New Study Uncovers Text-to-SQL Model Vulnerabilities Allowing Data Theft and DoS Attacks

A group of academics has demonstrated novel attacks that leverage Text-to-SQL models to produce malicious code that could enable adversaries to glean sensitive information and stage denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. "To better interact with users, a wide range of database applications employ AI techniques that can translate human questions into SQL queries (namely Text-to-SQL)," Xutan Peng, a

Why Do User Permissions Matter for SaaS Security?

Earlier this year, threat actors infiltrated Mailchimp, the popular SaaS email marketing platform. They viewed over 300 Mailchimp customer accounts and exported audience data from 102 of them. The breach was preceded by a successful phishing attempt and led to malicious attacks against Mailchimp’s customers’ end users. Three months later, Mailchimp was hit with another attack. Once again, an

Millions of Vehicles at Risk: API Vulnerabilities Uncovered in 16 Major Car Brands

Multiple bugs affecting millions of vehicles from 16 different manufacturers could be abused to unlock, start, and track cars, plus impact the privacy of car owners. The security vulnerabilities were found in the automotive APIs powering Acura, BMW, Ferrari, Ford, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jaguar, Kia, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche, Rolls Royce, Toyota as well as in

Top SaaS Cybersecurity Threats in 2023: Are You Ready?

Cybercriminals will be as busy as ever this year. Stay safe and protect your systems and data by focusing on these 4 key areas to secure your environment and ensure success in 2023, and make sure your business is only in the headlines when you WANT it to be. 1 — Web application weaknesses Web applications are at the core of what SaaS companies do and how they operate, and they can store some of

Rackspace Confirms Play Ransomware Gang Responsible for Recent Breach

Cloud services provider Rackspace on Thursday confirmed that the ransomware gang known as Play was responsible for last month's breach. The security incident, which took place on December 2, 2022, leveraged a previously unknown security exploit to gain initial access to the Rackspace Hosted Exchange email environment. "This zero-day exploit is associated with CVE-2022-41080," the Texas-based

WhatsApp Introduces Proxy Support to Help Users Bypass Internet Censorship

Popular instant messaging service WhatsApp has launched support for proxy servers in the latest version of its Android and iOS apps, letting users circumvent government-imposed censorship and internet shutdowns. "Choosing a proxy enables you to connect to WhatsApp through servers set up by volunteers and organizations around the world dedicated to helping people communicate freely," the

Mitigate the LastPass Attack Surface in Your Environment with this Free Tool

The latest breach announced by LastPass is a major cause for concern to security stakeholders. As often occurs, we are at a security limbo – on the one hand, as LastPass has noted, users who followed LastPass best practices would be exposed to practically zero to extremely low risk. However, to say that password best practices are not followed is a wild understatement. The reality is that there

Irish Regulators Fine Facebook $414 Million for Forcing Users to Accept Targeted Ads

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined Meta Platforms €390 million (roughly $414 million) over its handling of user data for serving personalized ads in what could be a major blow to its ad-fueled business model. To that end, the privacy regulator has ordered Meta Ireland to pay two fines – a €210 million ($222.5 million) fine over violations of the E.U. General Data Protection

Synology Releases Patch for Critical RCE Vulnerability Affecting VPN Plus Servers

Synology has released security updates to address a critical flaw impacting VPN Plus Server that could be exploited to take over affected systems. Tracked as CVE-2022-43931, the vulnerability carries a maximum severity rating of 10 on the CVSS scale and has been described as an out-of-bounds write bug in the remote desktop functionality in Synology VPN Plus Server. Successful exploitation of the

Enforcement vs. Enrollment-based Security: How to Balance Security and Employee Trust

Challenges with an enforcement-based approach An enforcement-based approach to security begins with a security policy backed by security controls, often heavy-handed and designed to prevent employees from engaging in risky behavior or inadvertently expanding the potential attack surface of an organization.  Most organizations exclusively use enforcement-based security controls, usually carried

Raspberry Robin Worm Evolves to Attack Financial and Insurance Sectors in Europe

Financial and insurance sectors in Europe have been targeted by the Raspberry Robin worm, as the malware continues to evolve its post-exploitation capabilities while remaining under the radar. "What is unique about the malware is that it is heavily obfuscated and highly complex to statically disassemble," Security Joes said in a new report published Monday. The intrusions, observed against

RedZei Chinese Scammers Targeting Chinese Students in the U.K.

