New Flaw in Acer Laptops Could Let Attackers Disable Secure Boot Protection

Acer has released a firmware update to address a security vulnerability that could be potentially weaponized to turn off UEFI Secure Boot on affected machines. Tracked as CVE-2022-4020, the high-severity vulnerability affects five different models that consist of Aspire A315-22, A115-21, and A315-22G, and Extensa EX215-21 and EX215-21G. <!--adsense--> The PC maker described the vulnerability as

7 Cyber Security Tips for SMBs

When the headlines focus on breaches of large enterprises like the Optus breach, it’s easy for smaller businesses to think they’re not a target for hackers. Surely, they’re not worth the time or effort?  Unfortunately, when it comes to cyber security, size doesn’t matter.  Assuming you’re not a target leads to lax security practices in many SMBs who lack the knowledge or expertise to put simple

CISA Warns of Actively Exploited Critical Oracle Fusion Middleware Vulnerability

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added a critical flaw impacting Oracle Fusion Middleware to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-35587, carries a CVSS score of 9.8 and impacts Oracle Access Manager (OAM) versions 11.1.2.3.0, 12.2.1.3.0, and 12.2.1.4.0. <!--

Researchers Detail AppSync Cross-Tenant Vulnerability in Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has resolved a cross-tenant vulnerability in its platform that could be weaponized by an attacker to gain unauthorized access to resources. The issue relates to a confused deputy problem, a type of privilege escalation where a program that doesn't have permission to perform an action can coerce a more-privileged entity to perform the action. The shortcoming was reported

The 5 Cornerstones for an Effective Cyber Security Awareness Training

It's not news that phishing attacks are getting more complex and happening more often. This year alone, APWG reported a record-breaking total of 1,097,811 phishing attacks. These attacks continue to target organizations and individuals to gain their sensitive information.  The hard news: they're often successful, have a long-lasting negative impact on your organization and employees, including:

Elon Musk Confirms Twitter 2.0 will Bring End-to-End Encryption to Direct Messages

Twitter chief executive Elon Musk confirmed plans for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for direct messages on the platform. The feature is part of Musk's vision for Twitter 2.0, which is expected to be what's called an "everything app." Other functionalities include longform tweets and payments, according to a slide deck shared by Musk over the weekend. <!--adsense--> The company's plans for

New RansomExx Ransomware Variant Rewritten in the Rust Programming Language

The operators of the RansomExx ransomware have become the latest to develop a new variant fully rewritten in the Rust programming language, following other strains like BlackCat, Hive, and Luna. The latest version, dubbed RansomExx2 by the threat actor known as Hive0091 (aka DefrayX), is primarily designed to run on the Linux operating system, although it's expected that a Windows version will

Boost Your Security with Europe's Leading Bug Bounty Platform

As 2022 comes to an end, now's the time to level up your bug bounty program with Intigriti. Are you experiencing slow bug bounty lead times, gaps in security skills, or low-quality reports from researchers? Intigriti's expert triage team and global community of ethical hackers are enabling businesses to protect themselves against every emerging cybersecurity threat. Join the likes of Intel,

Ducktail Malware Operation Evolves with New Malicious Capabilities

The operators of the Ducktail information stealer have demonstrated a "relentless willingness to persist" and continued to update their malware as part of an ongoing financially driven campaign. "The malware is designed to steal browser cookies and take advantage of authenticated Facebook sessions to steal information from the victim's Facebook account," WithSecure researcher Mohammad Kazem

Hackers Exploiting Abandoned Boa Web Servers to Target Critical Industries

Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed the intrusion activity aimed at Indian power grid entities earlier this year likely involved the exploitation of security flaws in a now-discontinued web server called Boa. The tech behemoth's cybersecurity division said the vulnerable component poses a "supply chain risk that may affect millions of organizations and devices." The findings build on a prior report 

This Malware Installs Malicious Browser Extensions to Steal Users' Passwords and Cryptos

