Researchers Disclose Supply-Chain Flaw Affecting IBM Cloud Databases for PostgreSQL

IBM has fixed a high-severity security vulnerability affecting its Cloud Databases (ICD) for PostgreSQL product that could be potentially exploited to tamper with internal repositories and run unauthorized code. The privilege escalation flaw (CVSS score: 8.8), dubbed "Hell's Keychain" by cloud security firm Wiz, has been described as a "first-of-its-kind supply-chain attack vector impacting a

Researchers Find a Way Malicious NPM Libraries Can Evade Vulnerability Detection

New findings from cybersecurity firm JFrog show that malware targeting the npm ecosystem can evade security checks by taking advantage of an "unexpected behavior" in the npm command line interface (CLI) tool. npm CLI's install and audit commands have built-in capabilities to check a package and all of its dependencies for known vulnerabilities, effectively acting as a warning mechanism for

TikTok “Invisible Challenge” porn malware puts us all at risk

An injury to one is an injury to all. Especially if the other people are part of your social network.

Dell, HP, and Lenovo Devices Found Using Outdated OpenSSL Versions

An analysis of firmware images across devices from Dell, HP, and Lenovo has revealed the presence of outdated versions of the OpenSSL cryptographic library, underscoring a supply chain risk. EFI Development Kit, aka EDK, is an open source implementation of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), which functions as an interface between the operating system and the firmware embedded in

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 

APT29 Exploited a Windows Feature to Compromise European Diplomatic Entity Network

The Russia-linked APT29 nation-state actor has been found leveraging a "lesser-known" Windows feature called Credential Roaming following a successful phishing attack against an unnamed European diplomatic entity. "The diplomatic-centric targeting is consistent with Russian strategic priorities as well as historic APT29 targeting," Mandiant researcher Thibault Van Geluwe de Berlaere said in a

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

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

Google Launches GUAC Open Source Project to Secure Software Supply Chain

Google on Thursday announced that it's seeking contributors to a new open source initiative called Graph for Understanding Artifact Composition, also known as GUAC, as part of its ongoing efforts to beef up the software supply chain. "GUAC addresses a need created by the burgeoning efforts across the ecosystem to generate software build, security, and dependency metadata," Brandon Lum, Mihai

Scribe Platform: End-to-end Software Supply Chain Security

As software supply chain security becomes more and more crucial, security, DevSecOps, and DevOps teams are more challenged than ever to build transparent trust in the software they deliver or use. In fact, in Gartner recently published their 2022 cybersecurity predictions - not only do they anticipate the continued expansion of attack surfaces in the near future, they also list digital supply

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

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

Warning: PyPI Feature Executes Code Automatically After Python Package Download

In another finding that could expose developers to increased risk of a supply chain attack, it has emerged that nearly one-third of the packages in PyPI, the Python Package Index, trigger automatic code execution upon downloading them. "A worrying feature in pip/PyPI allows code to automatically run when developers are merely downloading a package," Checkmarx researcher Yehuda Gelb said in a

Google Launches New Open Source Bug Bounty to Tackle Supply Chain Attacks

Google on Monday introduced a new bug bounty program for its open source projects, offering payouts anywhere from $100 to $31,337 (a reference to eleet or leet) to secure the ecosystem from supply chain attacks. Called the Open Source Software Vulnerability Rewards Program (OSS VRP), the offering is one of the first open source-specific vulnerability programs. With the tech giant the maintainer

GitHub Dependabot Now Alerts Developers On Vulnerable GitHub Actions

Cloud-based code hosting platform GitHub has announced that it will now start sending Dependabot alerts for vulnerable GitHub Actions to help developers fix security issues in CI/CD workflows. "When a security vulnerability is reported in an action, our team of security researchers will create an advisory to document the vulnerability, which will trigger an alert to impacted repositories,"

GitHub blighted by “researcher” who created thousands of malicious projects

If you spew projects laced with hidden malware into an open source repository, don't waste your time telling us "no harm done" afterwards.

