Cyber Security

Jun 20, 2023Ravie LakshmananNetwork Security / Vulnerability Taiwanese company ASUS on Monday released firmware updates to address, among other issues, nine security bugs impacting a wide range of router models. Of the nine security flaws, two are rated Critical and six are rated High in severity. One vulnerability is currently awaiting analysis. The list of

Jun 19, 2023Ravie LakshmananNetwork and Cloud Security Microsoft on Friday attributed a string of service outages aimed at Azure, Outlook, and OneDrive earlier this month to an uncategorized cluster it tracks under the name Storm-1359. “These attacks likely rely on access to multiple virtual private servers (VPS) in conjunction with rented cloud infrastructure, open proxies,

Jun 15, 2023Ravie Lakshmanan Microsoft on Wednesday took the lid off a “novel and distinct Russian threat actor,” which it said is linked to the General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and has a “relatively low success rate.” The tech giant’s Threat Intelligence team, which was previously tracking the group under its emerging moniker DEV-0586,

Jun 15, 2023Ravie Lakshmanan A suspected China-nexus threat actor dubbed UNC4841 has been linked to the exploitation of a recently patched zero-day flaw in Barracuda Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances since October 2022. “UNC4841 is an espionage actor behind this wide-ranging campaign in support of the People’s Republic of China,” Google-owned Mandiant said in a

Jun 14, 2023Ravie LakshmananCloud Security / Vulnerability Two “dangerous” security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Microsoft Azure Bastion and Azure Container Registry that could have been exploited to carry out cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. “The vulnerabilities allowed unauthorized access to the victim’s session within the compromised Azure service iframe, which can lead to severe consequences,

Jun 14, 2023Ravie LakshmananZero-Day / Network Security The Chinese state-sponsored group known as UNC3886 has been found to exploit a zero-day flaw in VMware ESXi hosts to backdoor Windows and Linux systems. The VMware Tools authentication bypass vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-20867 (CVSS score: 3.9), “enabled the execution of privileged commands across Windows, Linux, and PhotonOS

Jun 14, 2023Ravie LakshmananPatch Tuesday / Vulnerability Microsoft has rolled out fixes for its Windows operating system and other software components to remediate major security shortcomings as part of Patch Tuesday updates for June 2023. Of the 73 flaws, six are rated Critical, 63 are rated Important, two are rated Moderated, and one is rated

Jun 12, 2023Ravie LakshmananPrivacy / Tech News Apple is introducing major updates to Safari Private Browsing, offering users better protections against third-party trackers as they browse the web. “Advanced tracking and fingerprinting protections go even further to help prevent websites from using the latest techniques to track or identify a user’s device,” the iPhone maker

Jun 09, 2023Ravie LakshmananCyber Threat / Financial Security Banking and financial services organizations are the targets of a new multi-stage adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) phishing and business email compromise (BEC) attack, Microsoft has revealed. “The attack originated from a compromised trusted vendor and transitioned into a series of AiTM attacks and follow-on BEC activity spanning multiple organizations,”

Jun 07, 2023Ravie LakshmananPrivacy / Technology Microsoft has agreed to pay a penalty of $20 million to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that the company illegally collected and retained the data of children who signed up to use its Xbox video game console without their parents’ knowledge or consent. “Our proposed order makes

Jun 06, 2023Ravie Lakshmanan A Chinese-speaking phishing gang dubbed PostalFurious has been linked to a new SMS campaign that’s targeting users in the U.A.E. by masquerading as postal services and toll operators, per Group-IB. The fraudulent scheme entails sending users bogus text messages asking them to pay a vehicle trip fee to avoid additional fines.

Jun 05, 2023Ravie LakshmananZero Day / Cyber Attack Microsoft has officially linked the ongoing active exploitation of a critical flaw in the Progress Software MOVEit Transfer application to a threat actor it tracks as Lace Tempest. “Exploitation is often followed by deployment of a web shell with data exfiltration capabilities,” the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team

A survey of global cybersecurity leaders through the 2023 Certified CISO Hall of Fame Report commissioned by the EC-Council identified 4 primary areas of grave concern: cloud security, data security, security governance, and lack of cybersecurity talent. EC-Council, the global leader in cybersecurity education and training, released its Certified Chief Information Security Officer Hall of

Jun 01, 2023Ravie LakshmananCyber Threat / Malware Cybersecurity researchers have offered a closer look at the RokRAT remote access trojan that’s employed by the North Korean state-sponsored actor known as ScarCruft. “RokRAT is a sophisticated remote access trojan (RAT) that has been observed as a critical component within the attack chain, enabling the threat actors

May 31, 2023Ravie LakshmananEndpoint Security / Vulnerability Microsoft has shared details of a now-patched flaw in Apple macOS that could be abused by threat actors with root access to bypass security enforcements and perform arbitrary actions on affected devices. Specifically, the flaw – dubbed Migraine and tracked as CVE-2023-32369 – could be abused to get

May 26, 2023Ravie LakshmananData Safety / Cloud Security A new security flaw has been disclosed in the Google Cloud Platform’s (GCP) Cloud SQL service that could be potentially exploited to obtain access to confidential data. “The vulnerability could have enabled a malicious actor to escalate from a basic Cloud SQL user to a full-fledged sysadmin

May 25, 2023Ravie LakshmananCyber Threat / Espionage A stealthy China-based group managed to establish a persistent foothold into critical infrastructure organizations in the U.S. and Guam without being detected, Microsoft and the “Five Eyes” nations said on Wednesday. The tech giant’s threat intelligence team is tracking the activity, which includes post-compromise credential access and network

May 24, 2023Ravie LakshmananMobile Security / Data Safety Google has removed a screen recording app named “iRecorder – Screen Recorder” from the Play Store after it was found to sneak in information stealing capabilities nearly a year after the app was published as an innocuous app. The app (APK package name “com.tsoft.app.iscreenrecorder”), which accrued over

May 24, 2023Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / Server Security The infamous Lazarus Group actor has been targeting vulnerable versions of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) servers as an initial breach route to deploy malware on targeted systems. The findings come from the AhnLab Security Emergency response Center (ASEC), which detailed the advanced persistent threat’s (APT) continued

May 23, 2023Ravie LakshmananNational Security / Hardware China has banned U.S. chip maker Micron from selling its products to Chinese companies working on key infrastructure projects, citing national security risks. The development comes nearly two months after the country’s cybersecurity authority initiated a probe in late March 2023 to assess potential network security risks. “The