updated its mitigation measures for the newly disclosed and actively exploited zero-day flaws in Exchange Server after it was found that they could be trivially bypassed. The two vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082, have been codenamed ProxyNotShell due to similarities to another set of flaws called ProxyShell, which the tech giant resolved last year.

Russian Hacker Arrested in India for Reportedly Helping Students Cheat in JEE-Main Exam

India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday disclosed that it has detained a Russian national for allegedly hacking into a software platform used to conduct engineering entrance assessments in the country in 2021. "The said accused was detained by the Bureau of Immigration at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi while arriving in India from Almaty, Kazakhstan," the primary

Popular YouTube Channel Caught Distributing Malicious Tor Browser Installer

A popular Chinese-language YouTube channel has emerged as a means to distribute a trojanized version of a Windows installer for the Tor Browser. Kaspersky dubbed the campaign OnionPoison, with all of the victims located in China. The scale of the attack remains unclear, but the Russian cybersecurity company said it detected victims appearing in its telemetry in March 2022. The malicious version

Researchers Report Supply Chain Vulnerability in Packagist PHP Repository

Researchers have disclosed details about a now-patched high-severity security flaw in Packagist, a PHP software package repository, that could have been exploited to mount software supply chain attacks. "This vulnerability allows gaining control of Packagist," SonarSource researcher Thomas Chauchefoin said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Packagist is used by the PHP package manager

Back to Basics: Cybersecurity's Weakest Link

A big promise with a big appeal. You hear that a lot in the world of cybersecurity, where you're often promised a fast, simple fix that will take care of all your cybersecurity needs, solving your security challenges in one go.  It could be an AI-based tool, a new superior management tool, or something else – and it would probably be quite effective at what it promises to do. But is it a silver

BEC Scammer Gets 25-Year Jail Sentence for Stealing Over $9.5 Million

A 46-year-old man in the U.S. has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of laundering over $9.5 million accrued by carrying out cyber-enabled financial fraud. Elvis Eghosa Ogiekpolor of Norcross, Georgia, operated a money laundering network that opened at least 50 business bank accounts for illicitly receiving funds from unsuspecting individuals and businesses after

CISA Orders Federal Agencies to Regularly Track Network Assets and Vulnerabilities

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued a new Binding Operational Directive (BOD) that directs federal agencies in the country to keep track of assets and vulnerabilities on their networks six months from now. To that end, Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) enterprises have been tasked with two sets of activities: Asset discovery and vulnerability

ProxyNotShell – the New Proxy Hell?

Nicknamed ProxyNotShell, a new exploit used in the wild takes advantage of the recently published Microsoft Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability CVE-2022-41040 and a second vulnerability, CVE-2022-41082 that allows Remote Code Execution (RCE) when PowerShell is available to unidentified attackers. Based on ProxyShell, this new zero-day abuse risk leverage a chained attack similar to

Optus Hack Exposes Data of Nearly 2.1 Million Australian Telecom Customers

Australian telecom giant Optus on Monday confirmed that nearly 2.1 million of its current and former customers suffered a leak of their personal information and at least one form of identification number as a result of a data breach late last month. The company also said it has engaged the services of Deloitte to conduct an external forensic assessment of the attack to "understand how it

Comm100 Chat Provider Hijacked to Spread Malware in Supply Chain Attack

A threat actor likely with associations to China has been attributed to a new supply chain attack that involves the use of a trojanized installer for the Comm100 Live Chat application to distribute a JavaScript backdoor. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the attack made use of a signed Comm100 desktop agent app for Windows that was downloadable from the company's website. The scale of the

Researchers Link Cheerscrypt Linux-Based Ransomware to Chinese Hackers

The recently discovered Linux-Based ransomware strain known as Cheerscrypt has been outed as a handiwork of a Chinese cyber espionage group known for operating short-lived ransomware schemes. Cybersecurity firm Sygnia attributed the attacks to a threat actor it tracks under the name Emperor Dragonfly, which is also known as Bronze Starlight (Secureworks) and DEV-0401 (Microsoft). "Emperor

Hackers Exploiting Dell Driver Vulnerability to Deploy Rootkit on Targeted Computers

The North Korea-backed Lazarus Group has been observed deploying a Windows rootkit by taking advantage of an exploit in a Dell firmware driver, highlighting new tactics adopted by the state-sponsored adversary. The Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) attack, which took place in the autumn of 2021, is another variant of the threat actor's espionage-oriented activity called Operation In(ter)