A malicious extension for Chromium-based web browsers has been observed to be distributed via a long-standing Windows information stealer called ViperSoftX. Czech-based cybersecurity company dubbed the rogue browser add-on VenomSoftX owing to its standalone features that enable it to access website visits, steal credentials and clipboard data, and even swap cryptocurrency addresses via an

Here's How to Ensure Your Incident Response Strategy is Ready for Holiday Hackers

The best line of defense against holiday hacking schemes is a comprehensive incident response strategy that focuses on end-user vulnerabilities.  The holiday season is upon us and with it a slew of cybersecurity scams preying on end-user vulnerabilities. Because employees often use their business emails and cell phones as their primary point of contact, these scams quickly become a threat to

U.S. Authorities Seize Domains Used in 'Pig butchering' Cryptocurrency Scams

The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) on Monday announced the takedown of seven domain names in connection to a "pig butchering" cryptocurrency scam. The fraudulent scheme, which operated from May to August 2022, netted the actors over $10 million from five victims, the DoJ said. Pig butchering, also called Sha Zhu Pan, is a type of scam in which swindlers lure unsuspecting investors into sending

Google Wins Lawsuit Against Russians Linked to Blockchain-based Glupteba Botnet

Google has won a lawsuit filed against two Russian nationals in connection with the operation of a botnet called Glupteba, the company said last week. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York imposed monetary sanctions against the defendants and their U.S.-based legal counsel. The defendants have also been asked to pay Google's attorney fees. The defendants' move to press

Atlassian Releases Patches for Critical Flaws Affecting Crowd and Bitbucket Products

Australian software company Atlassian has rolled out security updates to address two critical flaws affecting Bitbucket Server, Data Center, and Crowd products. The issues, tracked as CVE-2022-43781 and CVE-2022-43782, are both rated 9 out of 10 on the CVSS vulnerability scoring system. CVE-2022-43781, which Atlassian said was introduced in version 7.0.0 of Bitbucket Server and Data Center,

Threat hunting with MITRE ATT&CK and Wazuh

Threat hunting is the process of looking for malicious activity and its artifacts in a computer system or network. Threat hunting is carried out intermittently in an environment regardless of whether or not threats have been discovered by automated security solutions. Some threat actors may stay dormant in an organization's infrastructure, extending their access while waiting for the right

Iranian Hackers Compromised a U.S. Federal Agency’s Network Using Log4Shell Exploit

Iranian government-sponsored threat actors have been blamed for compromising a U.S. federal agency by taking advantage of the Log4Shell vulnerability in an unpatched VMware Horizon server. The details, which were shared by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), come in response to incident response efforts undertaken by the authority from mid-June through mid-July 2022

7 Reasons to Choose an MDR Provider

According to a recent survey, 90% of CISOs running teams in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use a managed detection and response (MDR) service. That’s a 53% increase from last year. Why the dramatic shift to MDR? CISOs at organizations of any size, but especially SMEs, are realizing that the threat landscape and the way we do cybersecurity are among the many things that will never look

Critical RCE Flaw Reported in Spotify's Backstage Software Catalog and Developer Platform

Spotify's Backstage has been discovered as vulnerable to a severe security flaw that could be exploited to gain remote code execution by leveraging a recently disclosed bug in a third-party module. The vulnerability (CVSS score: 9.8), at its core, takes advantage of a critical sandbox escape in vm2, a popular JavaScript sandbox library (CVE-2022-36067 aka Sandbreak), that came to light last

PCspooF: New Vulnerability Affects Networking Tech Used by Spacecraft and Aircraft

Credit: Marina Minkin A novel attack method has been disclosed against a crucial piece of technology called time-triggered ethernet (TTE) that's used in safety-critical infrastructure, potentially causing the failure of systems powering spacecraft and aircraft. Dubbed PCspooF by a group of academics and researchers from the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, and the NASA

New "Earth Longzhi" APT Targets Ukraine and Asian Countries with Custom Cobalt Strike Loaders