Chinese international students in the U.K. have been targeted by persistent Chinese-speaking scammers for over a year as part of an activity dubbed RedZei (aka RedThief). "The RedZei fraudsters have chosen their targets carefully, researched them and realized it was a rich victim group that is ripe for exploitation," cybersecurity researcher Will Thomas (@BushidoToken) said in a write-up

WordPress Security Alert: New Linux Malware Exploiting Over Two Dozen CMS Flaws

WordPress sites are being targeted by a previously unknown strain of Linux malware that exploits flaws in over two dozen plugins and themes to compromise vulnerable systems. "If sites use outdated versions of such add-ons, lacking crucial fixes, the targeted web pages are injected with malicious JavaScripts," Russian security vendor Doctor Web said in a report published last week. "As a result,

Google to Pay $29.5 Million to Settle Lawsuits Over User Location Tracking

Google has agreed to pay a total of $29.5 million to settle two different lawsuits brought by Indiana and Washington, D.C., over its "deceptive" location tracking practices. The search and advertising giant is required to pay $9.5 million to D.C. and $20 million to Indiana after the states sued the company for charges that the company tracked users' locations without their express consent. The

CISA Warns of Active exploitation of JasperReports Vulnerabilities

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added two years-old security flaws impacting TIBCO Software's JasperReports product to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The flaws, tracked as CVE-2018-5430 (CVSS score: 7.7) and CVE-2018-18809 (CVSS score: 9.9), were addressed by TIBCO in April 2018 and March 2019,

Thousands of Citrix Servers Still Unpatched for Critical Vulnerabilities

Thousands of Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Gateway endpoints remain vulnerable to two critical security flaws disclosed by the company over the last few months. The issues in question are CVE-2022-27510 and CVE-2022-27518 (CVSS scores: 9.8), which were addressed by the virtualization services provider on November 8 and December 13, 2022, respectively. While CVE-2022-27510

GuLoader Malware Utilizing New Techniques to Evade Security Software

Cybersecurity researchers have exposed a wide variety of techniques adopted by an advanced malware downloader called GuLoader to evade security software. "New shellcode anti-analysis technique attempts to thwart researchers and hostile environments by scanning entire process memory for any virtual machine (VM)-related strings," CrowdStrike researchers Sarang Sonawane and Donato Onofri said in a

FrodoPIR: New Privacy-Focused Database Querying System

The developers behind the Brave open-source web browser have revealed a new privacy-preserving data querying and retrieval system called FrodoPIR. The idea, the company said, is to use the technology to build out a wide range of use cases such as safe browsing, scanning passwords against breached databases, certificate revocation checks, and streaming, among others. The scheme is called FrodoPIR

Accelerate Your Incident Response

Tis the season for security and IT teams to send out that company-wide email: “No, our CEO does NOT want you to buy gift cards.”  As much of the workforce signs off for the holidays, hackers are stepping up their game. We’ll no doubt see an increase in activity as hackers continue to unleash e-commerce scams and holiday-themed phishing attacks. Hackers love to use these tactics to trick end

France Fines Microsoft €60 Million for Using Advertising Cookies Without User Consent

France's privacy watchdog has imposed a €60 million ($63.88 million) fine against Microsoft's Ireland subsidiary for dropping advertising cookies in users' computers without their explicit consent in violation of data protection laws in the European Union. The Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL) noted that users visiting the home page of its Bing search engine did not

The Era of Cyber Threat Intelligence Sharing

We spent forty years defending ourselves as individuals. Trying to outsmart cybercriminals, outpower them, and when all our efforts failed, only then we considered banding together with our peers to outnumber them. Cybercriminals don't reinvent themselves each time. Their resources are limited, and they have a limited budget. Therefore they use playbooks to attack many people. Meaning most of

Critical Security Flaw Reported in Passwordstate Enterprise Password Manager

Multiple high-severity vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Passwordstate password management solution that could be exploited by an unauthenticated remote adversary to obtain a user's plaintext passwords. "Successful exploitation allows an unauthenticated attacker to exfiltrate passwords from an instance, overwrite all stored passwords within the database, or elevate their privileges within

Two New Security Flaws Reported in Ghost CMS Blogging Software

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed two security flaws in the JavaScript-based blogging platform known as Ghost, one of which could be abused to elevate privileges via specially crafted HTTP requests. Ghost is an open source blogging platform that's used in more than 52,600 live websites, most of them located in the U.S., the U.K., German, China, France, Canada, and India. Tracked as CVE-

Raspberry Robin Worm Strikes Again, Targeting Telecom and Government Systems

The Raspberry Robin worm has been used in attacks against telecommunications and government office systems across Latin America, Australia, and Europe since at least September 2022. "The main payload itself is packed with more than 10 layers for obfuscation and is capable of delivering a fake payload once it detects sandboxing and security analytics tools," Trend Micro researcher Christopher So 

