Category: Cyber Security

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a Linux variant of a relatively new ransomware strain called Helldown, suggesting that the threat actors are broadening their attack focus. “Helldown deploys Windows ransomware derived from the LockBit 3.0 code,” Sekoia said in a report shared with The Hacker News. “Given the recent development of ransomware targeting ESX, […]

U.S. telecoms giant T-Mobile has confirmed that it was also among the companies that were targeted by Chinese threat actors to gain access to valuable information. The adversaries, tracked as Salt Typhoon, breached the company as part of a “monthslong campaign” designed to harvest cellphone communications of “high-value intelligence targets.” It’s not clear what information […]

Nov 19, 2024Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Data Security Now-patched security flaws impacting Progress Kemp LoadMaster and VMware vCenter Server have come under active exploitation in the wild, it has emerged. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added CVE-2024-1212 (CVSS score: 10.0), a maximum-severity security vulnerability in Progress Kemp LoadMaster to its Known […]

Nov 18, 2024Ravie LakshmananThreat Intelligence / Ransomware Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new stealthy malware loader called BabbleLoader that has been observed in the wild delivering information stealer families such as WhiteSnake and Meduza. BabbleLoader is an “extremely evasive loader, packed with defensive mechanisms, that is designed to bypass antivirus and sandbox environments […]

According to research from GitGuardian and CyberArk, 79% of IT decision-makers reported having experienced a secrets leak, up from 75% in the previous year’s report. At the same time, the number of leaked credentials has never been higher, with over 12.7 million hardcoded credentials in public GitHub repositories alone. One of the more troubling aspects […]

Nov 18, 2024Ravie LakshmananCybersecurity / Infosec What do hijacked websites, fake job offers, and sneaky ransomware have in common? They’re proof that cybercriminals are finding smarter, sneakier ways to exploit both systems and people. This week makes one thing clear: no system, no person, no organization is truly off-limits. Attackers are getting smarter, faster, and […]

Nov 18, 2024The Hacker NewsPenetration Testing / Network Security IT leaders know the drill—regulators and cyber insurers demand regular network penetration testing to keep the bad guys out. But here’s the thing: hackers don’t wait around for compliance schedules. Most companies approach network penetration testing on a set schedule, with the most common frequency being […]

Nov 18, 2024Ravie LakshmananPrivacy / Email Security Google appears to be readying a new feature called Shielded Email that allows users to create email aliases when signing up for online services and better combat spam. The feature was first reported by Android Authority last week following a teardown of the latest version of Google Play […]

A new phishing campaign is targeting e-commerce shoppers in Europe and the United States with bogus pages that mimic legitimate brands with the goal of stealing their personal information ahead of the Black Friday shopping season. “The campaign leveraged the heightened online shopping activity in November, the peak season for Black Friday discounts. The threat […]

Nov 18, 2024Ravie LakshmananMobile Security / Spyware Legal documents released as part of an ongoing legal tussle between Meta’s WhatsApp and NSO Group have revealed that the Israeli spyware vendor used multiple exploits targeting the messaging app to deliver Pegasus, including one even after it was sued by Meta for doing so. They also show […]

Nov 18, 2024Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Website Security A critical authentication bypass vulnerability has been disclosed in the Really Simple Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) plugin for WordPress that, if successfully exploited, could grant an attacker to remotely gain full administrative access to a susceptible site. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-10924 (CVSS score: 9.8), impacts both […]

A threat actor known as BrazenBamboo has exploited an unresolved security flaw in Fortinet’s FortiClient for Windows to extract VPN credentials as part of a modular framework called DEEPDATA. Volexity, which disclosed the findings Friday, said it identified the zero-day exploitation of the credential disclosure vulnerability in July 2024, describing BrazenBamboo as the developer behind […]

Nov 16, 2024Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Network Security Palo Alto Networks has released new indicators of compromise (IoCs) a day after the network security vendor confirmed that a new zero-day vulnerability impacting its PAN-OS firewall management interface has been actively exploited in the wild. To that end, the company said it observed malicious activity originating from […]

Nov 15, 2024Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / Malware Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new remote access trojan and information stealer used by Iranian state-sponsored actors to conduct reconnaissance of compromised endpoints and execute malicious commands. Cybersecurity company Check Point has codenamed the malware WezRat, stating it has been detected in the wild since at […]

Nov 15, 2024The Hacker NewsWebinar / Cyber Security In the fast-paced digital world, trust is everything—but what happens when that trust is disrupted? Certificate revocations, though rare, can send shockwaves through your operations, impacting security, customer confidence, and business continuity. Are you prepared to act swiftly when the unexpected happens? Join DigiCert’s exclusive webinar, “When […]