Entities located in East and Southeast Asia as well as Ukraine have been targeted at least since 2020 by a previously undocumented subgroup of APT41, a prolific Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT). Cybersecurity firm Trend Micro, which christened the espionage crew Earth Longzhi, said the actor's long-running campaign can be split into two based on the toolset deployed to attack its victims

Experts Uncover Two Long-Running Android Spyware Campaigns Targeting Uyghurs

Two long-running surveillance campaigns have been found targeting the Uyghur community in China and elsewhere with Android spyware tools designed to harvest sensitive information and track their whereabouts. This encompasses a previously undocumented malware strain called BadBazaar and updated variants of an espionage artifact dubbed MOONSHINE by researchers from the University of Toronto's

VPN vs. DNS Security

When you are trying to get another layer of cyber protection that would not require a lot of resources, you are most likely choosing between a VPN service & a DNS Security solution. Let's discuss both.  VPN Explained VPN stands for Virtual Private Networks and basically hides your IP and provides an encrypted server by redirecting your traffic via a server run by a VPN host. It establishes a

Multiple High-Severity Flaws Affect Widely Used OpenLiteSpeed Web Server Software

Multiple high-severity flaws have been uncovered in the open source OpenLiteSpeed Web Server as well as its enterprise variant that could be weaponized to achieve remote code execution. "By chaining and exploiting the vulnerabilities, adversaries could compromise the web server and gain fully privileged remote code execution," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a Thursday report. <!--adsense-->

Russian-Canadian National Charged Over Involvement in LockBit Ransomware Attacks

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced charges against a dual Russian and Canadian national for his alleged participation in LockBit ransomware attacks across the world. The 33-year-old Ontario resident, Mikhail Vasiliev, has been taken into custody and is awaiting extradition to the U.S., where is likely to be sentenced for a maximum of five years in prison. Vasiliev has been

Researchers Uncover PyPI Package Hiding Malicious Code Behind Image File

A malicious package discovered on the Python Package Index (PyPI) has been found employing a steganographic trick to conceal malicious code within image files. The package in question, named "apicolor," was uploaded to the Python third-party repository on October 31, 2022, and described as a "Core lib for REST API," according to Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point. It has since been taken

Is Cybersecurity Awareness Month Anything More Than PR?

Cybersecurity Awareness Month has been going on since 2004. This year, Cybersecurity Awareness Month urged the public, professionals, and industry partners to "see themselves in cyber" in the following ways:  The public, by taking action to stay safe online. Professionals, by joining the cyber workforce. Cyber industry partners, as part of the cybersecurity solution. CISA outlined four "things

Citrix Issues Patches for Critical Flaw Affecting ADC and Gateway Products

Citrix has released security updates to address a critical authentication bypass flaw in the application delivery controller (ADC) and Gateway products that could be exploited to take control of affected systems. Successful exploitation of the issues could enable an adversary to gain authorized access, perform remote desktop takeover, and even circumvent defenses against login brute-force

High-Severity Flaw Reported in Critical System Used by Oil and Gas Companies

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new vulnerability in a system used across oil and gas organizations that could be exploited by an attacker to inject and execute arbitrary code. The high-severity issue, tracked as CVE-2022-0902 (CVSS score: 8.1), is a path-traversal vulnerability in ABB Totalflow flow computers and remote controllers. "Attackers can exploit this flaw to gain

Re-Focusing Cyber Insurance with Security Validation

The rise in the costs of data breaches, ransomware, and other cyber attacks leads to rising cyber insurance premiums and more limited cyber insurance coverage. This cyber insurance situation increases risks for organizations struggling to find coverage or facing steep increases. Some Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP's law firm clients, for example, reported a three-fold increase in insurance

New UEFI Firmware Flaws Reported in Several Lenovo Notebook Models

PC maker Lenovo has addressed yet another set of three shortcomings in the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware affecting several Yoga, IdeaPad, and ThinkBook devices. "The vulnerabilities allow disabling UEFI Secure Boot or restoring factory default Secure Boot databases (incl. dbx): all simply from an OS," Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET explained in a series of tweets. UEFI

