Albanian Parliament and One Albania Telecom Hit by Cyber Attacks

The Assembly of the Republic of Albania and telecom company One Albania have been targeted by cyber attacks, the country’s National Authority for Electronic Certification and Cyber Security (AKCESK) revealed this week. “These infrastructures, under the legislation in force, are not currently classified as critical or important information infrastructure,” AKCESK said. One Albania, which has

The Worst Hacks of 2023

It was a year of devastating cyberattacks around the globe, from ransomware attacks on casinos to state-sponsored breaches of critical infrastructure.

Kimsuky Hackers Deploying AppleSeed, Meterpreter, and TinyNuke in Latest Attacks

Nation-state actors affiliated to North Korea have been observed using spear-phishing attacks to deliver an assortment of backdoors and tools such as AppleSeed, Meterpreter, and TinyNuke to seize control of compromised machines. South Korea-based cybersecurity company AhnLab attributed the activity to an advanced persistent threat group known as Kimsuky. “A notable point about attacks that

Google Cloud Resolves Privilege Escalation Flaw Impacting Kubernetes Service

Google Cloud has addressed a medium-severity security flaw in its platform that could be abused by an attacker who already has access to a Kubernetes cluster to escalate their privileges. "An attacker who has compromised the Fluent Bit logging container could combine that access with high privileges required by Anthos Service Mesh (on clusters that have enabled it) to

The Most Dangerous People on the Internet in 2023

From Sam Altman and Elon Musk to ransomware gangs and state-backed hackers, these are the individuals and groups that spent this year disrupting the world we know it.

Chinese Hackers Exploited New Zero-Day in Barracuda's ESG Appliances

Barracuda has revealed that Chinese threat actors exploited a new zero-day in its Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances to deploy backdoors on a "limited number" of devices. Tracked as CVE-2023-7102, the issue relates to a case of arbitrary code execution that resides within a third-party and open-source library named Spreadsheet::ParseExcel that's used by the Amavis scanner

Warning: Poorly Secured Linux SSH Servers Under Attack for Cryptocurrency Mining

Poorly secured Linux SSH servers are being targeted by bad actors to install port scanners and dictionary attack tools with the goal of targeting other vulnerable servers and co-opting them into a network to carry out cryptocurrency mining and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. "Threat actors can also choose to install only scanners and sell the breached IP and account credentials on

British LAPSUS$ Teen Members Sentenced for High-Profile Attacks

Two British teens part of the LAPSUS$ cyber crime and extortion gang have been sentenced for their roles in orchestrating a string of high-profile attacks against a number of companies. Arion Kurtaj, an 18-year-old from Oxford, has been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order due to his intent to get back to cybercrime "as soon as possible," BBC reported. Kurtaj, who is autistic, was

Operation RusticWeb: Rust-Based Malware Targets Indian Government Entities

Indian government entities and the defense sector have been targeted by a phishing campaign that's engineered to drop Rust-based malware for intelligence gathering. The activity, first detected in October 2023, has been codenamed Operation RusticWeb by enterprise security firm SEQRITE. "New Rust-based payloads and encrypted PowerShell commands have been utilized to exfiltrate

Facebook Marketplace Is Being Ruined by Zelle Scammers

I tried to sell a futon on Facebook Marketplace and nearly all I got were scammers.

UAC-0099 Using WinRAR Exploit to Target Ukrainian Firms with LONEPAGE Malware

The threat actor known as UAC-0099 has been linked to continued attacks aimed at Ukraine, some of which leverage a high-severity flaw in the WinRAR software to deliver a malware strain called LONEPAGE. "The threat actor targets Ukrainian employees working for companies outside of Ukraine," cybersecurity firm Deep Instinct said in a Thursday analysis. UAC-0099 was first

Microsoft Warns of New 'FalseFont' Backdoor Targeting the Defense Sector

Organizations in the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) sector are in the crosshairs of an Iranian threat actor as part of a campaign designed to deliver a never-before-seen backdoor called FalseFont. The findings come from Microsoft, which is tracking the activity under its weather-themed moniker Peach Sandstorm (formerly Holmium), which is also known as APT33, Elfin, and Refined Kitten. "