Nov 15, 2024Ravie LakshmananArtificial Intelligence / Vulnerability Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed two security flaws in Google’s Vertex machine learning (ML) platform that, if successfully exploited, could allow malicious actors to escalate privileges and exfiltrate models from the cloud. “By exploiting custom job permissions, we were able to escalate our privileges and gain unauthorized access to […]

Nov 15, 2024Ravie LakshmananMalware / Credential Theft A Vietnamese-speaking threat actor has been linked to an information-stealing campaign targeting government and education entities in Europe and Asia with a new Python-based malware called PXA Stealer. The malware “targets victims’ sensitive information, including credentials for various online accounts, VPN and FTP clients, financial information, browser cookies, […]

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has begun revolutionizing Identity Access Management (IAM), reshaping how cybersecurity is approached in this crucial field. Leveraging AI in IAM is about tapping into its analytical capabilities to monitor access patterns and identify anomalies that could signal a potential security breach. The focus has expanded beyond merely managing human […]

Ilya Lichtenstein, who pleaded guilty to the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency stock exchange Bitfinex, has been sentenced to five years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Thursday. Lichtenstein was charged for his involvement in a money laundering scheme that led to the theft of nearly 120,000 bitcoins (valued at over $10.5 billion […]

Nov 15, 2024Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Database Security Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a high-severity security flaw in the PostgreSQL open-source database system that could allow unprivileged users to alter environment variables, and potentially lead to code execution or information disclosure. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-10979, carries a CVSS score of 8.8. Environment variables are user-defined values […]

Nov 15, 2024Ravie LakshmananNetwork Security / Vulnerability The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday warned that two more flaws impacting the Palo Alto Networks Expedition have come under active exploitation in the wild. To that, it has added the vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch […]

Multiple threat actors have been found taking advantage of an attack technique called Sitting Ducks to hijack legitimate domains for using them in phishing attacks and investment fraud schemes for years. The findings come from Infoblox, which said it identified nearly 800,000 vulnerable registered domains over the past three months, of which approximately 9% (70,000) […]

Nov 14, 2024Ravie LakshmananArtificial Intelligence / Cryptocurrency Google has revealed that bad actors are leveraging techniques like landing page cloaking to conduct scams by impersonating legitimate sites. “Cloaking is specifically designed to prevent moderation systems and teams from reviewing policy-violating content which enables them to deploy the scam directly to users,” Laurie Richardson, VP and […]

Ransomware isn’t just a buzzword; it’s one of the most dreaded challenges businesses face in this increasingly digitized world. Ransomware attacks are not only increasing in frequency but also in sophistication, with new ransomware groups constantly emerging. Their attack methods are evolving rapidly, becoming more dangerous and damaging than ever. Almost all respondents (99.8%) in […]

Nov 14, 2024The Hacker NewsData Privacy / Compliance Advertising on TikTok is the obvious choice for any company trying to reach a young market, and especially so if it happens to be a travel company, with 44% of American Gen Zs saying they use the platform to plan their vacations. But one online travel marketplace […]

Nov 14, 2024Ravie LakshmananCryptojacking / Threat Intelligence Threat actors have been found leveraging a new technique that abuses extended attributes for macOS files to smuggle a new malware called RustyAttr. The Singaporean cybersecurity company has attributed the novel activity with moderate confidence to the infamous North Korea-linked Lazarus Group, citing infrastructure and tactical overlaps observed […]

Nov 14, 2024Ravie LakshmananMalware / Vulnerability A newly patched security flaw impacting Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) was exploited as a zero-day by a suspected Russia-linked actor as part of cyber attacks targeting Ukraine. The vulnerability in question, CVE-2024-43451 (CVSS score: 6.5), refers to an NTLM hash disclosure spoofing vulnerability that could be exploited to […]

Nov 13, 2024Ravie LakshmananThreat Intelligence / Cyber Espionage A threat actor affiliated with Hamas has expanded its malicious cyber operations beyond espionage to carry out disruptive attacks that exclusively target Israeli entities. The activity, linked to a group called WIRTE, has also targeted the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, Check Point said […]

Romanian cybersecurity company Bitdefender has released a free decryptor to help victims recover data encrypted using the ShrinkLocker ransomware. The decryptor is the result of a comprehensive analysis of ShrinkLocker’s inner workings, allowing the researchers to discover a “specific window of opportunity for data recovery immediately after the removal of protectors from BitLocker-encrypted disks.” ShrinkLocker […]

Nov 13, 2024The Hacker NewsBrowser Security / SaaS Security The rise of SaaS and cloud-based work environments has fundamentally altered the cyber risk landscape. With more than 90% of organizational network traffic flowing through browsers and web applications, companies are facing new and serious cybersecurity threats. These include phishing attacks, data leakage, and malicious extensions. […]