Ex-NSA Employee Arrested for Trying to Sell U.S. Secrets to a Foreign Government

A former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) employee has been arrested on charges of attempting to sell classified information to a foreign spy, who was actually an undercover agent working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 30, was employed at the NSA for less than a month from June 6, 2022, to July 1, 2022, serving as an Information Systems Security Designer

Pay What You Want for This Collection of White Hat Hacking Courses

Whether you relish a mental challenge or fancy a six-figure paycheck, there are many good reasons to get into white hat hacking. That said, picking up the necessary knowledge to build a new career can seem like a daunting task. There is a lot to learn, after all. To help you get started, The Hacker News Deals is currently running an eye-catching offer: pay what you want for one video course, and

State-Sponsored Hackers Likely Exploited MS Exchange 0-Days Against ~10 Organizations

Microsoft on Friday disclosed that a single activity group in August 2022 achieved initial access and breached Exchange servers by chaining the two newly disclosed zero-day flaws in a limited set of attacks aimed at less than 10 organizations globally. "These attacks installed the Chopper web shell to facilitate hands-on-keyboard access, which the attackers used to perform Active Directory

CISA Warns of Hackers Exploiting Critical Atlassian Bitbucket Server Vulnerability

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added a recently disclosed critical flaw impacting Atlassian's Bitbucket Server and Data Center to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. Tracked as CVE-2022-36804, the issue relates to a command injection vulnerability that could allow malicious actors to gain arbitrary

New Malware Families Found Targeting VMware ESXi Hypervisors

Threat actors have been found deploying never-before-seen post-compromise implants in VMware's virtualization software to seize control of infected systems and evade detection. Google's Mandiant threat intelligence division referred to it as a "novel malware ecosystem" that impacts VMware ESXi, Linux vCenter servers, and Windows virtual machines, allowing attackers to maintain persistent access

Cyber Attacks Against Middle East Governments Hide Malware in Windows Logo

An espionage-focused threat actor has been observed using a steganographic trick to conceal a previously undocumented backdoor in a Windows logo in its attacks against Middle Eastern governments. Broadcom's Symantec Threat Hunter Team attributed the updated tooling to a hacking group it tracks under the name Witchetty, which is also known as LookingFrog, a subgroup operating under the TA410

New Malware Campaign Targeting Job Seekers with Cobalt Strike Beacons

A social engineering campaign leveraging job-themed lures is weaponizing a years-old remote code execution flaw in Microsoft Office to deploy Cobalt Strike beacons on compromised hosts. "The payload discovered is a leaked version of a Cobalt Strike beacon," Cisco Talos researchers Chetan Raghuprasad and Vanja Svajcer said in a new analysis published Wednesday. "The beacon configuration contains

Why Organisations Need Both EDR and NDR for Complete Network Protection

Endpoint devices like desktops, laptops, and mobile phones enable users to connect to enterprise networks and use their resources for their day-to-day work. However, they also expand the attack surface and make the organisation vulnerable to malicious cyberattacks and data breaches. Why Modern Organisations Need EDR According to the 2020 global risk report by Ponemon Institute, smartphones,

North Korean Hackers Weaponizing Open-Source Software in Latest Cyber Attacks

A "highly operational, destructive, and sophisticated nation-state activity group" with ties to North Korea has been weaponizing open source software in their social engineering campaigns aimed at companies around the world since June 2022. Microsoft's threat intelligence teams, alongside LinkedIn Threat Prevention and Defense, attributed the intrusions with high confidence to Zinc, a threat

Microsoft Confirms 2 New Exchange Zero-Day Flaws Being Used in the Wild

Microsoft officially disclosed it investigating two zero-day security vulnerabilities impacting Exchange Server 2013, 2016, and 2019 following reports of in-the-wild exploitation. "The first vulnerability, identified as CVE-2022-41040, is a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability, while the second, identified as CVE-2022-41082, allows remote code execution (RCE) when PowerShell is

WARNING: New Unpatched Microsoft Exchange Zero-Day Under Active Exploitation

Security researchers are warning of previously undisclosed flaws in fully patched Microsoft Exchange servers being exploited by malicious actors in real-world attacks to achieve remote code execution on affected systems. The advisory comes from Vietnamese cybersecurity company GTSC, which discovered the shortcomings as part of its security monitoring and incident response efforts in August 2022.