Top 5 API Security Myths That Are Crushing Your Business

There are several myths and misconceptions about API security. These myths about securing APIs are crushing your business.  Why so? Because these myths are widening your security gaps. This is making it easier for attackers to abuse APIs. And API attacks are costly. Of course, you will have to bear financial losses. But there are other consequences too:  Reputational damage  Customer attrition

VMware Warns of 3 New Critical Flaws Affecting Workspace ONE Assist Software

VMware has patched five security flaws affecting its Workspace ONE Assist solution, some of which could be exploited to bypass authentication and obtain elevated permissions. Topping the list are three critical vulnerabilities tracked as CVE-2022-31685, CVE-2022-31686, and CVE-2022-31687. All the shortcomings are rated 9.8 on the CVSS vulnerability scoring system. CVE-2022-31685 is an

Amadey Bot Spotted Deploying LockBit 3.0 Ransomware on Hacked Machines

The Amadey malware is being used to deploy LockBit 3.0 ransomware on compromised systems, researchers have warned. "Amadey bot, the malware that is used to install LockBit, is being distributed through two methods: one using a malicious Word document file, and the other using an executable that takes the disguise of the Word file icon," AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC) said in a

U.S. Seizes Over 50K Bitcoin Worth $3.3 Billion Linked to Silk Road Dark Web

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Monday said it seized 50,676 Bitcoin in November 2021 that was stolen in the 2012 hack of the now-defunct Silk Road dark web marketplace. The bitcoin, which was obtained in 2012 and valued at $3.36 billion when it was discovered last year, is now worth $1.04 billion. Additionally recovered were $661,900 in cash, 25 Casascius coins with an approximate value

5 Reasons to Consolidate Your Tech Stack

The news surrounding the slowing economy has many wondering how much of an impact it will have on their businesses – and lives. And there's good reason to start preparing.  A recent survey by McKinsey & Company found that 85% of small and midsize businesses plan to increase their security spending heading into 2023, while Gartner recently projected that 2022 IT spending will only grow by 3%,

Experts Find URLScan Security Scanner Inadvertently Leaks Sensitive URLs and Data

Security researchers are warning of "a trove of sensitive information" leaking through urlscan.io, a website scanner for suspicious and malicious URLs. "Sensitive URLs to shared documents, password reset pages, team invites, payment invoices and more are publicly listed and searchable," Positive Security co-founder, Fabian Bräunlein, said in a report published on November 2, 2022. The

Researchers Uncover 29 Malicious PyPI Packages Targeted Developers with W4SP Stealer

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered 29 packages in Python Package Index (PyPI), the official third-party software repository for the Python programming language, that aim to infect developers' machines with a malware called W4SP Stealer. "The main attack seems to have started around October 12, 2022, slowly picking up steam to a concentrated effort around October 22," software supply chain

Microsoft Warns of Uptick in Hackers Leveraging Publicly-Disclosed 0-Day Vulnerabilities

Microsoft is warning of an uptick among nation-state and criminal actors increasingly leveraging publicly-disclosed zero-day vulnerabilities for breaching target environments. The tech giant, in its 114-page Digital Defense Report, said it has "observed a reduction in the time between the announcement of a vulnerability and the commoditization of that vulnerability," making it imperative that

Your OT Is No Longer Isolated: Act Fast to Protect It

Not too long ago, there was a clear separation between the operational technology (OT) that drives the physical functions of a company – on the factory floor, for example – and the information technology (IT) that manages a company's data to enable management and planning.  As IT assets became increasingly connected to the outside world via the internet, OT remained isolated from IT – and the

CISA Warns of Critical Vulnerabilities in 3 Industrial Control System Software

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has published three Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories about multiple vulnerabilities in software from ETIC Telecom, Nokia, and Delta Industrial Automation. Prominent among them is a set of three flaws affecting ETIC Telecom's Remote Access Server (RAS), which "could allow an attacker to obtain sensitive information and