Chameleon Android Banking Trojan Variant Bypasses Biometric Authentication

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an updated version of an Android banking malware called Chameleon that has expanded its targeting to include users in the U.K. and Italy. "Representing a restructured and enhanced iteration of its predecessor, this evolved Chameleon variant excels in executing Device Takeover (DTO) using the accessibility service, all while expanding its targeted region,

Hackers Exploiting MS Excel Vulnerability to Spread Agent Tesla Malware

Attackers are weaponizing an old Microsoft Office vulnerability as part of phishing campaigns to distribute a strain of malware called Agent Tesla. The infection chains leverage decoy Excel documents attached in invoice-themed messages to trick potential targets into opening them and activate the exploitation of CVE-2017-11882 (CVSS score: 7.8), a memory corruption vulnerability in Office's

Alert: Chinese-Speaking Hackers Pose as UAE Authority in Latest Smishing Wave

The Chinese-speaking threat actors behind Smishing Triad have been observed masquerading as the United Arab Emirates Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship to send malicious SMS messages with the ultimate goal of gathering sensitive information from residents and foreigners in the country. "These criminals send malicious links to their victims' mobile devices through SMS or

A Major Ransomware Takedown Suffers a Strange Setback

After an 18-month rampage, global law enforcement finally moved against the notorious Alphv/BlackCat ransomware group. Within hours, the operation faced obstacles.

Hackers Abusing GitHub to Evade Detection and Control Compromised Hosts

Threat actors are increasingly making use of GitHub for malicious purposes through novel methods, including abusing secret Gists and issuing malicious commands via git commit messages. "Malware authors occasionally place their samples in services like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Discord to host second stage malware and sidestep detection tools," ReversingLabs researcher Karlo Zanki&nbsp

Iranian Hackers Using MuddyC2Go in Telecom Espionage Attacks Across Africa

The Iranian nation-state actor known as MuddyWater has leveraged a newly discovered command-and-control (C2) framework called MuddyC2Go in its attacks on the telecommunications sector in Egypt, Sudan, and Tanzania. The Symantec Threat Hunter Team, part of Broadcom, is tracking the activity under the name Seedworm, which is also tracked under the monikers Boggy Serpens, Cobalt

Rhadamanthys Malware: Swiss Army Knife of Information Stealers Emerges

The developers of the information stealer malware known as Rhadamanthys are actively iterating on its features, broadening its information-gathering capabilities and also incorporating a plugin system to make it more customizable. This approach not only transforms it into a threat capable of delivering "specific distributor needs," but also makes it more potent, Check Point said&

QakBot Malware Resurfaces with New Tactics, Targeting the Hospitality Industry

A new wave of phishing messages distributing the QakBot malware has been observed, more than three months after a law enforcement effort saw its infrastructure dismantled by infiltrating its command-and-control (C2) network. Microsoft, which made the discovery, described it as a low-volume campaign that began on December 11, 2023, and targeted the hospitality industry. "Targets

CISA Urges Manufacturers Eliminate Default Passwords to Thwart Cyber Threats

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is urging manufacturers to get rid of default passwords on internet-exposed systems altogether, citing severe risks that could be exploited by malicious actors to gain initial access to, and move laterally within, organizations. In an alert published last week, the agency called out Iranian threat actors affiliated with

MongoDB Suffers Security Breach, Exposing Customer Data

MongoDB on Saturday disclosed it's actively investigating a security incident that has led to unauthorized access to "certain" corporate systems, resulting in the exposure of customer account metadata and contact information. The American database software company said it first detected anomalous activity on December 13, 2023, and that it immediately activated its incident response

Google Just Denied Cops a Key Surveillance Tool

Plus: Apple tightens anti-theft protections, Chinese hackers penetrate US critical infrastructure, and the long-running rumor of eavesdropping phones crystallizes into more than an urban legend.