Brazilian Prilex Hackers Resurfaced With Sophisticated Point-of-Sale Malware

A Brazilian threat actor known as Prilex has resurfaced after a year-long operational hiatus with an advanced and complex malware to steal money by means of fraudulent transactions. "The Prilex group has shown a high level of knowledge about credit and debit card transactions, and how software used for payment processing works," Kaspersky researchers said. "This enables the attackers to keep

Researchers Uncover Covert Attack Campaign Targeting Military Contractors

A new covert attack campaign singled out multiple military and weapons contractor companies with spear-phishing emails to trigger a multi-stage infection process designed to deploy an unknown payload on compromised machines. The highly-targeted intrusions, dubbed STEEP#MAVERICK by Securonix, also targeted a strategic supplier to the F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft. "The attack was carried out

Five Steps to Mitigate the Risk of Credential Exposure

Every year, billions of credentials appear online, be it on the dark web, clear web, paste sites, or in data dumps shared by cybercriminals. These credentials are often used for account takeover attacks, exposing organizations to breaches, ransomware, and data theft.  While CISOs are aware of growing identity threats and have multiple tools in their arsenal to help reduce the potential risk, the

Swachh City Platform Suffers Data Breach Leaking 16 Million User Records

A threat actor by the name of LeakBase has shared a database containing personal information allegedly affecting 16 million users of Swachh City, an Indian complaint redressal platform. Leaked details include usernames, email addresses, password hashes, mobile numbers, one-time passwords, last logged-in times, and IP addresses, among others, according to a report shared by security firm CloudSEK

Hackers Aid Protests Against Iranian Government with Proxies, Leaks and Hacks

Several hacktivist groups are using Telegram and other tools to aid anti-government protests in Iran to bypass regime censorship restrictions amid ongoing unrest in the country following the death of Mahsa Amini in custody. "Key activities are data leaking and selling, including officials' phone numbers and emails, and maps of sensitive locations," Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point said in

Researchers Warn of New Go-based Malware Targeting Windows and Linux Systems

A new, multi-functional Go-based malware dubbed Chaos has been rapidly growing in volume in recent months to ensnare a wide range of Windows, Linux, small office/home office (SOHO) routers, and enterprise servers into its botnet. "Chaos functionality includes the ability to enumerate the host environment, run remote shell commands, load additional modules, automatically propagate through

Cyber Criminals Using Quantum Builder Sold on Dark Web to Deliver Agent Tesla Malware

A recently discovered malware builder called Quantum Builder is being used to deliver the Agent Tesla remote access trojan (RAT). "This campaign features enhancements and a shift toward LNK (Windows shortcut) files when compared to similar attacks in the past," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Niraj Shivtarkar and Avinash Kumar said in a Tuesday write-up. <!--adsense--> Sold on the dark web for

Improve your security posture with Wazuh, a free and open source XDR

Organizations struggle to find ways to keep a good security posture. This is because it is difficult to create secure system policies and find the right tools that help achieve a good posture. In many cases, organizations work with tools that do not integrate with each other and are expensive to purchase and maintain. Security posture management is a term used to describe the process of

Hackers Using PowerPoint Mouseover Trick to Infect Systems with Malware

The Russian state-sponsored threat actor known as APT28 has been found leveraging a new code execution method that makes use of mouse movement in decoy Microsoft PowerPoint documents to deploy malware. The technique "is designed to be triggered when the user starts the presentation mode and moves the mouse," cybersecurity firm Cluster25 said in a technical report. "The code execution runs a

Facebook Shuts Down Covert Political 'Influence Operations' from Russia and China

Meta Platforms on Tuesday disclosed it took steps to dismantle two covert influence operations originating from China and Russia for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) so as to manipulate public debate. While the Chinese operation sets its sights on the U.S. and the Czech Republic, the Russian network primarily targeted Germany, France, Italy, Ukraine and the U.K. with themes

Critical WhatsApp Bugs Could Have Let Attackers Hack Devices Remotely

WhatsApp has released security updates to address two flaws in its messaging app for Android and iOS that could lead to remote code execution on vulnerable devices. One of them concerns CVE-2022-36934 (CVSS score: 9.8), a critical integer overflow vulnerability in WhatsApp that results in the execution of arbitrary code simply by establishing a video call. The issue impacts the WhatsApp and

Ukraine Says Russia Planning Massive Cyberattacks on its Critical Infrastructures