The Rise of the Rookie Hacker - A New Trend to Reckon With

More zero knowledge attacks, more leaked credentials, more Gen-Z cyber crimes - 2022 trends and 2023 predictions. Cybercrime remains a major threat to individuals, businesses, and governments around the world. Cybercriminals continue to take advantage of the prevalence of digital devices and the internet to perpetrate their crimes. As the internet of things continues to develop, cybercriminals

A Guide to Efficient Patch Management with Action1

It's no secret that keeping software up to date is one of the key best practices in cybersecurity. Software vulnerabilities are being discovered almost weekly these days. The longer it takes IT teams to apply updates issued by developers to patch these security flaws, the more time attackers have to exploit the underlying vulnerability. Once threat actors gain access to corporate IT ecosystems,

FTC Fines Fortnite Maker Epic Games $275 Million for Violating Children's Privacy Law

Epic Games has reached a $520 million settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations that the Fortnite creator violated online privacy laws for children and tricked users into making unintended purchases in the video game. To that end, the company will pay a record $275 million monetary penalty for breaching the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by

Researchers Discover Malicious PyPI Package Posing as SentinelOne SDK to Steal Data

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new malicious package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that impersonates a software development kit (SDK) for SentinelOne, a major cybersecurity company, as part of a campaign dubbed SentinelSneak. The package, named SentinelOne and now taken down, is said to have been published between December 8 and 11, 2022, with nearly two dozen

Cybercrime (and Security) Predictions for 2023

Threat actors continue to adapt to the latest technologies, practices, and even data privacy laws—and it's up to organizations to stay one step ahead by implementing strong cybersecurity measures and programs.  Here's a look at how cybercrime will evolve in 2023 and what you can do to secure and protect your organization in the year ahead.  Increase in digital supply chain attacks  With the

Samba Issues Security Updates to Patch Multiple High-Severity Vulnerabilities

Samba has released software updates to remediate multiple vulnerabilities that, if successfully exploited, could allow an attacker to take control of affected systems. The high-severity flaws, tracked as CVE-2022-38023, CVE-2022-37966, CVE-2022-37967, and CVE-2022-45141, have been patched in versions 4.17.4, 4.16.8 and 4.15.13 released on December 15, 2022. Samba is an open source Windows

Trojanized Windows 10 Installer Used in Cyberattacks Against Ukrainian Government Entities

Government entities in Ukraine have been breached as part of a new campaign that leveraged trojanized versions of Windows 10 installer files to conduct post-exploitation activities. Mandiant, which discovered the "socially engineered supply chain" attack around mid-July 2022, said the malicious ISO files were distributed via Ukrainian- and Russian-language Torrent websites. It's tracking the

Cyber Security Is Not a Losing Game – If You Start Right Now

Reality has a way of asserting itself, irrespective of any personal or commercial choices we make, good or bad. For example, just recently, the city services of Antwerp in Belgium were the victim of a highly disruptive cyberattack.  As usual, everyone cried "foul play" and suggested that proper cybersecurity measures should have been in place. And again, as usual, it all happens a bit too late.

Researchers Uncover MirrorFace Cyber Attacks Targeting Japanese Political Entities

A Chinese-speaking advanced persistent threat (APT) actor codenamed MirrorFace has been attributed to a spear-phishing campaign targeting Japanese political establishments. The activity, dubbed Operation LiberalFace by ESET, specifically focused on members of an unnamed political party in the nation with the goal of delivering an implant called LODEINFO and a hitherto unseen credential stealer

Microsoft Reclassifies SPNEGO Extended Negotiation Security Vulnerability as 'Critical'

Microsoft has revised the severity of a security vulnerability it originally patched in September 2022, upgrading it to "Critical" after it emerged that it could be exploited to achieve remote code execution. Tracked as CVE-2022-37958 (CVSS score: 8.1), the flaw was previously described as an information disclosure vulnerability in SPNEGO Extended Negotiation (NEGOEX) Security Mechanism. SPNEGO,

CISA Alert: Veeam Backup and Replication Vulnerabilities Being Exploited in Attacks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added two vulnerabilities impacting Veeam Backup & Replication software to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation in the wild. The now-patched critical flaws, tracked as CVE-2022-26500 and CVE-2022-26501, are both rated 9.8 on the CVSS scoring system, and could be leveraged to

Android Malware Campaign Leverages Money-Lending Apps to Blackmail Victims

A previously undocumented Android malware campaign has been observed leveraging money-lending apps to blackmail victims into paying up with personal information stolen from their devices. Mobile security company Zimperium dubbed the activity MoneyMonger, pointing out the use of the cross-platform Flutter framework to develop the apps. MoneyMonger "takes advantage of Flutter's framework to