Microsoft Warns of Storm-0539: The Rising Threat Behind Holiday Gift Card Frauds

Microsoft is warning of an uptick in malicious activity from an emerging threat cluster it's tracking as Storm-0539 for orchestrating gift card fraud and theft via highly sophisticated email and SMS phishing attacks against retail entities during the holiday shopping season. The goal of the attacks is to propagate booby-trapped links that direct victims to adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM

Crypto Hardware Wallet Ledger's Supply Chain Breach Results in $600,000 Theft

Crypto hardware wallet maker Ledger published a new version of its "@ledgerhq/connect-kit" npm module after unidentified threat actors pushed malicious code that led to the theft of more than $600,000 in virtual assets. The compromise was the result of a former employee falling victim to a phishing attack, the company said in a statement. This allowed the attackers to gain

New Security Vulnerabilities Uncovered in pfSense Firewall Software - Patch Now

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been discovered in the open-source Netgate pfSense firewall solution called pfSense that could be chained by an attacker to execute arbitrary commands on susceptible appliances. The issues relate to two reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) bugs and one command injection flaw, according to new findings from Sonar. "Security inside a local network is often

McDonald’s Ice Cream Machine Hackers Say They Found the ‘Smoking Gun’ That Killed Their Startup

Kytch, the company that tried to fix McDonald’s broken ice cream machines, has unearthed a 3-year-old email it says proves claims of an alleged plot to undermine their business.

Microsoft’s Digital Crime Unit Goes Deep on How It Disrupts Cybercrime

Ten years in, Microsoft’s DCU has honed its strategy of using both unique legal tactics and the company’s technical reach to disrupt global cybercrime and state-backed actors.

116 Malware Packages Found on PyPI Repository Infecting Windows and Linux Systems

Cybersecurity researchers have identified a set of 116 malicious packages on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that are designed to infect Windows and Linux systems with a custom backdoor. "In some cases, the final payload is a variant of the infamous W4SP Stealer, or a simple clipboard monitor to steal cryptocurrency, or both," ESET researchers Marc-Etienne M.Léveillé and Rene

Russian SVR-Linked APT29 Targets JetBrains TeamCity Servers in Ongoing Attacks

Threat actors affiliated with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) have targeted unpatched JetBrains TeamCity servers in widespread attacks since September 2023. The activity has been tied to a nation-state group known as APT29, which is also tracked as BlueBravo, Cloaked Ursa, Cozy Bear, Midnight Blizzard (formerly Nobelium), and The Dukes. It's notable for the supply chain

Hacker Group Linked to Russian Military Claims Credit for Cyberattack on Kyivstar

A hacker group calling itself Solntsepek—previously linked to Russia’s notorious Sandworm hackers—says it carried out a disruptive breach of Kyivstar, a major Ukrainian mobile and internet provider.

BazaCall Phishing Scammers Now Leveraging Google Forms for Deception

The threat actors behind the BazaCall call back phishing attacks have been observed leveraging Google Forms to lend the scheme a veneer of credibility. The method is an "attempt to elevate the perceived authenticity of the initial malicious emails," cybersecurity firm Abnormal Security said in a report published today. BazaCall (aka BazarCall), which was first

Microsoft Warns of Hackers Exploiting OAuth for Cryptocurrency Mining and Phishing

Microsoft has warned that adversaries are using OAuth applications as an automation tool to deploy virtual machines (VMs) for cryptocurrency mining and launch phishing attacks. "Threat actors compromise user accounts to create, modify, and grant high privileges to OAuth applications that they can misuse to hide malicious activity," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said in an

Major Cyber Attack Paralyzes Kyivstar - Ukraine's Largest Telecom Operator

Ukraine's biggest telecom operator Kyivstar has become the victim of a "powerful hacker attack,” disrupting customer access to mobile and internet services. "The cyberattack on Ukraine's #Kyivstar telecoms operator has impacted all regions of the country with high impact to the capital, metrics show, with knock-on impacts reported to air raid alert network and banking sector as

Microsoft's Final 2023 Patch Tuesday: 33 Flaws Fixed, Including 4 Critical

Microsoft released its final set of Patch Tuesday updates for 2023, closing out 33 flaws in its software, making it one of the lightest releases in recent years. Of the 33 shortcomings, four are rated Critical and 29 are rated Important in severity. The fixes are in addition to 18 flaws Microsoft addressed in its Chromium-based Edge browser since the release of Patch

Non-Human Access is the Path of Least Resistance: A 2023 Recap

2023 has seen its fair share of cyber attacks, however there’s one attack vector that proves to be more prominent than others - non-human access. With 11 high-profile attacks in 13 months and an ever-growing ungoverned attack surface, non-human identities are the new perimeter, and 2023 is only the beginning.  Why non-human access is a cybercriminal’s paradise  People always