Why Identity & Access Management Governance is a Core Part of Your SaaS Security

Every SaaS app user and login is a potential threat; whether it's bad actors or potential disgruntled former associates, identity management and access control is crucial to prevent unwanted or mistaken entrances to the organization's data and systems.  Since enterprises have thousands to tens of thousands of users, and hundreds to thousands of different apps, ensuring each entrance point and

OPERA1ER APT Hackers Targeted Dozens of Financial Organizations in Africa

A French-speaking threat actor dubbed OPERA1ER has been linked to a series of more than 30 successful cyber attacks aimed at banks, financial services, and telecom companies across Africa, Asia, and Latin America between 2018 and 2022. According to Singapore-headquartered cybersecurity company Group-IB, the attacks have led to thefts totaling $11 million, with actual damages estimated to be as

Multiple Vulnerabilities Reported in Checkmk IT Infrastructure Monitoring Software

Multiple vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Checkmk IT Infrastructure monitoring software that could be chained together by an unauthenticated, remote attacker to fully take over affected servers.  "These vulnerabilities can be chained together by an unauthenticated, remote attacker to gain code execution on the server running Checkmk version 2.1.0p10 and lower," SonarSource researcher

Dropbox Breach: Hackers Unauthorizedly Accessed 130 GitHub Source Code Repositories

File hosting service Dropbox on Tuesday disclosed that it was the victim of a phishing campaign that allowed unidentified threat actors to gain unauthorized access to 130 of its source code repositories on GitHub. "These repositories included our own copies of third-party libraries slightly modified for use by Dropbox, internal prototypes, and some tools and configuration files used by the

OpenSSL Releases Patch for 2 New High-Severity Vulnerabilities

The OpenSSL project has rolled out fixes to contain two high-severity flaws in its widely used cryptography library that could result in a denial-of-service (DoS) and remote code execution. The issues, tracked as CVE-2022-3602 and CVE-2022-3786, have been described as buffer overrun vulnerabilities that can be triggered during X.509 certificate verification by supplying a specially-crafted email

Researchers Disclose Details of Critical 'CosMiss' RCE Flaw Affecting Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft on Tuesday said it addressed an authentication bypass vulnerability in Jupyter Notebooks for Azure Cosmos DB that enabled full read and write access. The tech giant said the problem was introduced on August 12, 2022, and rectified worldwide on October 6, 2022, two days after responsible disclosure from Orca Security, which dubbed the flaw CosMiss. "In short, if an attacker had

Last Years Open Source - Tomorrow's Vulnerabilities

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux and Git, has his own law in software development, and it goes like this: "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." This phrase puts the finger on the very principle of open source: the more, the merrier - if the code is easily available for anyone and everyone to fix bugs, it's pretty safe. But is it? Or is the saying "all bugs are shallow" only true for

GitHub Repojacking Bug Could've Allowed Attackers to Takeover Other Users' Repositories

Cloud-based repository hosting service GitHub has addressed a high-severity security flaw that could have been exploited to create malicious repositories and mount supply chain attacks. The RepoJacking technique, disclosed by Checkmarx, entails a bypass of a protection mechanism called popular repository namespace retirement, which aims to prevent developers from pulling unsafe repositories with

Cloud Security Made Simple in New Guidebook For Lean Teams

Cloud computing was the lifeline that kept many companies running during the pandemic. But it was a classic case of medicine that comes with serious side effects.  Having anywhere, anytime access to data and apps gives companies tremendous flexibility in a fast-changing world, plus the means to scale and customize IT at will. The cloud is an asset or upgrade in almost every way. With one glaring

Google Issues Urgent Chrome Update to Patch Actively Exploited Zero-Day Vulnerability