The Ukrainian government on Monday warned of "massive cyberattacks" by Russia targeting critical infrastructure facilities located in the country and that of its allies. The attacks are said to be targeting the energy sector, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR) said. "By the cyberattacks, the enemy will try to increase the effect of missile strikes on

New NullMixer Malware Campaign Stealing Users' Payment Data and Credentials

Cybercriminals are continuing to prey on users searching for cracked software by directing them to fraudulent websites hosting weaponized installers that deploy malware called NullMixer on compromised systems. "When a user extracts and executes NullMixer, it drops a number of malware files to the compromised machine," cybersecurity firm Kaspersky said in a Monday report. "It drops a wide variety

Experts Uncover 85 Apps with 13 Million Downloads Involved in Ad Fraud Scheme

As many as 75 apps on Google Play and 10 on Apple App Store have been discovered engaging in ad fraud as part of an ongoing campaign that commenced in 2019. The latest iteration, dubbed Scylla by Online fraud-prevention firm HUMAN Security, follows similar attack waves in August 2019 and late 2020 that go by the codename Poseidon and Charybdis, respectively. Prior to their removal from the app

Why Continuous Security Testing is a Must for Organizations Today

The global cybersecurity market is flourishing. Experts at Gartner predict that the end-user spending for the information security and risk management market will grow from $172.5 billion in 2022 to $267.3 billion in 2026.  One big area of spending includes the art of putting cybersecurity defenses under pressure, commonly known as security testing. MarketsandMarkets forecasts the global

North Korea's Lazarus Hackers Targeting macOS Users Interested in Crypto Jobs

The infamous Lazarus Group has continued its pattern of leveraging unsolicited job opportunities to deploy malware targeting Apple's macOS operating system. In the latest variant of the campaign observed by cybersecurity company SentinelOne last week, decoy documents advertising positions for the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange firm Crypto[.]com have been used to mount the attacks. The

Hacker Behind Optus Breach Releases 10,200 Customer Records in Extortion Scheme

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) on Monday disclosed it's working to gather "crucial evidence" and that it's collaborating with overseas law enforcement authorities following the hack of telecom provider Optus. "Operation Hurricane has been launched to identify the criminals behind the alleged breach and to help shield Australians from identity fraud," the AFP said in a statement. The

Researchers Identify 3 Hacktivist Groups Supporting Russian Interests

At least three alleged hacktivist groups working in support of Russian interests are likely doing so in collaboration with state-sponsored cyber threat actors, according to Mandiant. The Google-owned threat intelligence and incident response firm said with moderate confidence that "moderators of the purported hacktivist Telegram channels 'XakNet Team,' 'Infoccentr,' and 'CyberArmyofRussia_Reborn

Chinese Espionage Hackers Target Tibetans Using New LOWZERO Backdoor

A China-aligned advanced persistent threat actor known as TA413 weaponized recently disclosed flaws in Sophos Firewall and Microsoft Office to deploy a never-before-seen backdoor called LOWZERO as part of an espionage campaign aimed at Tibetan entities. Targets primarily consisted of organizations associated with the Tibetan community, including enterprises associated with the Tibetan

BlackCat Ransomware Attackers Spotted Fine-Tuning Their Malware Arsenal

The BlackCat ransomware crew has been spotted fine-tuning their malware arsenal to fly under the radar and expand their reach. "Among some of the more notable developments has been the use of a new version of the Exmatter data exfiltration tool, and the use of Eamfo, information-stealing malware that is designed to steal credentials stored by Veeam backup software," researchers from Symantec 

5 Network Security Threats And How To Protect Yourself

Cybersecurity today matters so much because of everyone's dependence on technology, from collaboration, communication and collecting data to e-commerce and entertainment. Every organisation that needs to deliver services to their customers and employees must protect their IT 'network' - all the apps and connected devices from laptops and desktops to servers and smartphones. While traditionally,

Google to Make Account Login Mandatory for New Fitbit Users in 2023

Wearable technology company Fitbit has announced a new clause that requires users to switch to a Google account "sometime" in 2023. "In 2023, we plan to launch Google accounts on Fitbit, which will enable use of Fitbit with a Google account," the Google-owned fitness devices maker said. <!--adsense--> The switch will not go live for all users in 2023. Rather, support for Fitbit accounts is

Ukraine Arrests Cybercrime Group for Selling Data of 30 Million Accounts

Ukrainian law enforcement authorities on Friday disclosed that it had "neutralized" a hacking group operating from the city of Lviv that it said acted on behalf of Russian interests. The group specialized in the sales of 30 million accounts belonging to citizens from Ukraine and the European Union on the dark web and netted a profit of $372,000 (14 million UAH) through electronic payment systems