New MrAnon Stealer Malware Targeting German Users via Booking-Themed Scam

A phishing campaign has been observed delivering an information stealer malware called MrAnon Stealer to unsuspecting victims via seemingly benign booking-themed PDF lures. "This malware is a Python-based information stealer compressed with cx-Freeze to evade detection," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin said. "MrAnon Stealer steals its victims' credentials, system

SLAM Attack: New Spectre-based Vulnerability Impacts Intel, AMD, and Arm CPUs

Researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam have disclosed a new side-channel attack called SLAM that could be exploited to leak sensitive information from kernel memory on current and upcoming CPUs from Intel, AMD, and Arm. The attack is an end-to-end exploit for Spectre based on a new feature in Intel CPUs called Linear Address Masking (LAM) as well as its analogous

Researchers Unveil GuLoader Malware's Latest Anti-Analysis Techniques

Threat hunters have unmasked the latest tricks adopted by a malware strain called GuLoader in an effort to make analysis more challenging. "While GuLoader's core functionality hasn't changed drastically over the past few years, these constant updates in their obfuscation techniques make analyzing GuLoader a time-consuming and resource-intensive process," Elastic Security Labs

Qualcomm Releases Details on Chip Vulnerabilities Exploited in Targeted Attacks

Chipmaker Qualcomm has released more information about three high-severity security flaws that it said came under "limited, targeted exploitation" back in October 2023. The vulnerabilities are as follows - CVE-2023-33063 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Memory corruption in DSP Services during a remote call from HLOS to DSP. CVE-2023-33106 (CVSS score: 8.4) - Memory corruption in

The 23andMe Data Breach Keeps Spiraling

23andMe has provided more information about the scope and scale of its recent breach, but with these details come more unanswered questions.

A New Trick Uses AI to Jailbreak AI Models—Including GPT-4

Adversarial algorithms can systematically probe large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4 for weaknesses that can make them misbehave.

15,000 Go Module Repositories on GitHub Vulnerable to Repojacking Attack

New research has found that over 15,000 Go module repositories on GitHub are vulnerable to an attack called repojacking. "More than 9,000 repositories are vulnerable to repojacking due to GitHub username changes," Jacob Baines, chief technology officer at VulnCheck, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "More than 6,000 repositories were vulnerable to repojacking due to account

New Threat Actor 'AeroBlade' Emerges in Espionage Attack on U.S. Aerospace

A previously undocumented threat actor has been linked to a cyber attack targeting an aerospace organization in the U.S. as part of what's suspected to be a cyber espionage mission. The BlackBerry Threat Research and Intelligence team is tracking the activity cluster as AeroBlade. Its origin is currently unknown and it's not clear if the attack was successful. "The actor used spear-phishing

Microsoft Warns of Kremlin-Backed APT28 Exploiting Critical Outlook Vulnerability

Microsoft on Monday said it detected Kremlin-backed nation-state activity exploiting a now-patched critical security flaw in its Outlook email service to gain unauthorized access to victims' accounts within Exchange servers. The tech giant attributed the intrusions to a threat actor it called Forest Blizzard (formerly Strontium), which is also widely tracked under the

New BLUFFS Bluetooth Attack Expose Devices to Adversary-in-the-Middle Attacks

New research has unearthed multiple novel attacks that break Bluetooth Classic's forward secrecy and future secrecy guarantees, resulting in adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) scenarios between two already connected peers. The issues, collectively named BLUFFS, impact Bluetooth Core Specification 4.2 through 5.4. They are tracked under the identifier CVE-2023-24023 (CVSS score: 6.8)

Make a Fresh Start for 2024: Clean Out Your User Inventory to Reduce SaaS Risk

As work ebbs with the typical end-of-year slowdown, now is a good time to review user roles and privileges and remove anyone who shouldn’t have access as well as trim unnecessary permissions. In addition to saving some unnecessary license fees, a clean user inventory significantly enhances the security of your SaaS applications. From reducing risk to protecting against data leakage, here is how

New P2PInfect Botnet MIPS Variant Targeting Routers and IoT Devices

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new variant of an emerging botnet called P2PInfect that's capable of targeting routers and IoT devices. The latest version, per Cado Security Labs, is compiled for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages (MIPS) architecture, broadening its capabilities and reach. "It's highly likely that by targeting MIPS, the P2PInfect developers

ChatGPT Spit Out Sensitive Data When Told to Repeat ‘Poem’ Forever

Plus: A major ransomware crackdown, the arrest of Ukraine’s cybersecurity chief, and a hack-for-hire entrepreneur charged with attempted murder.