Google on Thursday rolled out emergency fixes to contain an actively exploited zero-day flaw in its Chrome web browser. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-3723, has been described as a type confusion flaw in the V8 JavaScript engine. Security researchers Jan Vojtěšek, Milánek, and Przemek Gmerek of Avast have been credited with reporting the flaw on October 25, 2022. "Google is aware of

Australian Health Insurer Medibank Suffers Breach Exposing 3.9 Million Customers' Data

Australian health insurance firm Medibank on Wednesday disclosed that the personal information of all of its customers had been unauthorizedly accessed following a recent ransomware attack. In an update to its ongoing investigation into the incident, the firm said the attackers had access to "significant amounts of health claims data" as well as personal data belonging to its ahm health

This 9-Course Bundle Can Take Your Cybersecurity Skills to the Next Level

If you regularly read The Hacker News, there’s a fair chance that you know something about cybersecurity. It’s possible to turn that interest into a six-figure career. But to make the leap, you need to pick up some key skills and professional certifications. Featuring nine in-depth courses, The 2022 Masters in Cyber Security Certification Bundle helps you get ready for the next step. And in a

Hackers Actively Exploiting Cisco AnyConnect and GIGABYTE Drivers Vulnerabilities

Cisco has warned of active exploitation attempts targeting a pair of two-year-old security flaws in the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client for Windows. Tracked as CVE-2020-3153 (CVSS score: 6.5) and CVE-2020-3433 (CVSS score: 7.8), the vulnerabilities could enable local authenticated attackers to perform DLL hijacking and copy arbitrary files to system directories with elevated privileges.

VMware Releases Patch for Critical RCE Flaw in Cloud Foundation Platform

VMware on Tuesday shipped security updates to address a critical security flaw in its VMware Cloud Foundation product. Tracked as CVE-2021-39144, the issue has been rated 9.8 out of 10 on the CVSS vulnerability scoring system, and relates to a remote code execution vulnerability via XStream open source library. "Due to an unauthenticated endpoint that leverages XStream for input serialization in

22-Year-Old Vulnerability Reported in Widely Used SQLite Database Library

A high-severity vulnerability has been disclosed in the SQLite database library, which was introduced as part of a code change dating all the way back to October 2000 and could enable attackers to crash or control programs. Tracked as CVE-2022-35737 (CVSS score: 7.5), the 22-year-old issue affects SQLite versions 1.0.12 through 3.39.1, and has been addressed in version 3.39.2 released on July 21

How the Software Supply Chain Security is Threatened by Hackers

Introduction In many ways, the software supply chain is similar to that of manufactured goods, which we all know has been largely impacted by a global pandemic and shortages of raw materials.  However, in the IT world, it is not shortages or pandemics that have been the main obstacles to overcome in recent years, but rather attacks aimed at using them to harm hundreds or even thousands of

Apple Releases Patch for New Actively Exploited iOS and iPadOS Zero-Day Vulnerability

Tech giant Apple on Monday rolled out updates to remediate a zero-day flaw in iOS and iPadOS that it said has been actively exploited in the wild. The weakness, given the identifier CVE-2022-42827, has been described as an out-of-bounds write issue in the Kernel, which could be abused by a rogue application to execute arbitrary code with the highest privileges. Successful exploitation of

CISA Warns of Daixin Team Hackers Targeting Health Organizations With Ransomware

U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence agencies have published a joint advisory warning of attacks perpetrated by a cybercrime gang known as the Daixin Team primarily targeting the healthcare sector in the country. "The Daixin Team is a ransomware and data extortion group that has targeted the HPH Sector with ransomware and data extortion operations since at least June 2022," the agencies said. The

Why Ransomware in Education on the Rise and What That Means for 2023

The breach of LA Unified School District (LAUSD) highlights the prevalence of password vulnerabilities, as criminal hackers continue to use breached credentials in increasingly frequent ransomware attacks on education. The Labor Day weekend breach of LAUSD brought significant districtwide disruptions to access to email, computers, and applications. It's unclear what student or employee data the