PyPI Repository Makes 2FA Security Mandatory for Critical Python Projects

The maintainers of the official third-party software repository for Python have begun imposing a new two-factor authentication (2FA) condition for projects deemed "critical." "We've begun rolling out a 2FA requirement: soon, maintainers of critical projects must have 2FA enabled to publish, update, or modify them," Python Package Index (PyPI) said in a tweet last week. "Any maintainer of a

Over 1,200 NPM Packages Found Involved in "CuteBoi" Cryptomining Campaign

Researchers have disclosed what they say could be an attempt to kick-off a new large-scale cryptocurrency mining campaign targeting the NPM JavaScript package repository. The malicious activity, attributed to a software supply chain threat actor dubbed CuteBoi, involves an array of 1,283 rogue modules that were published in an automated fashion from over 1,000 different user accounts. "This was

Researchers Uncover Malicious NPM Packages Stealing Data from Apps and Web Forms

A widespread software supply chain attack has targeted the NPM package manager at least since December 2021 with rogue modules designed to steal data entered in forms by users on websites that include them. The coordinated attack, dubbed IconBurst by ReversingLabs, involves no fewer than two dozen NPM packages that include obfuscated JavaScript, which comes with malicious code to harvest

Multiple Backdoored Python Libraries Caught Stealing AWS Secrets and Keys

Researchers have discovered a number of malicious Python packages in the official third-party software repository that are engineered to exfiltrate AWS credentials and environment variables to a publicly exposed endpoint. The list of packages includes loglib-modules, pyg-modules, pygrata, pygrata-utils, and hkg-sol-utils, according to Sonatype security researcher Ax Sharma. The packages and as

How Secrets Lurking in Source Code Lead to Major Breaches

If one word could sum up the 2021 infosecurity year (well, actually three), it would be these: "supply chain attack".  A software supply chain attack happens when hackers manipulate the code in third-party software components to compromise the 'downstream' applications that use them. In 2021, we have seen a dramatic rise in such attacks: high profile security incidents like the SolarWinds,

Poisoned Python and PHP packages purloin passwords for AWS access

More supply chain trouble - this time with clear examples so you can learn how to spot this stuff yourself.

Popular PyPI Package 'ctx' and PHP Library 'phpass' Hijacked to Steal AWS Keys

Two trojanized Python and PHP packages have been uncovered in what's yet another instance of a software supply chain attack targeting the open source ecosystem. One of the packages in question is "ctx," a Python module available in the PyPi repository. The other involves "phpass," a PHP package that's been forked on GitHub to distribute a rogue update. "In both cases the attacker appears to have

Researchers Uncover Rust Supply Chain Attack Targeting Cloud CI Pipelines

A case of software supply chain attack has been observed in the Rust programming language's crate registry that leveraged typosquatting techniques to publish a rogue library containing malware. Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne dubbed the attack "CrateDepression." Typosquatting attacks take place when an adversary mimics the name of a popular package on a public registry in hopes that developers

Malicious NPM Packages Target German Companies in Supply Chain Attack

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a number of malicious packages in the NPM registry specifically targeting a number of prominent media, logistics, and industrial firms based in Germany to carry out supply chain attacks. "Compared with most malware found in the NPM repository, this payload seems particularly dangerous: a highly-sophisticated, obfuscated piece of malware that acts as a

GitHub issues final report on supply-chain source code intrusions

Learn how to find out which apps you've given access rights to, and how to revoke those rights immediately in an emergency.

S3 Ep65: Supply chain conniption, NetUSB hole, Honda flashback, FTC muscle [Podcast + Transcript]

Latest episode -listen to it or read it now!

JavaScript developer destroys own projects in supply chain “lesson”

Two popular open source JavaScript packages recently got "hacked" in a symbolic gesture by the original project creator.

Listen up 2 – CYBERSECURITY FIRST! How to protect yourself from supply chain attacks

Everyone remembers this year's big-news supply chain attacks on Kaseya and SolarWinds. Sophos expert Chester Wisniewski explains how to control the risk.