Top 5 Web App Vulnerabilities and How to Find Them

Web applications, often in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS), are now the cornerstone for businesses all over the world. SaaS solutions have revolutionized the way they operate and deliver services, and are essential tools in nearly every industry, from finance and banking to healthcare and education.  Most startup CTOs have an excellent understanding of how to build highly functional

Why PCI DSS 4.0 Should Be on Your Radar in 2023

Protecting customer data is critical for any business accepting online payment information. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), created by leading credit card companies, establishes best practices for protecting consumers' information. By adhering to these standards, businesses can ensure that their customer's personal and financial information is secure.  The PCI DSS

Hackers Actively Exploiting Citrix ADC and Gateway Zero-Day Vulnerability

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) on Tuesday said a threat actor tracked as APT5 has been actively exploiting a zero-day flaw in Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Gateway to take over affected systems. The critical remote code execution vulnerability, identified as CVE-2022-27518, could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute commands remotely on vulnerable devices and

New Actively Exploited Zero-Day Vulnerability Discovered in Apple Products

Apple on Tuesday rolled out security updates to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and Safari web browser to address a new zero-day vulnerability that could result in the execution of malicious code. Tracked as CVE-2022-42856, the issue has been described by the tech giant as a type confusion issue in the WebKit browser engine that could be triggered when processing specially crafted content, leading to

Serious Attacks Could Have Been Staged Through This Amazon ECR Public Gallery Vulnerability

A critical security flaw has been disclosed in Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) Public Gallery that could have been potentially exploited to stage a multitude of attacks, according to cloud security firm Lightspin. "By exploiting this vulnerability, a malicious actor could delete all images in the Amazon ECR Public Gallery or update the image contents to inject malicious code," Gafnit

Top 4 SaaS Security Threats for 2023

With 2022 coming to a close, there is no better time to buckle down and prepare to face the security challenges in the year to come. This past year has seen its fair share of breaches, attacks, and leaks, forcing organizations to scramble to protect their SaaS stacks. March alone saw three different breaches from Microsoft, Hubspot, and Okta.  With SaaS sprawl ever growing and becoming more

Keep Your Grinch at Bay: Here's How to Stay Safe Online this Holiday Season

As the holiday season approaches, online shopping and gift-giving are at the top of many people's to-do lists. But before you hit the "buy" button, it's important to remember that this time of year is also the peak season for cybercriminals. In fact, cybercriminals often ramp up their efforts during the holidays, taking advantage of the influx of online shoppers and the general hustle and bustle

Hack-for-Hire Group Targets Travel and Financial Entities with New Janicab Malware Variant

Travel agencies have emerged as the target of a hack-for-hire group dubbed Evilnum as part of a broader campaign aimed at legal and financial investment institutions in the Middle East and Europe. The attacks, which took place during 2020 and 2021 and likely went as far back as 2015, involved a revamped variant of a malware called Janicab that leverages a number of public services like WordPress

Researchers Detail New Attack Method to Bypass Popular Web Application Firewalls

A new attack method can be used to circumvent web application firewalls (WAFs) of various vendors and infiltrate systems, potentially enabling attackers to gain access to sensitive business and customer information. Web application firewalls are a key line of defense to help filter, monitor, and block HTTP(S) traffic to and from a web application, and safeguard against attacks such as cross-site

Using XDR to Consolidate and Optimize Cybersecurity Technology

Businesses know they need cybersecurity, but it seems like a new acronym and system is popping up every day. Professionals that aren’t actively researching these technologies can struggle to keep up. As the cybersecurity landscape becomes more complicated, organizations are desperate to simplify it. Frustrated with the inefficiencies that come with using multiple vendors for cybersecurity, often

New TrueBot Malware Variant Leveraging Netwrix Auditor Bug and Raspberry Robin Worm

Cybersecurity researchers have reported an increase in TrueBot infections, primarily targeting Mexico, Brazil, Pakistan, and the U.S. Cisco Talos said the attackers behind the operation have moved from using malicious emails to alternative delivery methods such as the exploitation of a now-patched remote code execution (RCE) flaw in Netwrix auditor as well as the Raspberry Robin worm. "

Why is Robust API Security Crucial in eCommerce?