Agent Racoon Backdoor Targets Organizations in Middle East, Africa, and U.S.

Organizations in the Middle East, Africa, and the U.S. have been targeted by an unknown threat actor to distribute a new backdoor called Agent Racoon. "This malware family is written using the .NET framework and leverages the domain name service (DNS) protocol to create a covert channel and provide different backdoor functionalities," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researcher Chema Garcia 

Discover How Gcore Thwarted Powerful 1.1Tbps and 1.6Tbps DDoS Attacks

The most recent Gcore Radar report and its aftermath have highlighted a dramatic increase in DDoS attacks across multiple industries. At the beginning of 2023, the average strength of attacks reached 800 Gbps, but now, even a peak as high as 1.5+ Tbps is unsurprising. To try and break through Gcore’s defenses, perpetrators made two attempts with two different strategies.

Google Fixes a Seventh Zero-Day Flaw in Chrome—Update Now

Plus: Major security patches from Microsoft, Mozilla, Atlassian, Cisco, and more.

North Korea's Lazarus Group Rakes in $3 Billion from Cryptocurrency Hacks

Threat actors from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) are increasingly targeting the cryptocurrency sector as a major revenue generation mechanism since at least 2017 to get around sanctions imposed against the country. "Even though movement in and out of and within the country is heavily restricted, and its general population is isolated from the rest of the world, the

Okta Breach Impacted All Customer Support Users—Not 1 Percent

Okta upped its original estimate of customer support users affected by a recent breach from 1 percent to 100 percent, citing a “discrepancy.”

Iranian Hackers Exploit PLCs in Attack on Water Authority in U.S.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) revealed that it's responding to a cyber attack that involved the active exploitation of Unitronics programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to target the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa in western Pennsylvania. The attack has been attributed to an Iranian-backed hacktivist collective known as Cyber Av3ngers. "Cyber threat

OpenAI’s Custom Chatbots Are Leaking Their Secrets

Released earlier this month, OpenAI’s GPTs let anyone create custom chatbots. But some of the data they’re built on is easily exposed.

GoTitan Botnet Spotted Exploiting Recent Apache ActiveMQ Vulnerability

The recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting Apache ActiveMQ is being actively exploited by threat actors to distribute a new Go-based botnet called GoTitan as well as a .NET program known as PrCtrl Rat that's capable of remotely commandeering the infected hosts. The attacks involve the exploitation of a remote code execution bug (CVE-2023-46604, CVSS score: 10.0)

Key Cybercriminals Behind Notorious Ransomware Families Arrested in Ukraine

A coordinated law enforcement operation has led to the arrest of key individuals in Ukraine who are alleged to be a part of several ransomware schemes. "On 21 November, 30 properties were searched in the regions of Kyiv, Cherkasy, Rivne, and Vinnytsia, resulting in the arrest of the 32-year-old ringleader," Europol said in a statement today. "Four of the ringleader's most active

Hackers Can Exploit 'Forced Authentication' to Steal Windows NTLM Tokens

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a case of "forced authentication" that could be exploited to leak a Windows user's NT LAN Manager (NTLM) tokens by tricking a victim into opening a specially crafted Microsoft Access file. The attack takes advantage of a legitimate feature in the database management system solution that allows users to link to external data sources, such as a remote

New 'HrServ.dll' Web Shell Detected in APT Attack Targeting Afghan Government

An unspecified government entity in Afghanistan was targeted by a previously undocumented web shell called HrServ in what’s suspected to be an advanced persistent threat (APT) attack. The web shell, a dynamic-link library (DLL) named “hrserv.dll,” exhibits “sophisticated features such as custom encoding methods for client communication and in-memory execution,” Kaspersky security researcher Mert