London Police Arrested 17-Year-Old Hacker Suspected of Uber and GTA 6 Breaches

The City of London Police on Friday revealed that it has arrested a 17-year-old teenager from Oxfordshire on suspicion of hacking. "On the evening of Thursday 22 September 2022, the City of London Police arrested a 17-year-old in Oxfordshire on suspicion of hacking," the agency said, adding "he remains in police custody." The department said the arrest was made as part of an investigation in

Hackers Exploited Zero-Day RCE Vulnerability in Sophos Firewall — Patch Released

Security software company Sophos has released a patch update for its firewall product after it was discovered that attackers were exploiting a new critical zero-day vulnerability to attack its customers' network. The issue, tracked as CVE-2022-3236 (CVSS score: 9.8), impacts Sophos Firewall v19.0 MR1 (19.0.1) and older and concerns a code injection vulnerability in the User Portal and Webadmin

Hackers Using Fake CircleCI Notifications to Hack GitHub Accounts

GitHub has put out an advisory detailing what may be an ongoing phishing campaign targeting its users to steal credentials and two-factor authentication (2FA) codes by impersonating the CircleCI DevOps platform. The Microsoft-owned code hosting service said it learned of the attack on September 16, 2022, adding the campaign impacted "many victim organizations." The fraudulent messages claim to

Researchers Uncover New Metador APT Targeting Telcos, ISPs, and Universities

A previously undocumented threat actor of unknown origin has been linked to attacks targeting telecom, internet service providers, and universities across multiple countries in the Middle East and Africa. "The operators are highly aware of operations security, managing carefully segmented infrastructure per victim, and quickly deploying intricate countermeasures in the presence of security

CISA Warns of Hackers Exploiting Recent Zoho ManageEngine Vulnerability

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday added a recently disclosed security flaw in Zoho ManageEngine to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. "Zoho ManageEngine PAM360, Password Manager Pro, and Access Manager Plus contain an unspecified vulnerability which allows for remote code execution," the agency

Firing Your Entire Cybersecurity Team? Are You Sure?

What on earth were they thinking? That's what we – and other security experts – were wondering when content giant Patreon recently dismissed its entire internal cybersecurity team in exchange for outsourced services. Of course, we don't know the true motivations for this move. But, as outsiders looking in, we can guess the cybersecurity implications of the decision would be inescapable for any

Void Balaur Hackers-for-Hire Targeting Russian Businesses and Politics Entities

A hack-for-hire group that was first exposed in 2019 has expanded its focus to set its sights on entities with business or political ties to Russia. Dubbed Void Balaur, the cyber mercenary collective has a history of launching cyberattacks against biotechnology and telecom companies since 2015. As many as 3,500 victims have been reported as of November 2021. "Void Balaur [...] primarily dabbles

Fake Indian Banking Rewards Apps Targeting Android Users with Info-stealing Malware

An SMS-based phishing campaign is targeting customers of Indian banks with information-stealing malware that masquerades as a rewards application. The Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team said that the messages contain links that redirect users to a sketchy website that triggers the download of the fake banking rewards app for ICICI Bank. "The malware's RAT capabilities allow the attacker to

Hackers Using Malicious OAuth Apps to Take Over Email Servers

Microsoft on Thursday warned of a consumer-facing attack that made use of rogue OAuth applications deployed on compromised cloud tenants to ultimately seize control of Exchange servers and spread spam. "The threat actor launched credential stuffing attacks against high-risk accounts that didn't have multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled and leveraged the unsecured administrator accounts to

Researchers Uncover Years-Long Mobile Spyware Campaign Targeting Uyghurs

A new wave of a mobile surveillance campaign has been observed targeting the Uyghur community as part of a long-standing spyware operation active since at least 2015, cybersecurity researchers disclosed Thursday. The intrusions, originally attributed to a threat actor named Scarlet Mimic back in January 2016, is said to have encompassed 20 different variants of the Android malware, which were

Malicious NPM Package Caught Mimicking Material Tailwind CSS Package

A malicious NPM package has been found masquerading as the legitimate software library for Material Tailwind, once again indicating attempts on the part of threat actors to distribute malicious code in open source software repositories. Material Tailwind is a CSS-based framework advertised by its maintainers as an "easy to use components library for Tailwind CSS and Material Design." "The