API attacks are on the rise. One of their major targets is eCommerce firms like yours.  APIs are a vital part of how eCommerce businesses are accelerating their growth in the digital world.  ECommerce platforms use APIs at all customer touchpoints, from displaying products to handling shipping. Owing to their increased use, APIs are attractive targets for hackers, as the following numbers expose

Researchers Uncover New Drokbk Malware that Uses GitHub as a Dead Drop Resolver

The subgroup of an Iranian nation-state group known as Nemesis Kitten has been attributed as behind a previously undocumented custom malware dubbed Drokbk that uses GitHub as a dead drop resolver to exfiltrate data from an infected computer, or to receive commands. "The use of GitHub as a virtual dead drop helps the malware blend in," Secureworks principal researcher Rafe Pilling said. "All the

What Stricter Data Privacy Laws Mean for Your Cybersecurity Policies

For today's businesses data privacy is already a big headache, and with modern privacy laws expanding to more of the world's population, regulatory compliance is on track to become a more complicated, high-stakes process touching on every aspect of an organization. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2024, 75% of the Global Population will have its personal data covered under privacy regulations.

MuddyWater Hackers Target Asian and Middle East Countries with Updated Tactics

The Iran-linked MuddyWater threat actor has been observed targeting several countries in the Middle East as well as Central and West Asia as part of a new spear-phishing activity. "The campaign has been observed targeting Armenia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Tajikistan, and the United Arab Emirates," Deep Instinct researcher Simon Kenin said in a technical write-up.

COVID-bit: New COVert Channel to Exfiltrate Data from Air-Gapped Computers

An unconventional data exfiltration method leverages a previously undocumented covert channel to leak sensitive information from air-gapped systems. "The information emanates from the air-gapped computer over the air to a distance of 2 m and more and can be picked up by a nearby insider or spy with a mobile phone or laptop," Dr. Mordechai Guri, the head of R&D in the Cyber Security Research

Best Year-End Cybersecurity Deals from Uptycs, SANS Institute, and Bitdefender

Looking to up your cybersecurity game in the new year? Do not just buy electronics this vacation season, improve your cybersecurity! The end of the year is a great time to re-evaluate your cybersecurity strategy and make some important investments in protecting your personal and professional data. Cyber threats are constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated, so it's important to stay on

Iranian Hackers Strike Diamond Industry with Data-Wiping Malware in Supply-Chain Attack

An Iranian advanced persistent threat (APT) actor known as Agrius has been attributed as behind a set of data wiper attacks aimed at diamond industries in South Africa, Israel, and Hong Kong. The wiper, referred to as Fantasy by ESET, is believed to have been delivered via a supply-chain attack targeting an Israeli software suite developer as part of a campaign that began in February 2022.

Chinese Hackers Target Middle East Telecoms in Latest Cyber Attacks

A malicious campaign targeting the Middle East is likely linked to BackdoorDiplomacy, an advanced persistent threat (APT) group with ties to China. The espionage activity, directed against a telecom company in the region, is said to have commenced on August 19, 2021 through the successful exploitation of ProxyShell flaws in the Microsoft Exchange Server. Initial compromise leveraged binaries

Darknet's Largest Mobile Malware Marketplace Threatens Users Worldwide

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a darknet marketplace called InTheBox that's designed to specifically cater to mobile malware operators. The actor behind the criminal storefront, believed to be available since at least January 2020, has been offering over 400 custom web injects grouped by geography that can be purchased by other adversaries looking to mount attacks of their own. "

Understanding NIST CSF to assess your organization's Ransomware readiness

Ransomware attacks keep increasing in volume and impact largely due to organizations' weak security controls. Mid-market companies are targeted as they possess a significant amount of valuable data but lack the level of protective controls and staffing of larger organizations. According to a recent RSM survey, 62% of mid-market companies believe they are at risk of ransomware in the next 12

New BMC Supply Chain Vulnerabilities Affect Servers from Dozens of Manufacturers

Three different security flaws have been disclosed in American Megatrends (AMI) MegaRAC Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) software that could lead to remote code execution on vulnerable servers. "The impact of exploiting these vulnerabilities include remote control of compromised servers, remote deployment of malware, ransomware and firmware implants, and server physical damage (bricking),"

When Being Attractive Gets Risky - How Does Your Attack Surface Look to an Attacker?

In the era of digitization and ever-changing business needs, the production environment has become a living organism. Multiple functions and teams within an organization can ultimately impact the way an attacker sees the organization's assets, or in other words, the external attack surface. This dramatically increases the need to define an exposure management strategy. To keep up with business

SiriusXM Vulnerability Lets Hackers Remotely Unlock and Start Connected Cars

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a security vulnerability that exposes cars from Honda, Nissan, Infiniti, and Acura to remote attacks through a connected vehicle service provided by SiriusXM. The issue could be exploited to unlock, start, locate, and honk any car in an unauthorized manner just by knowing the vehicle's vehicle identification number (VIN), researcher Sam Curry said in a